As a sort of parting gift from our time here in Texas, a chum gave me a CD of music recorded by Stan Getz entitled "The Very Best of Stan Getz." One is accustomed to compilation albums on which the producer's idea of the performer's "best" music dictates selection. One assumes that "very best" suggests that this particular compilation is better than those other compilations which are only "best" ... or some such.
Looking over the contents of "The Very Best of Stan Getz" I see that my very favorite Stan Getz numbers aren't on there. If you like your CD then I recommend
Getz Au Go Go, which includes the wonderful "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars."
The Essential Stan Getz is also very nice.
Sorry to stray off-topic; couldn't resist.
Gee, Alex, are they your favorites or your very favorites?
Well as a matter of fact, "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" may be my very favoritest song evar -- at least the version recorded by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto. It's so simple and direct, and so perfectly set to the music. I'm always amazed when I remember that it was originally written in Portuguese and the English lyrics are but a translation. Astrud Gilberto sings each verse first in English and then in Portuguese.
Quiet nights of quiet stars
Quiet chords from my guitar
Floating on the silence that surrounds us
Quiet nights and quiet dreams
Quiet walks by quiet streams
And a window that looks out on Corcovado, oh how lovely
This is where I want to be
Here with you so close to me
Until the final flicker of life's ember
I who was lost and lonely,
Believing life was a only a bitter tragic joke,
have found with you
the meaning of existence oh, my love
I am not familiar with this piece. Tell me, Alex. Is the rhythm of the Portuguese very much more convoluted than the English? I ask because I have noticed that in the Portuguese and English versions of Girl from Ipanema.
I can not help myself...I love this line
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Well as a matter of fact, "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" may be my very favoritest song evar
Especially the " favoritest song evar " part.
May haps I need to learn how to, every now and then, deliberately allow myself to use off the wall randomly misspelled words that make complete sense.
Thank you for the post, not that my opinion really counts, but thank you for showing me that I do not have to be correct all of the time in my spelling or even in my structure.
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… I do not have to be correct all of the time in my spelling or even in my structure.
Usns likes messin wit da langwidge from time to time.
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... I do not have to be correct all of the time in my spelling or even in my structure.
Yeahbut® it adds credence to the word play if you know the rules, before you play with the words. Like the difference between who and whom, which you haven't yet grasped. You and I have talked about this before, Alimae. 
Who and whom are like a pair of twins that don't necessarily look exactly alike, so it isn't a matter of telling them apart so much as it is remembering which name goes with which.
In reply to the question re: the Portuguese, I don't know the language so it's hard for me to say, although I think it sounds wonderful.
Listen to
sample courtesy of Amazon.com. (A few seconds of silence at beginning of track.)
Yeah musick, that's really informative link there... Can I expect to receive a cease and desist letter soon?
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Who and whom are like a pair of twins that don't necessarily look exactly alike, so it isn't a matter of telling them apart so much as it is remembering which name goes with which.
Before you criticize someone for not distinguishing properly between who and whom try this little experiment. Use who in the nominative as you normally do but reserve whom for the dative, using whon in the accusative. (Not meant to be chiding you, Alex)
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In reply to the question re: the Portuguese, I don't know the language so it's hard for me to say, although I think it sounds wonderful.
You don't have to understand the Portuguese. I'm just asking about the rhythm. Comparing the English and Portuguese of Girl from Ipanema, the English sounds like a march next to the Portuguese. A limping march, maybe, but still a march. Unfortunately our memory-deprived computer can't handle the players needed to listen to the sample. Maybe I can sneak in some time at work tomorrow.
it adds credence to the word play if you know the rules, before you play with the words.
I just LOVE it when Anna gets all prescriptivist like that. I have goose bumps from the top of my pointy head down all the way to my hairy toes.
the rule i live by is:
It's always easier to get forgiven than permission.
go ahead, and try for word play.
your attempt might fly or it might be a dud, (that you'll try to explain --and your explaination will sound lame.)
when this happens (lame excuses for a word play no one got, you will join an illustrious group --(every one who post's here has been a member of the group --at one time or another.)
Faldage you can listen to the sample that I linked to and decide for yourself if you like.
Fortunately our memory-challenged computer is obviated by the fact that we have it on a CD.
For the love of God will someone please show Faldage how to operate his CD player?
It's not my abject inability to operate my CD player; it's the problem of finding a CD that's in a jacket that doesn't fit nicely in the CD rack.
Jacket--jacket? Son, you be showin' your age!
Wull … Ya see, it ain' a a jewel case. If it were a jewel case I'da called it a jewel case but it woulda fit in the CD rack jus fine so I wouldn' even be talking about it.
Size and shape. Right. Like the thingie that the first season of Northern Exposure comes in which looks sorta like a parka with a zipper instead of a jewel case. What were they thinkin'?
I miss LPs in general and album covers especially. Their size was big enough to fill with some interesting art. The recording and its cover were part of a package of creative output. Can one truly get as much from "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" if they have that wonderfully busy album cover shrunk down to a CD, or even worse a cassette?
I used to sit in front of the record player and hold the album jackets and pore over them while the music played. I especially loved fold-out album covers such as "Let It Be" and "The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl" (which is out of print I'm sorry to say). From a handful of still photographs or illustrations (such as the cartoons on the Beach Boys' "Spirit of America") my imagination got much fuel.
One the most clever LP covers I ever saw was that of the Monty Python recording "
Another Monty Python Record," which looked like a Beethoven LP over which the Monty Python info had been
childishly scribbled with a crayon. The effect was so realistic that I assumed they had truly copied an actual Beethoven record cover, down to the small print liner notes on the back. I didn't bother to read the liner notes on the back for years because they appeared to be a scholarly article on Beethoven -- what could be more boring?
One day I did happen to sit down to read the back of the record. I can't do it any justice but suffice to say it was very funny and clever, starting out like a serious essay on Beethoven and very gradually becoming more and more ridiculous as it kept inserting remarks about Beethoven's tennis career and his behavior on the court (which, apparently, was akin to John McEnroe's, naturally).
Anna,
Not to go off on a tangent, which I am sure this will turn out to be, but I have not used who or whom in a sentence recently that I recall, and saying that my use of
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"who and whom, which you haven't yet grasped."
is in my opinion cruel.
I did not realize that in Q and A, there were specific rules about how you can play with the words. I was just being funny, I thought, but I stand completely corrected and will stay out of this part of the forum.
And yes we talked about it last year if I recall or was it the year before. Either way, I do not recall having used either one recently, and feel that by your posting your reply to my attempt at joviality, I have been made to look the baboon with no real reason. For who and whom where not a part of the my post.
So to you and
"who/whom" ever it concerns, you can rest assured I will not cause any further faux pas with in this section of AWAD-Talk in the future.
You don't look like a baboon . . . Trust me.
My apologies for causing offense. We all have our language pet peeves and the misuse of
whom is one of mine.You didn't misuse it in this particular thread, that's true. Please excuse this sometime-prescriptivist pre-curmudgeon.
Anna describes herself as a "sometime-prescriptivist pre-curmudgeon." This means that, when she gets throught the change of life, she will be me!
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… she will be me!
Eewww. I din't sign on for *that.
[holding hand up meekly] I recently used "whom" in a post and I freely admit that I do not know if I used it according to the roolz...
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… she will be me!
Eewww. I din't sign on for *that.
Nor did the lovely Anna, I'll wager. 
I din't sign on for *that.
For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health ...
But what about for sex change?
Edit: P.S.--what about, say, a husband who undergoes sex-change surgery? No divorce or annulment. Afterwards, are they legally still "man and wife", or husband and wife?
I actually know a couple like that, Jackie. He (the former he) was a lawyer where I used to work. He came back from an extended convalescence after surgery of a theretofore unrevealed type) and announced that he was no long John, he was Mary. (not real names.) Interestingly, he went to Canada to have the surgery done and it cost a small fortune.
(S)he was married to a woman from the Netherlands and had two kids in college. So far as I know they are still married. WAY too weird for me.
They're still married??? Wow, that surprises me.
I'm not sure how healthy that is for the wife, unless she was a closet lesbian and this only worked in her favour.
I saw a documentary on this type of sex-change operation and the spouses all seemed to be rather traumatized by the whole thing. Some came to accept it, but others not at all.
If I remember correctly from reading "Conundrum", Jan Morris was married at the time of her op. I have a vague idea she and her wife from when she was a man (John? Morris) got divorced but it was all done fairly amicably and they remained good friends.
Sorry AnnaS...
...una vez más;
Corcovado
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Sorry AnnaS...
...una vez más;
You'd better be sorry, musick. That's Spanish. 
Fr Steve, I'd like to nominate this as the thread with the most digressions in recent memory (which for me is about 5 minutes).
We have several recordings of Corcovado; Faldage just doesn't know it. To drop a name, I worked with Jobim for a few years in Rio in the 80s editing a series of bilingual song books. I think they're out of print now, as, sadly, so is he.
M'Lady Anna,
First of all I would like to say, I am back in this part of our wonderful forum due to another member whom let me know what was going on in here.
I would like to say that I can understand a tendency to gravitate toward that which our elders have done before us, especially in the aspect of becoming set in our own ways and ideals. And I accept your apology in that aspect. The part that I find myself having difficulty accepting and understanding is the reasoning behind your, as I see it, ambuscade.
May haps this is where my pet peeves lie, for it bothers me when people can not leave things in the past. But as you have pointed out, and I believe is part of my problem as well, we can both be sometime-prescriptivist pre-curmudgeon in out lives. And yes, I know that was poor use of the english language, but alas I confess to having a distinct lack of energy at the moment due to a lack of sleep.
I acquiesce to you M'Lady and truly appreciate your apology. All that is left to say is, Pax?
Edit: Fixed the HTML code.
Fr Steve, I'd like to nominate this as the thread with the most digressions in recent memory (which for me is about 5 minutes).
One of the (many) things I have never quite grasped about this board and its customs is the criticism leveled at those who take a thread off on a tangent.
Some folks apologize when they do so. Some folks kvetch at those who do so.
In what sense is this a bit different from what happens in conversation all the time? I want to talk about the ball game. You want to talk about what you had for supper last night. We end up talking about the weather.
Same deal here, eh?
a bit different from what happens in conversation all the time
Cuz, online, there's a delusion that the person at your keyboard is in control. I've never been on a forum / email list where threads didn't go off topic, ever.
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Forums seek their topic.
Yeah, thanks, Bishop Berkeley!
Fr Steve, I want to make it clear that I'm not kvetching; I think it's quite normal that threads should digress! Just sayin' that this one takes the cake -- maybe because there were so many parts of it I was interested in and had commments for that I became easily confused.
Unraveling:
Is that when you listen to oreloB?
Actually, I was just thinking about that pair of words the other night and wondering if there were similar words which had the appearance of being opposite one another but were actually synonyms, or if ravel/unravel is unique.
I know, I know. It's probably a YART, but there's also new people who may not have been privy to any such conversation.
Lastly, is there a term for such pairs of words?
But I digress.
1.
synonyms for future reference: swerve, depart, deviate, digress, diverge, stray, veer - These verbs mean to turn away from a straight or prescribed course: a gaze that never swerved; won't depart from family traditions; deviated from the original plan;
digressed from the main topic; opinions that diverged; strays from the truth; a conversation that veered away from sensitive issues. [AHD]
2. pairwise(!?) words
ravel : unravel
flammable : inflammable
regardless : irregardless
loosen : unloosen
generally, affixing in- or un- or dis- in the
completely sense makes them stronger than the original; e.g., annul and disannul.
If you say that something is not an option it means you can't take it, If you say it's not optional it means you must.
Shame on you Faldage, you play.
The isolated term "not-optional" has no negative relationship to the sentence construction..."that is not an option".
Mind your semantics. We have people here who think you are the Queen (so to speak) of the King's English).
..but one does run out of room in the subject box. and besides, who amongst us doesn't irregularly read the subject?!
BTW, I should have noted that the *original sense of unravel was disentangle.
Actually, I would say loosen, flammable, and regardless, but for some unknown reason I would use unravel and not ravel. Even though the bard used ravel IIRC. I can't hink of a situation where I would use unloosen, inflamabble, or (especially) irregardless, the latter being a word that always stimulates my gag reflex.
Dear Anna ~
Didn't think you were kvetching. We have kvetchers. You are not a kvetcher.
The Old Padre