On 7/27/2022 5:10 AM, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> lar3ryca <larry@invalid.ca> wrote:
>> Ross Clark wrote:
>>> lar3ryca wrote:
>>>> Lewis wrote:
>>>>> Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Lewis wrote:
>>>>>>> Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> lar3ryca advised that...
>>>>>> ...

>>>>>>>>> It seems like way too many people are looking for any
>>>>>>>>> way at all to be offended.

>>>>>>>>> I have been called an old fart, a geezer, and more
>>>>>>>>> recently, a boomer.

>>>>>>>> Only recently called a boomer? What took them so long?

>>>>>>> "Boomer" is quite recent, and it is generally used in a
>>>>>>> somewhat dismissive manner.

>>>>>> With exceptions where it's extremely dismissive, not that I
>>>>>> ever take it personally.

>>>>> My brother, who is definitely a Boomer, denies that he is a
>>>>> boomer. He likes to pretend the cutoff for boomer is 1960,
>>>>> when it is more like "born before 1965').

>>>>> This was "The Baby Boom" and people born between 1945 and
>>>>> 1964 were called "Baby Boomers" which in recent years has
>>>>> been shortened to just Boomer.

>>>> In my best Arte Johnson voice, "Verrry Interestingk!

>>>> SO I was unjustly called a boomer, predating 1945 by 10
>>>> months.

>>> I antedate 1945 by mere days, but I always took the end of WWII
>>> as the generational watershed, so proudly denied being a Boomer.
>>> Do we have a generation?

>> Love that word, 'antedate'. I only ever hear the ante- prefix when
>> someone speaks of 'antebellum'.

>> I antedate February 29 by about 1.5 hours.

> Someone needs to up the ante. Sorry, Uncle, did I say something
> wrong?

I accused a colleague of that once; unfortunately, since he is gay. I
didn't think of that beforehand, but I suppose my subconscious did.

--
Bad id. Bad, bad id. [Slap; <inchoate howling>]

On 7/26/2022 6:39 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> lar3ryca wrote:
>> Lewis wrote:
> ...

>>> This was "The Baby Boom" and people born between 1945 and 1964
>>> were called "Baby Boomers" which in recent years has been
>>> shortened to just Boomer.

>> In my best Arte Johnson voice, "Verrry Interestingk!

>> SO I was unjustly called a boomer, predating 1945 by 10 months.
> ...

> The Baby Boom is popularly said to have been started by servicemen
> coming back from the war. (Other explanations are available,
> according to Wikipedia, but I don't think anybody but social
> scientists pays any attention.) I think it is true that the birth
> rate in the U.S. started increasing before 1945, so some people date
> the start of the Baby Boom earlier than 1945.

> And I believe there are even people studying Canada separately from
> the U.S. on this topic.

There are some differences. If Tony had been born a year later and in
Canada, he could have been a War Baby instead of just Old.

On Wed, 27 Jul 2022, at 01:42:56, Sam Plusnet posted:
>On 27-Jul-22 0:20, Paul Wolff wrote:
>> It was obvious to me from long ago that the post-war baby boom
>>needed at least nine months after the soldiers got back home - or
>>else something was seriously up. So the baby boomers can't
>>conceivably have begun their bawling before 1946 at the very earliest.
>
>Um... Some service personnel did get home leave.
>(Both my parents were on active service, but I had an older sibling
>born in 1944.)
>
Of course. But it's the demob boom, boom, boom flood that's being
contrasted against the antediluvian status quo.
--
Paul

On Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 8:43:14 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> My parents were both in the army during WWII, but they didn't get
> properly back into civilian life until the beginning of 1947.
> Decommissioning all the volunteers took that long.
>
> So I, born at the beginning of 1948, count myself among the very
> earliest of the baby boomers.
>
> I've just done a search for graphs of Australian population over time,
> and it's hard to see any great departure from steady exponential growth
> over the period in question. Perhaps there's a bit of a kink in 1947,
> but it's hard to say that that's more than random variation.
>
> It's easier to see the alteration in social attitudes over time. The
> people coming out of the war developed a rather deep conservatism in
> many ways - this is especially visible in the 1950s - and a strong
> belief in the importance of hard work.

Often attributed to having grown up during the Great Depression.

> This was communicated to us,
> their children. We reacted to it in multiple ways, but a common theme
> was the idea that we had to work our guts out, while still young, to
> achieve a better world. Those of us who stayed in the mainstream went
> for getting a steady job and an early mortgage (despite the 17% interest
> rate) to lay foundations for the future. Those foundations are what a
> lot of younger people now resent.
>
> A more common theme among young people today is "Eat, drink, and be
> merry, for tomorrow we die"

the Vietnam War

>. I hear a lot of complaints along the lines
> of "There's no way I could save up to buy a house, and I've only had two
> overseas holidays so far". My generation counted on an overseas trip
> after the mortgage was paid off.

That seems to be much more recent.

> I can't blame them for that, though. They've inherited the results of a
> very long period of stealing from the poor to pay the rich. The key to
> prosperity in this era is to choose rich parents.

* CDB:

> On 7/26/2022 11:06 PM, Quinn C wrote:
>> * CDB:
>>
>>> On 7/16/2022 3:47 PM, lar3ryca wrote:
>>>> CDB wrote:
>>>>> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>>>>> CDB wrote:
>>>>>>> Bebercito wrote:
>>>>>>>> benl...@ihug.co.nz a écrit :
>>>>>>>>> Dingbat wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Etymology of names of Loyoda town in Djibouti The
>>>>>>>>>> name of the town derives from Afar Lē-ʿádu or
>>>>>>>>>> Lē-ʿadó, which means "white watering-place" and in
>>>>>>>>>> Somali became Loowyaʿádde, "with white calves", by
>>>>>>>>>> cacography. The French colonial authorities wrote it
>>>>>>>>>> "Loyada"; the standard Somali spelling is "Lawya
>>>>>>>>>> caddo".[1]
>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Does "by cacography" mean "by spelling it wrong"?
>>>>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyada
>
>>>>>>>>> I think your guess is right. According to the Concise
>>>>>>>>> Ox, it can mean either bad handwriting or bad spelling.
>>>>>>>>> But this is such an unusual word in English that I
>>>>>>>>> suspect your source is a translation from French (par
>>>>>>>>> cacographie), where, according to Larousse,
>>>>>>>>> "cacographie" only means 'orthographe vicieuse'
>>>>>>>>> (incorrect spelling).
>
>>>>>>>>> But even if that word was in my vocabulary, I would not
>>>>>>>>> use it of the change described above. It looks as if
>>>>>>>>> Somali speakers have taken a place name of Afar origin,
>>>>>>>>> which has a meaning in Afar but not in Somali, and
>>>>>>>>> re-shaped it a bit so that it has a meaning in Somali.
>
>>>>>>>> If so, the process could be called a deliberate
>>>>>>>> mondegreen.
>>>>>>> We could call that kind of mondegreen a "sparrowgrass".
>
>>>>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sparrowgrass
>
>>>>>> "Hobson-Jobson" exists.
>
>>>>> I had thought that was a dialect, but I see linguisticists use
>>>>> it as you say.
>
>>>> Careful, someone may get offended by the linguisticists term.
>
>>> I hope not: it's modelled on "physicist".
>
>> By that principle, I'd have landed on "linguicist". They're
>> physicists, not physisticists or physicsicists. Wow, those are hard
>> to read!
>
> Brace yourself: PHYSICs/PHYSICist - LINGUISTICs/LINGUISTICist. The
> study is not called "linguics", although I suppose it might have been.

I see what happened there. "Physics" and "linguistics" don't feel
parallel to me in the first place. The name of the field, "physics", is
identical to what it studies. I intuitively went one step further back
and first answered the question what linguistics would have been called
had it been named the same way as physics. The answer is, something like
"linguae". You see, in fact, the practitioners ("lingu-ists") have been
named after the thing they study, not after the discipline.

And that's common - we don't have chemistryists or economicists. But
geneticists, not geneists. So it's the usual mess that language tends to
become. The -ology fields at least seem to be systematic within -
psychologists are very different from psychics.

--
Odo: I've met a lot of Ferengis in my time ... though some of
them may have been more wealthy, I've never met one more devious.
Quark: Thank you Odo, that means a lot to me.

* Ross Clark:

> On 27/07/2022 3:06 p.m., Quinn C wrote:
>> * Bebercito:
>>
>>> Le vendredi 15 juillet 2022 à 13:47:51 UTC+2, benl...@ihug.co.nz a écrit :
>>>> On 15/07/2022 10:41 p.m., Dingbat wrote:
>>>>> Etymology of names of Loyoda town in Djibouti
>>>>> The name of the town derives from Afar Lē-ʿádu or Lē-ʿadó, which means
>>>>> "white watering-place" and in Somali became Loowyaʿádde, "with white
>>>>> calves", by cacography. The French colonial authorities wrote it "Loyada";
>>>>> the standard Somali spelling is "Lawya caddo".[1]
>>>>>
>>>>> Does "by cacography" mean "by spelling it wrong"?
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyada
>>>> I think your guess is right. According to the Concise Ox, it can mean
>>>> either bad handwriting or bad spelling. But this is such an unusual word
>>>> in English that I suspect your source is a translation from French (par
>>>> cacographie), where, according to Larousse, "cacographie" only means
>>>> 'orthographe vicieuse' (incorrect spelling).
>>>>
>>>> But even if that word was in my vocabulary, I would not use it of the
>>>> change described above. It looks as if Somali speakers have taken a
>>>> place name of Afar origin, which has a meaning in Afar but not in
>>>> Somali, and re-shaped it a bit so that it has a meaning in Somali.
>>>
>>> If so, the process could be called a deliberate mondegreen.
>>
>> Or simply "folk etymology".
>
> I'd call it a reshaping motivated by folk etymology. Folk etymology is a
> story or belief about the origin of a word, but does not necessarily
> bring about a change in the way the word is pronounced.

Maybe in principle, but most examples of folk etymology that I've
encountered are of the type "replace a sound sequence by a similar one
that makes more sense". German classic examples are arbaleste ->
armbrust ("arm-breast" = crossbow) or hamaco -> Hängematte ("hang-mat" =
hammock). "Sparrow-grass" is also of this type.
--
9/11 was pretty much the 9/11 of the falafel business.
-- Abed Nadir on Community

On Monday, July 25, 2022 at 6:25:37 AM UTC-7, Lewis wrote:
> In message <mn.c8ac7e67c465b78a.127094@snitoo> Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Watch this space, where lar3ryca advised that...
> >> On 2022-07-16 07:10, CDB wrote:
> >>> On 7/16/2022 8:53 AM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >>>> CDB wrote:
> >>>>> Bebercito wrote:
> >>>>>> benl...@ihug.co.nz a écrit :
> >>>>>>> Dingbat wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>>>>> Etymology of names of Loyoda town in Djibouti The name of
> >>>>>>>> the town derives from Afar Lē-ʿádu or Lē-ʿadó, which means
> >>>>>>>> "white watering-place" and in Somali became Loowyaʿádde,
> >>>>>>>> "with white calves", by cacography. The French colonial
> >>>>>>>> authorities wrote it "Loyada"; the standard Somali spelling
> >>>>>>>> is "Lawya caddo".[1]
> >>>
> >>>>>>>> Does "by cacography" mean "by spelling it wrong"?
> >>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyada
> >>>
> >>>>>>> I think your guess is right. According to the Concise Ox, it
> >>>>>>> can mean either bad handwriting or bad spelling. But this is
> >>>>>>> such an unusual word in English that I suspect your source is a
> >>>>>>> translation from French (par cacographie), where, according to
> >>>>>>> Larousse, "cacographie" only means 'orthographe vicieuse'
> >>>>>>> (incorrect spelling).
> >>>
> >>>>>>> But even if that word was in my vocabulary, I would not use it
> >>>>>>> of the change described above. It looks as if Somali speakers
> >>>>>>> have taken a place name of Afar origin, which has a meaning in
> >>>>>>> Afar but not in Somali, and re-shaped it a bit so that it has a
> >>>>>>> meaning in Somali.
> >>>
> >>>>>> If so, the process could be called a deliberate mondegreen.
> >>>>> We could call that kind of mondegreen a "sparrowgrass".
> >>>
> >>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sparrowgrass
> >>>
> >>>> "Hobson-Jobson" exists.
> >>>
> >>> I had thought that was a dialect, but I see linguisticists use it as you
> >>> say.
> >>
> >> Careful, someone may get offended by the linguisticists term.
> >>
> >>> The WP article points out that it is at some risk of being denounced as
> >>> discriminatory, so maybe there will be calls to replace it.
> >>
> >> Ask me if I would be surprised.
> >> It seems like way too many people are looking for any way at all to be
> >> offended.
> >>
> >> I have been called an old fart, a geezer, and more recently, a boomer.
>
> > Only recently called a boomer? What took them so long?
> "Boomer" is quite recent, and it is generally used in a somewhat
> dismissive manner.
>
I remember a law firm with Shaver and Boomer in its name.
They were presumably founders or principals of the firm.
Shaver seems like an occupational surname; I can't
imagine how Boomer got his name.

On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 11:35:44 AM UTC-6, Dingbat wrote:
> On Monday, July 25, 2022 at 6:25:37 AM UTC-7, Lewis wrote:

[old people]

> I remember a law firm with Shaver and Boomer in its name.
> They were presumably founders or principals of the firm.
> Shaver seems like an occupational surname; I can't
> imagine how Boomer got his name.

It's the Dutch again.

https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=boomer

Even the Ancestry folks can't imagine how Irish people got that name.

--
Jerry Friedman

In message <p5m0ehplqmpptp4l8lieebr8f3lr3hb4fa@4ax.com> Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure if there's a term for those of my generation other than
> "old". (Born in 1938)

The Silent Generation. (1920ish to 1945), which includes all my parents,
none of whom were what I would call silent.

Before that is the Lost Generation (born in the 1880-1905ish) who were either
lost to World War I or to the flu pandemic. That leaves the people
born from about 1900-1920ish.

It is often now called "The Greatest Generation" based on a self-
congratulatory book of that name extolling the virtues of that group of
Americans, particularly in regards to winning World War II, and then
going on to found suburbia. I don't know what they were called before
the book was published about 20 years ago.

--
'The only reason we're still alive now is that we're more fun alive
than dead,' said Granny's voice behind her. --Lords and Ladies

On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 12:28:23 PM UTC-7, Lewis wrote:
> In message <p5m0ehplqmpptp4l8...@4ax.com> Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure if there's a term for those of my generation other than
> > "old". (Born in 1938)
>
> The Silent Generation. (1920ish to 1945), which includes all my parents,
> none of whom were what I would call silent.
>
> Before that is the Lost Generation (born in the 1880-1905ish) who were either
> lost to World War I or to the flu pandemic. That leaves the people
> born from about 1900-1920ish.
>
> It is often now called "The Greatest Generation" based on a self-
> congratulatory book of that name extolling the virtues of that group of
> Americans, particularly in regards to winning World War II, and then
> going on to found suburbia. I don't know what they were called before
> the book was published about 20 years ago.
>
> --
> 'The only reason we're still alive now is that we're more fun alive
> than dead,' said Granny's voice behind her. --Lords and Ladies
>
From my limited point of view there was a massive break in society
during the war (WW II). The final years of the depression were, to me
as a schoolchild, much richer than after the war. The period just after
the war (I spent it going to college) seemed philistine to me. Just
interested in making money and tearing down the good things of the
world. The taste of USA society didn't improve again until the civil
rights movement began.

On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 3:28:23 PM UTC-4, Lewis wrote:
> In message <p5m0ehplqmpptp4l8...@4ax.com> Tony Cooper <tonyco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm not sure if there's a term for those of my generation other than
> > "old". (Born in 1938)
>
> The Silent Generation. (1920ish to 1945), which includes all my parents,
> none of whom were what I would call silent.
>
> Before that is the Lost Generation (born in the 1880-1905ish) who were either
> lost to World War I or to the flu pandemic. That leaves the people
> born from about 1900-1920ish.

Fitzgerald wrote novels abut dead people?

> It is often now called "The Greatest Generation" based on a self-
> congratulatory book of that name

Tom Brokaw (b. 1940) congratulated himself for winning WWII?

> extolling the virtues of that group of
> Americans, particularly in regards to winning World War II, and then
> going on to found suburbia. I don't know what they were called before
> the book was published about 20 years ago.

He was not concerned about "founding suburbia," which of course
they had nothing to do with. That was the responsibility of such as
Frederick Law Olmstead and Frank Lloyd Wright, half a century earlier.

On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 1:47:09 PM UTC-6, dklei...@gmail.com wrote:

[generations]

> From my limited point of view there was a massive break in society
> during the war (WW II). The final years of the depression were, to me
> as a schoolchild, much richer than after the war. The period just after
> the war (I spent it going to college) seemed philistine to me. Just
> interested in making money and tearing down the good things of the
> world. The taste of USA society didn't improve again until the civil
> rights movement began.

Since I was born after /Brown vs. Board of Education/--what good things
were Americans tearing down in the postwar period?

--
Jerry Friedman

* Peter Moylan:

> It's easier to see the alteration in social attitudes over time. The
> people coming out of the war developed a rather deep conservatism in
> many ways - this is especially visible in the 1950s - and a strong
> belief in the importance of hard work. This was communicated to us,
> their children. We reacted to it in multiple ways, but a common theme
> was the idea that we had to work our guts out, while still young, to
> achieve a better world. Those of us who stayed in the mainstream went
> for getting a steady job and an early mortgage (despite the 17% interest
> rate) to lay foundations for the future. Those foundations are what a
> lot of younger people now resent.

Maybe also the fact that there were steady jobs back then.

--
- History is full of lies.
- Ain't that the truth.
-- Andromeda, S04E12

On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 2:42:03 PM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 1:47:09 PM UTC-6, dklei...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> [generations]
> > From my limited point of view there was a massive break in society
> > during the war (WW II). The final years of the depression were, to me
> > as a schoolchild, much richer than after the war. The period just after
> > the war (I spent it going to college) seemed philistine to me. Just
> > interested in making money and tearing down the good things of the
> > world. The taste of USA society didn't improve again until the civil
> > rights movement began.
>
> Since I was born after /Brown vs. Board of Education/--what good things
> were Americans tearing down in the postwar period?
>
Old buildings, parks, farms, neighborhoods. They dropped freeways
casually all over the landscape. San Francisco Bay was saved by a tiny
group of housewives who started a real grass roots organization. There
was somewhat of a backlash and some of the damage done in the late
40's has been repaired.

On 7/27/2022 12:13 PM, Quinn C wrote:
> CDB:
>> Quinn C wrote:
>>> CDB:
>>>> lar3ryca wrote:
>>>>> CDB wrote:
>>>>>> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>>>>>> CDB wrote:
>>>>>>>> Bebercito wrote:
>>>>>>>>> benl...@ihug.co.nz a écrit :
>>>>>>>>>> Dingbat wrote:

>>>>>>>>>>> Etymology of names of Loyoda town in Djibouti
>>>>>>>>>>> The name of the town derives from Afar Lē-ʿádu
>>>>>>>>>>> or Lē-ʿadó, which means "white watering-place"
>>>>>>>>>>> and in Somali became Loowyaʿádde, "with white
>>>>>>>>>>> calves", by cacography. The French colonial
>>>>>>>>>>> authorities wrote it "Loyada"; the standard
>>>>>>>>>>> Somali spelling is "Lawya caddo".[1]

>>>>>>>>>>> Does "by cacography" mean "by spelling it
>>>>>>>>>>> wrong"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyada

>>>>>>>>>> I think your guess is right. According to the
>>>>>>>>>> Concise Ox, it can mean either bad handwriting or
>>>>>>>>>> bad spelling. But this is such an unusual word in
>>>>>>>>>> English that I suspect your source is a translation
>>>>>>>>>> from French (par cacographie), where, according to
>>>>>>>>>> Larousse, "cacographie" only means 'orthographe
>>>>>>>>>> vicieuse' (incorrect spelling).

>>>>>>>>>> But even if that word was in my vocabulary, I would
>>>>>>>>>> not use it of the change described above. It looks
>>>>>>>>>> as if Somali speakers have taken a place name of
>>>>>>>>>> Afar origin, which has a meaning in Afar but not in
>>>>>>>>>> Somali, and re-shaped it a bit so that it has a
>>>>>>>>>> meaning in Somali.

>>>>>>>>> If so, the process could be called a deliberate
>>>>>>>>> mondegreen.
>>>>>>>> We could call that kind of mondegreen a
>>>>>>>> "sparrowgrass".

>>>>>>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sparrowgrass

>>>>>>> "Hobson-Jobson" exists.

>>>>>> I had thought that was a dialect, but I see linguisticists
>>>>>> use it as you say.

>>>>> Careful, someone may get offended by the linguisticists
>>>>> term.

>>>> I hope not: it's modelled on "physicist".

>>> By that principle, I'd have landed on "linguicist". They're
>>> physicists, not physisticists or physicsicists. Wow, those are
>>> hard to read!

>> Brace yourself: PHYSICs/PHYSICist - LINGUISTICs/LINGUISTICist.
>> The study is not called "linguics", although I suppose it might
>> have been.

> I see what happened there. "Physics" and "linguistics" don't feel
> parallel to me in the first place. The name of the field, "physics",
> is identical to what it studies. I intuitively went one step further
> back and first answered the question what linguistics would have been
> called had it been named the same way as physics. The answer is,
> something like "linguae". You see, in fact, the practitioners
> ("lingu-ists") have been named after the thing they study, not after
> the discipline.

> And that's common - we don't have chemistryists or economicists. But
> geneticists, not geneists. So it's the usual mess that language tends
> to become. The -ology fields at least seem to be systematic within -
> psychologists are very different from psychics.
AKA psychicists? If we're doing deep derivations, maybe Peter should be
a glossicist, because Aristotle would probably have called that book "Ta
Glottica".
>

Le mercredi 27 juillet 2022 à 05:07:08 UTC+2, Quinn C a écrit :
> * Paul Wolff:
> > On Tue, 26 Jul 2022, at 16:17:32, lar3ryca posted:
> >>Love that word, 'antedate'. I only ever hear the ante- prefix when
> >>someone speaks of 'antebellum'.
> >
> > 'Antepenultimate' is seldom far from my lips, awaiting its moment.
> Linguists love to talk about antecedents, and not only antediluvian
> ones.
>
> What lobbyists do is charmingly called "antichambrieren" in
> (old-fashioned) German, based on a French confusion of anti- and the
> etymologically correct ante-

No confusion in French (or Italian - see e.g. "antipasto"), as anti-
is but a variation of ante- in Latin.

.. Antechamber, anteroom are found in English
> dictionaries.
>
> --
> There is no freedom for men unless there is freedom for women.
> If women mustn't bring their will to the fore, why should men
> be allowed to?
> -- Hedwig Dohm (1876), my translation