Just wondering. Lots of Americans here and that's great!

But........am I the only Brit?

(On another forum people thought I was German. I have no idea why )

Although his profile doesn't say specifically, Andreas is from UK (at least the last that I knew).

Don't worry about being mistaken for a German. People think that I'm Italian when the name is actually derived from Russian. Ciao? Nyet!

Hi Jon

<wave>

Elsewhere, a travel forum, someone said to me that I shouldn't be giving travel advice about the UK since "I'm a German."

I'm not, and have never pretended to be. My username there wasn't even Bensheim either! ALL I did was talk about German railways, having had some experience of them. It was a travel forum after all.

Which makes me want to ask another question so I might as well put it here.........

WHAT's the worst forum you've ever been on and why? Or should I start a new thread?

(If yes, happy to oblige.)

That's easy. CNET wins (loses?) hands down. I am very prejudiced, of course, because of what CNET did to MFIF so I give it a hands down and a big thumbs down.

Actually, I haven't participated in forums except for FTM, MFIF, CNET and TechSurvivors.

No.
Regards. Mike

I'm another Brit too.
Carol

Why are you embarrassed to admit you're German?
Or is it just because you're from the eponymous town ( http://www.bensheim.de )?
We must all come to terms with our origins.

I still refuse to admit than I'm originally from New Jersey. Wait-- Doh! Gave it away...

So, does a thread have to mention the UK to get you to post?

one

...and counting?

There is an out. While waiting to pay for gas, I heard one customer mention they were headed to Alberni to go camping and another customer said, "Oh, I was born there".

The clerk commented, "But that's not your fault."

ryck

Andreas's Loc: was UnKnown, nessuk and George, aka gbdoc, are MIA, and androo has still not inflicted his presence on us.

How about freelance?


PS, as a (temporary) monument in support of all UK members of FTM, this post was entered from the Borough of Poole.

And Ness is likewise known to take tea with the Queen.

George was born in the US and now lives in Vienna, Austria. So, he's not a Brit.

Because I'm not German. Had I called myself Krasnovodsk would you have thought me a Turkmenistanian?

Bensheim has certain pleasant associations for me: I lived there briefly.

That's because of your incredibly thick Bavarian accent.

CNET for it's obtuse and unfriendly forum software.

I don't really care for it's attitude there either, I don't get a feeling of close community that I do here. Either they have a lot of people posting or no real community of users that post. I have only seen the moderators regularly posting there. maybe that will change.

I must say that they did rapidly close out a troll who tried to start a flame thread.

As for content, it depends. Most targeted forums either have a constant crew who regularly post, or they don't. I find that the former makes it more interesting if predictable. The later seems to lack soul.

FTM continues in the fine tradition of the former.

Sturner has answered my other question in this thread, thank you! (Maybe it should have been another thread?)

Here's my Worst Ever Forum I've Been On.

It was a sports forum, regarding a world-famous event which spans three weeks every year. Therefore there's a lot of traffic over at least a month.

1. Everyone was in Pre-Mod. That means that everyone's posts were not displayed immediately, but scrutinised by invisible people who had the power to display them or not. Successful posts took hours to show up; which seemed crazy when covering a live sports event with knowledgeable and enthusiastic forum members.

2. There was a clique of old-hands who spoke in code which was nearly impenetrable to those outside the clique.

3. The same clique were crudely dismissive to anyone who succeeded in getting their posts published, who did not agree with them.

4. One thread focussed on a Big Name in this particular sport, and went on for about 10 pages. This thread consisted of a few brave people posting calm facts against The Big Name; the rest were personal abuse to anyone (the brave polite people) who had the temerity to question said Big Name's credentials and integrity.

5. This personal abuse went unmoderated, despite everyone being in Pre-Mod.

6. The "report abuse" button did not work. It looked as though it did because a reply window popped up. Having taken the trouble to enter a report, you were then rewarded with an error message. The same thing happened on the Mod/Admin email address supplied: emails were bounced back.

7. Despite all that some posts quoting urls to daily newspaper reports on this sporting event were allowed and others, in the same style, were Pre-Mod not-allowed; explanations by email were computer-generated gobbledegook. This happened to me.

8. The final straw was when I had a further email from the Mods telling me that two posts of mine had been deleted. They referred me to a thread which did not exist, and to posts which were not mine in the first place.

Shambles, amateurish, inconsistent, over-draconian, were the words which sprang to mind.

Jawohl!

Zwei Bier, bitte!

It's not quite accurate to say nessuk is missing in action.

Ja, ja, es kommen!

Enough of the German jokes, OK? They're wearing thin. I don't see you guys making fun of anyone else's username.

My name has lent itself to "fun" remarks for my whole life. Don't be choosy, Chuzi, for example. My students used to call me Mr. Picky.

Maybe they don't come into the Lounge.

> George was born in the US and now lives in Vienna, Austria. So, he's not a Brit.

OK... I'll bite... To what, then, does "gbdoc" refer?

> My students used to call me Mr. Picky.

A reference to "pizzicato," and, therefore, a compliment, perhaps?

After I'd posted I remembered that ness is not only present and accounted for, but away from his Mac for a coupl'a weeks.

George will have to answer that one.

Well, that would be "away from her Mac," but we get the idea. (Kind of ironic that the champion of the gender-neutral pronoun would apply the old-school version incorrectly... )

Oops!

I have absolutely no idea why, but I had the distinct impression that ness was a man.

Because you're a man. I also assume other people posting are men unless the user name is an obvious feminine clue. Although those "double-duty" names have thrown me off that pattern in the past.

Why?

Do you think that only men join techie forums? What does gender matter on a public messageboard? Do you change your approach if you think you're talking to a woman as opposed to a man, then?

In reverse order....
No, I'm still me. It doesn't matter. I've been surprised to learn someone was the opposite gender that I assumed. I find that I can't assume that the person is neither. I answered the Why already.

You are in the UK. I am from the UK. I have lived in California since 1981 and in Germany for 5 years prior to 1981. I feel very settled and at home here. I have family in Australia and of course in England and have visited both countries in the last 3 years. I actually see little or no difference between Aussies, Brits and Americans. We are all 'folks'.

Richard

> Because you're a man. I also assume other people posting are men unless the user name is an obvious feminine clue.

Glib, but that's where it ends.

I don't make such all-encompassing assumptions; something ness said mislead me into thinking she's a man.

> [...] the champion of the gender-neutral pronoun [....]

That "title" calls for qualification.

I use "se" and "hir" not to champion political correctness, but in response to it; I simply got sick and tired of typing the convoluted, grammatically incorrect alternatives used by most people.

And what are (we) Canadians? Chopped liver?

One might wish to check out the ON LANGUAGE column titled "All-Purpose Pronoun" by Patricia T. O'Connor & Stewart Kellerman in The New York Times Magazine of July 26, 2009, where among other things it is noted that:
"The idea that he, him and his should go both ways caught on and was widely adopted. But how, you might ask, did people refer to an anybody before then? This will surprise a few purists, but for centuries the universal pronoun was they. Writers as far back as Chaucer used it for singular and plural, masculine and feminine. Nobody seemed to mind that they, them and their were officially plural. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage explains, writers were comfortable using they with an indefinite pronoun like everybody because it suggested a sexless plural."

Thanks for that, grelber!

> "The idea that he, him and his should go both ways caught on and was widely adopted."

That lacks context; "...was widely adopted" when or, as the case may be, during which time-frame?

> "This will surprise a few purists, but for centuries the universal pronoun was they. Writers as far back as Chaucer used it for singular and plural, masculine and feminine. Nobody seemed to mind that they, them and their were officially plural. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage explains, writers were comfortable using they with an indefinite pronoun like everybody because it suggested a sexless plural."

Did the authors document the convention's current SOP status, or, if it's not, what current SOP is? (For what it's worth, my 1967 Random House Unabridged calls that usage "nonstandard.")

Personally, my aesthetic sensibilities, and their simplicity and gruesome origins (Richard A. Lupoff's "Space War Blues"), draw me to "se" and "hir."

(This-all may induce me to look into SheepShaver to get my OED back up-and-running. )

Another excerpt in response (but we're getting close to violating board rules and the NYT's proprietary interests):

"Meanwhile, many great writers — Byron, Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Dickens, Trollope and more — continued to use they and company as singulars, never mind the grammarians. In fact, so many people now use they in the old singular way that dictionaries and usage guides are taking a critical look at the prohibition against it. R.W. Burchfield, editor of The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, has written that it’s only a matter of time before this practice becomes standard English: "The process now seems irreversible." Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed) already finds the singular they acceptable "even in literary and formal contexts," but the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed) isn’t there yet."

The column (and others) should still be available at http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/feature...uage&st=cse .

Thanks for that.

> R.W. Burchfield, editor of The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, has written that it’s only a matter of time before this practice becomes standard English: "The process now seems irreversible."

It amazes me that it's taking so long to happen.

Are you responding to me? I can't tell from your post.

If you are, did you read the Thread Title?

The noise one makes when ones brain is not engage when one tries to make conversation?

It seems to fit for me.

I use SheepShaver for just that (OED).

I don't know if I qualify by Bensheim's strict standards. I live in the UK. I have a UK passport. But I was born in the USA and have (after 26 years) still been unable to get my mouth around those posh British vowels.

I have learned to love football (soccer to you septics) but will never get to grips with cricket.

Typo or Freudian slip?

It could be a noun meaning one who promotes putrefaction, but somehow ...

Freelance, Hi

Rules of Cricket

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.

When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.

There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out*.

When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

*5 common ways of getting out
1. Clean bowled
2. Caught
3. Run out
4. Stumped
5. Leg before wicket**

6 uncommon ways of getting out
6. Hit wicket
7. Handled the ball
8. Double hit
9. Obstructing the field
10. Timed out.
11. Retired.

Also, for an out to be given, the in side have to appeal by shouting "HOW'S THAT?" (pronounced HOWZAYYYYYYYY)

**not necessarily the leg

> I use SheepShaver for just that (OED).

Thanks for posting that; I wasn't certain OED would run in SheepShaver, and inertia has kept me from experimenting.

I don't know about Bensheim's standards, but you do use two of the constructions which tip me off to British posters if I haven't already glanced at the Loc: field in the post sidebar: sorted the problem and works a treat.

Football, on the other hand, is the universal way of referring to, um, American Soccer.

Since you've mentioned running OED(2?), I'll pass this on to you...

About five years ago an acquaintance of my daughter's (They're both Mac techs.) was working on a Mac with OED2 installed, and, in the course of discussion, was offered a copy of the disc by its owner; he, of course, declined.

The owner then contacted Oxford and asked whether, since OED2 was no longer offered for sale nor had it been ported to OS X, they had any objections to his disseminating copies of the disc and was told that they had none. (My daughter has seen the e-mail; I have not.)

You can take that for whatever you think it's worth; personally, I've given away a few copies, but OED appreciators are few and far between in NYC.

Aside: I'm wondering how long it takes for SheepShaver to get OED up and running? (Having to launch "Classic Environment" before I could launch OED was a major pain; am I correct in guessing that SS takes even longer than that process took?)

Cockney rhyming slang. Dog and bone = phone; plates of meat = feet; septic tank = yank. You just use the first word of the phrase in a sentence.

Yeah, I know. I used to prefer that my mate call me a Chieftain, not a septic...

I do quite enjoy the last day of the Ashes Series when things are close, like this year.

But, this is more my speed:
Who's On First?

Howzat?

Dave, what can I say? You learn to speak to be understood. When I visit my mother in California, she thinks I have a British accent. But, really, I just use the expressions I have become comfortable with over the last 26 years.

I took a written test to renew my California driving license a few years ago. The inspector said, "Well, sir, you aced it!" I said, "Is that good?" My dad was upset that after 10 minutes with the driver's manual, I got 100% on the multiple guess test, which he had never done after years of study.

Loved the cricket rules

Thanks Chris. I was hoping someone would.