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old hand
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old hand
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>zzxjoanw which Mrs. B. defines as "a maori drum". I've come to learn (correct me if *this is wrong, max) that zzxjoanw is a "ghost word"; i.e., there ain't no such word.
No, you are not wrong - Maaori has no "z", no "j", and no "x", and every Maaori word, without exception, ends in a vowel.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Maaori has no "z", no "j", and no "x", and every Maaori word, without exception, ends in a vowel.
But, you can bet the Government's last dollar, and they do, there will be a claim in before the Waitangi Tribunal by next week, claiming that the Europeans who transcribed Maori sounds into the Roman alphabet thereby short-changed the tangata whenua. Although, of course, it's not a problem that a few more million taxpayer dollars pissed up against the Tiriti o Waitangi wall won't cure ...
[/rant]
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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But, if I remember correctly, and it's a couple of years since I read Earth, it doesn't state that it's a Maori drum.
Brin has Allan Dean Foster's problem. You flip in, have a quick look around and then flap out again, confident that you have picked up an entire culture to the point where you can write about it convincingly. And, bar 4 million-odd people to the contrary, you probably can.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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>it doesn't state that it's a Maori drum.
maybe so; I'm just thinking that he prolly got the idea from a source such as that which we discuss.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
(consider Mrs. B's own "hit with a fish" [ycliu])
Well, it wasn't Mrs. B's own; it was the website editor's error. She was clear as a sock between the eyes that it was a fist. And you, tsuwmie-batumbi, know for a fact that it wasn't Mrs. B's.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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and you, Windbabe, have used the cloaking device on point #1, and I quote with emPHAsis: 1. it's hard to find any source without some errors--at least some typos--always remembering they may not be the fault of the lexicographer. (consider Mrs. B's own "hit with a fish" [ycliu])
now... you wanna 'splain away the Maori drum?
edit zzxjoanw pronounced /ziks-jo'-&n/, with &=schwa zzx = ziks jo = jo anw = &n which leads us, I guess, to a silent w (or maybe an extraneous w)--in any event, not even a vowel sound at the end.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, Mr. tsuwmie, I was only making sure that people here not familiar with all that fish v. fist-in-the-face nonsense wouldn't blame the innocent Mrs. B. with the mistake.
As far as that drum goes, let me say that with Mrs. B's rarefied musical background, it wouldn't surprise me to learn at Saint Peter's gate that she had been correct. She traveled in privileged circles and may have come across some firsthand knowledge less privileged beings such as I have no access to. I'm just saying she may have. Is that schwa on the final syllable? That would certainly allow for the 'w' functioning as a vowel. But I am out of my depth here. Wish Mrs. B. were still around to explain herself, and I certainly wish she had left a plethora of footnotes.
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old hand
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old hand
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let me say that with Mrs. B's rarefied musical background, it wouldn't surprise me to learn at Saint Peter's gate that she had been correct. She traveled in privileged circles and may have come across some firsthand knowledge less privileged beings such as I have no access to. I'm just saying she may have.
And I have to say, with the deepest possible respect, that you must have been smokin' something if you think there is a whelk's chance in a supernova that your beloved Mrs B. is anywhere near right in calling that "zz" monstrosity Maaori. There's right, nearly right, totally wrong, waaay wrong, and then there's this.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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This site: http://plex.us/archives/word.htmlhas an interesting comment on zzxjoanw as well as making the claim that the Maori not only don't have "z", "j" nor "x" but didn't have drums, either. Scroll down to Not So Famous Last Words near the bottom.
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