response 300 of 346:

Jun 1 01:29 UTC 1995

The problem is: changing terminology can be an important part of changing
people's attitudes & behavior, so using (say) "guest" or "team leader"
can be part of a strategy for reorganizing things even where the
reorganization hasn't progressed very far.  But if it doesn't go farther
(or much farther) than a change of terminology it winds up being
nothing more than doublespeak & hypocrisy - trying to use language to
make it sound like you're doing things you aren't.  This degrades the
language, degrades people's ability to think clearly, and degrades
people's characters.  Calling the guy who sweeps the floor a "sanitary
engineer" doesn't more than momentarily (at best) get him any more
respect; if he's called a "janitor" & *treated* with respect he's more
likely to be satisfied.

I had the opportunity over this past weekend to hear someone who teaches
"communication" at the college level saying a whole lot of important
& sensible stuff, mostly not germane here.  One thing he said that is
to the point here went something like this (yanked out of context - this
was to illustrate something else):  One of the most dangerous things you
can do to a college freshman (I think that's the level he mentioned)
is to give him a thesaurus.  He's apt to think that all he has to do to
improve his writing is to use all these words - without the least conception
of their appropriate contexts, distinct meanings, etc.  (I wish I could
quote him exactly.)  I certainly saw the truth of this when I was a TA
in philosophy (quite a few years back).  Some students had a lot to say
& needed help saying it, but others said nothing at all, very beautifully.
They were unable to improve because their grasp of the language was so
fuzzy that it was impossible to explain to them the distinctions they were
missing.

<**SIGH**>  <climbs down off soap box>
Bruce & Steve, you pushed my buttons.  Sorry to rant & rave at everyone.

response 302 of 346:

Jun 1 05:31 UTC 1995

Sure.    "who's" is a contraction of "who is" If you can substitute
"who is" then "who's" is your form. (Example: Look who's coming to dinnner.)

By contrast "whose" is a possessive adjective, like your, my, her, his, or
their. (Example: Whose dinner is ready?) If you had written "who's dinner?"
it would have been a cannibalistic question.

whos is not a word as far as I know, unless it is perhaps the plural
of one of the inhabitants of Whoville.

response 304 of 346:

Jun 1 10:53 UTC 1995

I don't think I'd ever understand it that way in that context, Rane.
But think of something like this:  "Bill, who's left for the day, is
also usually here."  There "who's" is indeed a contraction for "who has".

I don't know whether a little history (somewhat oversimplified) will help
or not, but let's try it.  One reason that people get confused & try to
use pronoun forms such as "it's" and "who's" for the possessive "its" and
"whose" is by analogy with nouns, where the apostrophe is now used for
the possessive.  But *originally* those apostrophes in nouns served the
same purpose as those in the contractions "it's" and "who's" - to indicate
something left out, I think.  The genetive (possessive) was in fact formed
by adding "es", pronounced as a separate syllable - as in German, to which
older forms of English were more strongly related.  I'd speculate that the
use of the apostrophe came into play when pronunciation began to shift,
the separate syllable no longer being pronounced as a syllable in most
cases.  (You can see the same phenomenon in some 18th-century writing,
where past tenses are sometimes written as "'d" instead of "ed"; almost
certainly that related to a shift to current styles of pronunciation.)

response 306 of 346:

Jun 2 02:40 UTC 1995

I have nothing toi say.  I am trying to get out of here.

response 308 of 346:

Jun 4 08:07 UTC 1995

(camper tries again)
Shouldn't Kentucky Fried Chicken be "Kentuckily" Fried Chicken ? And by the
way, those commercials on TV with the guy portraying the late Colonel,
shouldn't somebody be sued for deceptive business practices. Or was the
Colonel a fictitious being (like Ronald McDonald)? At least there should be
a disclaimer stating that If the Col. were still alive he would probably
still eat and enjoy the stuffchat malcolm

. Whoops , ignore that.

response 310 of 346:

Jun 4 11:53 UTC 1995

RE #308: There was a Big Boy commercial a few years ago that promoted their
chicken dinners with a Col. Sanders imitator and the disclaimer "Not Who You
Think It Is" at the bottom of the TV screen.  However, any fool would realize
that the real Colonel "kicked the bucket" in 1980.

response 312 of 346:

Jun 4 18:52 UTC 1995

It's even better to say "Am I included?" What good is that "not"? What
does an answer of "yes" mean to "Am I not included?"? That I am not
included? Q: "Isn't he coming?" A: "Yes"   ????

response 314 of 346:

Jun 5 01:43 UTC 1995

My Oxford American Dictionary lists "aren't = are not".

response 316 of 346:

Jun 6 01:29 UTC 1995

(I remember reading that too, Dave!  I think it was in a Time magazine . . . )

response 318 of 346:

Jun 6 07:23 UTC 1995

I was not knocking the use of the not so much as I was raising the
ambiguity of the yes or not answers to the question, as you noted.
I do appreciate the distinction - which is often emphasized with
intonation.

response 320 of 346:

Jun 6 13:30 UTC 1995

Re # 317: Steve, that second question makes perfect sense - it appears that
the speaker is having second thoughts, that's all.  (Tone of voice would
support this in a real case.)

Rane, I started to say much what Steve said before I realized that you were
addressing another issue.  But it's also fair to say that generally *in
context* the answer to a negative question (or, as Valerie notes, a "Do you
mind" type question) will be given so that there's no *practical* ambiguity.
We pedantic types are the main ones who suffer from real problems here.

response 322 of 346:

Jun 6 18:29 UTC 1995

(I was thinking of "go right ahead" or something like that.)

response 324 of 346:

Jun 7 07:06 UTC 1995

I don't think such a person is necessarily a fool - perhaps syntax
impaired.