|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Hello Bob and welcome to,in my opinionated opinion, the best board on the www. This is for you and all the lurkers out there waiting to pounce on yet another of my apocryphal stories (myths?).
I got this from a diplomat's daughter. Granted, it was over a couple of glasses of wine, but she swore it was true and had happened to a gal she knew. I've never found it on urbanmyths.com Here goes: A young woman was taken on a whirlwind trip by her American diplomat father who was busy, busy, busy with diplomat stuff. She was along as his dogsbody and to do stuff he could not ask his busy aides to do. Personal things. She spoke very little French and no other languages but her own. Shopping for Dad became a challenge. After a bit she solved her problem by uttering this line whenever she entered a shop as they whirlwound their way around Europe. "Does anyone here speak English?" It worked like a charm and she managed very well thanks to the bilingualism of the Europeans. One morning, after an all night flight, Dad sent her out at an ungodly early hour to pick up yet another needful thing. She ran into nearest open shop and uttered her so-far-successful phrase to two startled ladies. One lady smiled sweetly and said "We all do my dear, we're British." She was in London!
OK, I am braced. Have at me! wow
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
Bobyoungbalt's û problem has prompted me to re post the url to my grab-bag of windows utilities. http://www.driveway.com/share?sid=9f78513f.96073&name=useful+stuffThere is a relatively small app. there called mapofcharacters - a freeware replacement for the charmap that can be found on most Win9x CDs. It is a very handy utility, made with typical Teutonic efficiency (the very occasional error messages are all in German), and its main advantage over the standard M$ product is that it opens in a window big enough to let you see the characters clearly. For those Windows users who use only a few accented characters, here are some of the more common - hold down the Alt key while pressing the numbers on the numeric keypad. Alt+0161 ¡ Alt+0191 ¿ Alt+0224 à Alt+0225 á Alt+0228 ä Alt+0231 ç Alt+0232 è Alt+0233 é Alt+0241 ñ Alt+0246 ö Alt+0251 û Alt+0252 ü What is unfortunate about this, apart from its being Windows specific, is that I can't find the diacritical marks I need to spell words in Maori properly. Modern Maori is written with diacritical lines drawn over long vowels, with the alternative being to double the vowel if the special characters are unavailable. Hence, I should type "Maaori" - but it looks so ugly that I can't bring myself to do it.  Just my 2¢
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347 |
Neat, Max. Thanks. I must admit that I've been cutting and pasting from MS/Word (or other people's posts!) or just leaving the diacritical marks out through laziness.
Although I've seen the Alt-xxxx key sequences before (was it courtesy of tsuwm?), I thought they were useless on my (company) laptop, but your post made me perservere and discover the use of the Fn key and the matching faint purple numerals on the mjkluio789 keys which are the equivalent for 0-9 on the (missing) numeric keypad.
You learn something every day, unless the link to AWAD in down.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Dear Max, You are very considerate. I know there are folk out there who will find it a great help. The diacritical marks also apply to Hawaiian. The only solution we found was to use the apostrophe for a glottal stop as in Liliu'okalani, Kapi'olani, etc ... we couldn't get the stroke over o or a when needed. I see by Ka Wai Ola, the Native Hawaiian newspaper they still have the problem except for the page where Hawaiian is used exclusively. I suspicion they are doing the marks by hand. Sigh. As for me, I am still muddle-head over some of the mark ups!  wow (Ann)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
. I see by Ka Wai Ola, the Native Hawaiian newspaper they still have the problem except for the page where Hawaiian is used exclusively. I suspicion they are doing the marks by hand. I knew there were Maori fonts available and did a Google search to find them. I also loked forHawaiian fonts, and found this, among several others: http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/textonly/resources/winfonts.html
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Ah, MaxQ...you are a veritable font of information 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
This explanation may also be a load of codswallop...
>FishOnABike, you gonna take this sitting down?Well, Auntie, sitting down doesn't mean motionless if you're on a bike  ... Merriam-Webster it say: Main Entry: cods·wal·lop
Pronunciation: 'kodz-"wä-l&p, 'kädz-
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1963
British : NONSENSEInteresting, but not very informative. Nice as it would be to relate the first use of the term to around my time of birth, I suspect it may have some relation to the old "God" = "cod" (Shakespearian) thing. Although wasn't there a verb to cod meaning to wind up, take for a ride or whatever? That would be apt. Calling The Supreme Universal Word Master!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
In reply to:
codswollop
Does this by chance have to do with codpiece?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
codswallop
Does this by chance have to do with codpiece?Well, Bob, it might do, depending on the value ascribed to its contents! Main Entry: cod·piece
Pronunciation: 'käd-"pEs
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English codpese, from cod bag, scrotum (from Old English codd) pese piece
Date: 15th century
: a flap or bag concealing an opening in the front of men's breeches especially in the 15th and 16th centuriesFor Brits, "that's a load of codswallop" would more commonly (and vulgarly) be put as "that's a load of b*llocks". So you may have hit the nail on the head just noticed tsuwm's quinion reference. Yeah, I think it is folk etymology, and the nail's still hit on the head just above ("wallop" doesn't just mean booze!)
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,810
Members9,187
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
458
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
