The perpetual calendar
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From: Cheryl on 24 Feb 2010 08:38 Peter T. Daniels wrote: > On Feb 24, 8:14 am, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote: >> jmfbahciv wrote: >>> Michael Press wrote: >>>> In article <7ufdetFoc...(a)mid.individual.net>, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> >>>> wrote: >>>> [...] >>>>> But we still lack a February holiday, unless we have a big enough >>>>> snowstorm. >>>> February is the cruelest month. >>> February is the longest month. I thought US had President's Day in >>> February now. >>> /BAH >> But I'm in Canada, so we don't celebrate President's Day at all, >> whenever it comes. I'd make do with a 'mid-February Holiday' in honour >> of nothing in particular if I could be guaranteed a break in that dreary >> month. > > We used to have Lincoln's Birthday on Feb 12 and Washington's Birthday > on Feb 22. A while ago, they were rolled into one movable feast. > >> I suppose we could adopt Valentine's Day as a public holiday. > > A holiday in honor of a single industry? What's significant about Mr > (formerly St) Valentine? Nothing at all - except maybe all the people who buy pink junk in his honour would support the idea of a public holiday in February since St. Valentine - or the candy industry or the manufacturers of pink boxes - already has a well-publicized day in the middle of February. -- Cheryl
From: James Hogg on 24 Feb 2010 08:44 Peter T. Daniels wrote: > On Feb 24, 2:48 am, James Hogg <Jas.H...(a)gOUTmail.com> wrote: >> Andrew Usher wrote: >>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: >>>> On Feb 23, 7:09 am, Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >>>>> Mike Barnes wrote: >>>>>> Andrew Usher <k_over_hb...(a)yahoo.com>: >>>>>>> 'One' is not, grammatically, a pronoun. It is a nominalised adjective >>>>>>> (the number one) that is used in place of a pronoun. >>>>>> That's a matter of perception rather than fact. Most people's perception >>>>>> is different from yours, I suspect. >>>>> Mine is based on logic. One declines like a noun, not a pronoun, and >>>>> is clearly identical to the number one, which is a noun (adjective), >>>>> not a pronoun. >>>> It's already been noted that this thread is widely crossposted. >>>> Perhaps the mathematicians and physicists should leave the linguistics >>>> to the linguists. >>> I have as much ability to analyse language as any of your people! >> "your people"? > > As in, "Have your people get in touch with my people!" Them math or > physics guys must live pretty high on the hog. Ah, I thought it was some ethnic slur. -- James
From: Peter T. Daniels on 24 Feb 2010 08:46 On Feb 24, 6:40 am, Cheryl <cperk...(a)mun.ca> wrote: > Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > On Feb 23, 8:12 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...(a)bigpond.com> wrote: > >> Adam Funk wrote: > >>> On 2010-02-23, Ant nio Marques wrote: > >>>> "Roman Catholic" ISN'T AN OFFICIAL SELF-DESIGNATION. ANYWHERE. > >>> Are you going to write to all the churches in the UK with "St ____'s > >>> Roman Catholic Church" or "St ____'s R. C. Church" on their signs, > >>> newsletters, websites, etc., to tell them that they are wrong? (I > >>> think this is common in much of the USA too.) > >> I won't try to claim such signs don't exist, but I don't remember ever > >> seeing one. The only way I can tell a church is RC is by the > >> architecture and usually by the name (saint I've never heard of or > >> long-winded way of saying Mary). > > > Do you only visit villages so small that they have only one church, or > > so homogeneous that they only have a sprinkling of Protestant churches? > > I think that's probably the key - the size and/or homogeneity of the > location. I associate signs saying "St. So-and-So's Roman Catholic > Church" with Toronto, which is a big enough and heterogeneous enough > that it's a pretty good bet a good proportion of the population doesn't > know which church is which. On the other hand, even in quite small > towns, I've seen signs like "TownName United Church" or "St. So-and-So's > Anglican Church", so that can't be the entire explanation. Do these "small towns" even _have_ a popish parish? "United" means exactly that -- it's not a denomination, but a bunch of congregations that got together in order to survive at all despite the organization of their individual hierarchies. Baptists and Presbyterians are probably the easiest to assimilate to each other (no clerical hierarchy), then Methodists (whose "bishops" don't claim the apostolic succession of the Episcopalians and Catholics). So in a really big and socially stratified small village, you might find a Protestant church, an Episcopal one (that's the US term for the Anglican Communion, which more and more seems as though it soon won't be one), and a Catholic one. > One of my families' old stories is about the time that my father's very > devout uncle came to visit him in his new home, a small town with > something like 4 or 5 churches serving various denominations. My father > knew that although none of them were Methodist (the denomination to > which his uncle, and, nominally at least, my father belonged) but that > one of them was pretty close theologically. It took him about three > tries to hit the right one - eliminating some, such as the Salvation > Army and the Roman Catholic one by cues from the architecture. > > Fortunately, his uncle had a great sense of humour and no illusions > about my father's religious practices. When we went on vacation during the school year I had to bring evidence of "church attendance" in order not to get penalized for missing Sunday School. The one I most remember was the Church of the Presidents, an Episcopal church very close to both the White House and our hotel (which was still the one presidents would occasionally turn up at, although that practice has recently become quite a burden on whichever church would be involved). Thus a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian congregation wasn't particularly particular in the 1950s/60s.
From: Peter T. Daniels on 24 Feb 2010 08:50 On Feb 24, 4:28 am, "PaulJK" <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote: > António Marques wrote: > > Adam Funk wrote (23-02-2010 11:39): > >> On 2010-02-23, Andrew Usher wrote: > > >>>>> The Catholic Church has stated, I believe more than once (it's linked > >>>>> to somewhere in this thread) that fixing Easter to a particular week > >>>>> would be acceptable. > > >> ("Catholic" is a commonly used but imprecise abbreviation of "Roman > >> Catholic".) > > >>> Peter T. Daniels wrote: > > >>>> "The Catholic Church" (which refers to no specific organization) > >>>> hasn't spoken for all of Christendom for nearly half a millennium. > > >>> 'The Catholic Church' or simply 'The Church' refers to exactly one > >>> organisation. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Also, it's been > >>> longer than half a millennium if one includes the East. > > >> The "Roman Catholic Church", the "Old Catholic Church", and the > >> "Polish National Catholic Church" are independent of each other. > > >> The "Eastern Catholic Churches" are under papal authority but I don't > >> think they describe themselves as "Roman Catholic". > > > Gad, not again! You're trolling, aren't you? > > > "Roman Catholic" ISN'T AN OFFICIAL SELF-DESIGNATION. ANYWHERE. > > I was just skimming through, but these screaming capitals > stopped me dead in my tracks. I reached into my legal files and > pulled out my "Geburts- und Taufschein / Rodný a kÅestnà list", > (Birth and Christening certificate). > > Under "Religion / NáboženstvÃ" is pre-printed "römisch-katholische / ÅÃmsko-katolické". > > It's not in English but it is clearly stated in two different languages. > What could be a clearer example of self-designation. That sounds like it was issued by the Czechoslovak government, which assumed that there were no Protestants -- let alone any Jews -- born within its borders? (A church wouldn't be in a position to issue a birth certificate, would it?) I.e., not a _self_-designation. -- Does that mean Rimsky-Korsakov('s family) was Catholic?
From: Peter T. Daniels on 24 Feb 2010 08:55
On Feb 24, 3:13 am, Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenb...(a)hpl.hp.com> wrote: > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> writes: > > > > > > > On Feb 23, 11:01 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > >> On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:48:34 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" > >> <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote in > >> <news:b635eda9-c279-4467-91f7-041a0adef830(a)g23g2000vbl.googlegroups.com> > >> in > >> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > > >> > On Feb 23, 12:27 pm, Hatunen <hatu...(a)cox.net> wrote: > > >> [...] > > >> >> I've hear it commented that daylight time was invented by an > >> >> Amrican Indian who, finding his blanket too short to reach his > >> >> chin, cut off the lower end of the blanket and sewed it onto the > >> >> upper end. > > >> [...] > > >> > Is there a reason for attaching that story to a particular > >> > ethnicity? [...] > > >> Quite possibly accuracy in reporting. > > > So if it were told about "Ol' Uncle Tom," that would be "accuracy in > > reporting" too? > > If that's the way he heard it, sure. But since we know it's a tall tale, we know that it is not "true" or "reportage." What the story tells us is that the most recent teller has a low opinion of American Indians, Irishmen, or (in my hypothetical), African Americans. Garrison Keillor (in the annual "joke show") for a while told "blonde" jokes rather than "Polish" jokes, and then "Iowan" jokes. (I'm not sure whether "Ole and Lena" jokes are a different subgenre, but that makes them into self-mockery, which is about the least offensive possible.) |