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#1750 05/31/00 01:13 PM
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Oh my gosh, I can't believe this place! You-all, we've
done it again! One little comment has led immediately to a
cmpletely different path! This is great!
David, unless my entire region of the country is wrong,
gurunet (isn't that a neat service??) is wrong. Gumbo
is actually the stew that can have okra in it. Perhaps
Anna can add further details; she lives closer to Cajun
country than I do.
And Shanks, I agree completely! Okra is absolutely nasty!


#1751 05/31/00 02:03 PM
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jmh Offline OP
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I love okra (someone has to speak in its favour)

My dictionary says that gumbo (West Arfican origin) is not only the name of the soup tickened with okra but also another name for okra itself - (perhaps in West Africa?)


#1752 05/31/00 07:55 PM
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I stand contemned.


#1753 06/01/00 02:12 AM
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Jackie,

>Perhaps Anna can add further details; she lives closer to Cajun country than I do.

Well, I started a new one on this. Though I must say, geographical proximity doesn't appear to have much to do with knowledge of a dialect :-) ... anyway, I posted what I found, and I am asking Santa Claus or tsuwm (one and the same?) for a new, better, and faster computer-cum-internet connection this year. And yes, I agree, okra is yucky, unless it's buried in gumbo.


#1754 06/02/00 12:14 PM
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jmh Offline OP
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I've only recently discovered this one.

My friend mailed me to tell me that she had bought a house, at last, in Ohio. She said she was particularly pleased because now she had a "yard".

I congratulated her because one does. I was surprised that she was so keen to have a small concrete area at the back of her house but there's no accounting for taste and I don't like to put people down (only in newsgroups).

Some weeks later she mailed me to tell me about her lawn. I thought she must have given up on the house with a yard and bought one with a garden instead - it was only then that we compared notes and realised that the words are used so differently.


#1755 06/02/00 01:02 PM
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Jo--
I surprised my friend Barbara by using the same term!
She, too, tried to be delicate in responding, undoubtedly
thinking I was strange indeed. We do have such terms as
"the stable yard" here. I have no idea how they came to
be called yards so commonly here; guess it's just that
language progression 'thang'(as Anna says). I have heard
people say "out on the lawn", too, but much less than
"out in the yard".
That reminds me of another difference that had been really
getting on my nerves: when people in the U.S. began to say
that they were waiting ON line, when to me they should still be saying IN line, at the bank or wherever! I believe
on line is what you-all say? To me it just sounded like
people here were being pretentious. I am hoping that with
the widening use of being "on-line" to the internet, that
my sensibilities will no longer be offended by "wanna-be's"
using it here.


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Jackie,

Far as I know, waiting "on line" is a New York thang... maybe you can credit its widening usage to the likes of 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends.'

In the UK, they just queue up


#1757 06/02/00 03:48 PM
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>I stand conemned.

condemned?
contemned??

or is this a new one ISLU? 8-)


#1758 06/02/00 03:56 PM
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>and I am asking Santa Claus or tsuwm (one and the same?) for a new, better, and faster computer-cum-internet connection

I'm keeping a list... and checking it thrice.


#1759 06/02/00 05:26 PM
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jmh Offline OP
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Not a prob here - we call it a queue.

I found "in line" rather strange, also "on sale" - I never knew what it meant - aren't goods always on sale - otherwise why are they in the shop?


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