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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote in message
news:4877bbcb$1@news.povray.org...
> I don't know that "Sahara Desert" is the same type of redundancy, though
Probably not.
It's kinda a case of is it a word in a foreign language, or is it a proper
noun. But then you could probably make the argument that some acronyms are
almost words and have lost their former meanings
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On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:07:29 +0200, Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote in message
> news:4877bbcb$1@news.povray.org...
>
>> I don't know that "Sahara Desert" is the same type of redundancy,
>> though
>
> Probably not.
> It's kinda a case of is it a word in a foreign language, or is it a
> proper noun. But then you could probably make the argument that some
> acronyms are almost words and have lost their former meanings
That's certainly true enough. :-)
Jim
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm 97% sure you'll be able to answer this...
>
> You know when somebody says something like "the TCP protocol", but the P
> already stands for "protocol", so they're really saying "the
> transmission control protocol protocol"... annoying, isn't it?... is
> there a name for that particular mistake?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
Otherwise described as a rhetorical tautology or pleonasm.
Apparently.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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While we're on the subject of obscure grammatical edge-cases...
According to the rules, a word beginning with a vowel should be prefixed
with "an", otherwise it's just "a":
A cat.
An elephant.
The idea - apparently - is that it's awkward to move from the sound of
"a" to the sound of "e" without an intervining consonant.
Now consider:
A Europian.
Technically, according to the rules, this should in fact be
An Europian.
which just sounds silly...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 a écrit :
> While we're on the subject of obscure grammatical edge-cases...
>
> According to the rules, a word beginning with a vowel should be prefixed
> with "an", otherwise it's just "a":
>
> A cat.
> An elephant.
>
> The idea - apparently - is that it's awkward to move from the sound of
> "a" to the sound of "e" without an intervining consonant.
>
> Now consider:
>
> A Europian.
>
> Technically, according to the rules, this should in fact be
>
> An Europian.
>
> which just sounds silly...
>
Well the sound at the beginning of "European" is arguably a consonant,
so the rule still works...
/ˌjʊəɹəˈpiːən/
It even has a name :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant
--
Vincent
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Vincent Le Chevalier wrote:
> Well the sound at the beginning of "European" is arguably a consonant,
> so the rule still works...
>
> /ˌjʊəɹəˈpiːən/
>
> It even has a name :-)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant
Heh. ALL word sounds have names!
Also... You *know* you've been programming in Haskell too long when you
see something like
i_^
and it looks like some kind of ASCII art...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> According to the rules, a word beginning with a vowel should be prefixed
> with "an", otherwise it's just "a":
No. A word beginning with a vowel *sound* should be prefixed with "an".
Even if the word begins with a vowel letter, if the sound is that of a
consonant, it gets an "a".
--
- Warp
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> You know when somebody says something like "the TCP protocol", but the P
> already stands for "protocol", so they're really saying "the
> transmission control protocol protocol"... annoying, isn't it?
Not really.
It's when people refuse to recognize that they are using a certain
phrase incorrectly.
Regards,
John
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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
>> According to the rules, a word beginning with a vowel should be prefixed
>> with "an", otherwise it's just "a":
>
> No. A word beginning with a vowel *sound* should be prefixed with "an".
> Even if the word begins with a vowel letter, if the sound is that of a
> consonant, it gets an "a".
Weeee... I'm learning things on teh interwebs...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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