Re: USAGE: subway

On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 22:27, John Cowan wrote:

> For the same reason we call certain flightless critters "birds"; the
> definition of "subway" is prototype-based.
What does the ability to fly have to with being a bird? Having feathers
and wings and a beak, yes, but too many birds can't fly to consider
flying a features of birdiness.

> > Sorry, you've lost me. 'City limits' to me would refer to the far outer
> > limits of the city i.e. those places where when cross the road, on one
> > side your in a suburb and on the other you're in the country or the
> > bush.
>
> By "city limits" I mean the legal limit of the city proper, outside which
> are to be found the suburbs.
In which case I guess your distinction between subway and suburban train
system would be totally incompatible with Australia. The City of Greater
Melbourne is hardly big enough to have a train system of its own (I'm
pretty sure it's all less than 5 km from the GPO [exactly in the very
centre of the CBD]).

> > > Poms
> >
> > Do Americans use that word too?
>
> No.
>
> Pom < pommy < pomegranate < jimmygrant < immigrant, if you're curious.
Is one theory. There are others, and, as always, there's doubters.
(Another one is Pom < Pommy < pomegranate (from the redness of the
English's skin. I've heard of at least one that doesn't involve
'pomegranate', but can't remember what it was...)

(BTW: Pom = Englishman (-woman, -child), Pommy = English (adj). Unlike
'English', though, the term applies only to things from England proper,
not Britain. Even if it did originally mean 'immigrant', it no longer
means that by any stretch of the imagination. A Pom whose never set foot
outside of Pommyland is as much a Pom as one who's in Australia now---if
not more so.)

> > Hey, it's very much the same as what we inherited. Just with extra added
> > features.
>
> Tell that to Nellie Melba.  (Except she's dead.)
Not everyone recognises a Good Thing when they see it. I'm sure there's
been Americans who've criticised American Accents. And anyway: she's
dead. She came from the wrong generation, when criticising our accent
was the Thing to Do. These days, we don't have one.

> Canadian spelling is a mixture of U.S. and Commonwealth conventions, as
> illustrated by "tire centre" (U.S. "tire center"; elsewhere, "tyre centre").
So in other words the worst features of both :) (Even if 'tire' is the
original spelling.) And is the 'normal' spelling of 'tyre' <tire>? Or is
it just that people don't care and so you get that kind of a thing?

Tristan.

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