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#5334 08/24/00 04:54 PM
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>>-- it is believed that God is righthanded.

Right now, I'm left to note that this is enough to give everyone pause.


#5335 08/24/00 05:03 PM
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of course god is right handed. he also has a grey beard, drives a foreign car, smokes a danneman cigar...
and he lives in the sky, which is why priests in tv shows always look up when they need help.


#5336 07/28/01 02:14 AM
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I knew I'd find this thread eventually.

- ‘stewardesses’ is the longest word typed solely by the left hand

The following is from Word Flex for July 25th, 2001. I wish whoever writes this would say who they are, and cite their sources. The etymologies are always quite good reading.

AFTERCATARACTS (plural for a condition that sometimes follows cataract surgery) and TESSERADECADES are the longest words which can be typed using only the fingers of the left hand. The first word appears in a Merriam-Webster medical dictionary; the second is in Webster's 2. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are SWEATERDRESSES, STEWARDESSES, DESEGREGATED, DESEGREGATES, REVERBERATES, WATERCRESSES, AFTEREFFECTS, DECEREBRATED, EXTRAVASATE, GAZETTEER, REASSEVERATE, TERRACEWARDS, DEVERTEBRATED, AFTERWARDS, and REVERBERATED.

and

JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (a fast-growing flower or a brand name for a type of toy) is the longest word found in abridged dictionaries that can be typed using only the fingers of the right hand. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are LOLLIPOP, POLYPHONY, PHYLLOPHYLLIN, MIMINYPIMINY, HOMOPHONY, HOMOPHYLY, NONILLION, POLONIUM, POLLINIUM, POLYONOMY, HYPOPHYLLIUM, HYPOLIMNION, HYPOPHYLL, LUPULINUM, MINIKINLY, MONOPHONY, NIPPONIUM, and KINNIKINNIK.




#5337 07/28/01 11:00 AM
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Thanks for resurrecting this, Jackie. Your post is great. And I suggest everyone re-read (or read for the first time, if you are a post-August 2000 AWADer) the entire thread. This is a very important issue for a handful of us.


#5338 07/28/01 03:23 PM
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#5339 07/28/01 04:00 PM
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tsuwm, I'm wondering if the movie in your first link,
Left Handed Gun, The, might have had its screenplay done by the author of the book in your second link, The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
.

Anna, I enjoyed rereading these posts, too.



#5340 07/28/01 05:17 PM
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For a lot more information about Nancy Mitford and history of U vs. non-U, and a URL that may well be of interest

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Re: 'U' and 'non-U'




To: 93cloughs@khv8.sch.coventry.uk, ask-ling@linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: 'U' and 'non-U'
From: Geoffrey Sampson <geoffs@cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:40:47 +0100
Delivered-To: ask-ling@linguistlist.org




You have already said what they mean, in your query. The terms originated
in exchanges between the novelist Nancy Mitford (_Love in a Cold Climate_,
etc.) and the linguist Alan Ross -- I am not sure which of the two actually
invented them. They were intended in a fairly lighthearted way to pick
out vocabulary which differentiated people at different points on the
English class ladder at the time (the 1950s, I think). Then, more than
now, there were words whose use stamped the speaker as lower-middle-class
or below, as opposed to the words which someone from the upper-middle-class
or above would use for the same things -- for instance, I think "serviette"
(a word I haven't heard for a long time) was non-U, v. "[table] napkin" as
the corresponding U term. Nancy M and Alan R produced long lists of these
pairs. Subsequently, the picture has been overlaid by the greatly increased
influence of American English on British English; the words that are usual
in the USA sometimes happen to coincide with the term that was U in England,
and sometimes with the term that was non-U, in a random pattern I imagine,
but the power of America "lifts" the status of its words in England even
if they were previously non-U. I get into mild trouble at home on this,
because I lived in the USA for several years in my twenties and sometimes
use terms which are deprecated by other members of the family, for instance
I am chided for talking of the "living room" rather than the "sitting room"
-- this may be because of my non-U upbringing, but I think in fact in this
case it is because Americans call it "living room" and after a while in the
USA I got confused about what to call it, and I suspect that this particular
pair of terms is no longer any sort of social marker in England since others
see American films, etc.


Prof. Geoffrey Sampson

School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, GB

e-mail geoffs@cogs.susx.ac.uk
tel. +44 1273 678525
fax +44 1273 671320
Web site http://www.grs.u-net.com




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#5341 07/28/01 05:20 PM
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this was answered by Bingley later in this same thread.


#5342 07/31/01 12:01 PM
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I am right-handed. My right thumb, with which I normally hit the space bar, has become a little sore, so I am experimenting with switching this task to my left hand, with interesting results. My left hand, and particularly my thumb, is having no problem. But my right hand!
Oh, it just doesn't seem to know what to do with itself!
The thumb, of course, tends to hover, and drift towards the space bar. The unexpected thing is that my right hand loses its place after the space bar's been hit by my left thumb, esp. if the next letter is a right-hand letter!
I often have to stop, look, and re-place my right hand on its home keys.
If anyone else would care to try this switch, I'd love to know if you found the same thing.


#5343 07/31/01 01:02 PM
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It's simple, said the centipede.

Thanks a whole lot, Jackie. Now I'm going to spend all day at this. The left thumb is having problems taking over the task.


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