Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Regardless of the mode of transportation, a "shipment" may be either
    the _procedure_ involved or the actual material being delivered.
    _Cargo_ is "the freight carried by a ship, airplane, or other
    vehicle."
    
    I think the use of either term is probably a matter of local usage
    and may even vary within the trade. 

    	Why is a finished structure called "a building" instead
    of "a built"?
    
    -mike

Well, a shipment consisting of a canoe being carried over land is called
a "portage".

How come you chop trees down and then you chop them up ?

Are those olives pitted ?  Or have they been depitted ?

Loosen your shoelace.  Good!  Now unloosen it.

This sentence is not unreasonably long, as far as sentences go, but
that doesn't make it reasonably long.  Or does it ?

You drive your car on the parkway, and you park it in the driveway.
(In the USA, that is.  In UK, you park in carpark and drive on ???)

Then there's the word coed.  That could mean a female, or it could mean
males and females.

Yes, 'tis a strange language indeed !

/Eric

    Re: .4: I'm mystified by the common American useage of this word.
    Co-education means the two sexes being educated together.  A coed
    school is the opposite of a single-sex school.
    
    Jeff.

    Re: -.1
    
    Back in the days when co-educational schools were a novelty, it
    was usually a case of a previously all male school opening its
    doors to females.  The term "coed" was used to refer either to the
    school itself or to a female attending such a school.  I believe it 
    has since evolved to mean any female college student.  

    It depends. A male student attending a formerly all-female school is a
    co�d. 
    
    	Jon

    I agree with Jeff (.5).  It would seem to make sense that a co�d
    is any college student attending a co-educational school.  As described
    in .6, it sounds a teensy bit sexist.
    
    spd

    re -1: � As described in .6, it sounds a teensy bit sexist. 
              
    It *is* sexist!  The term should refer to any student attending
    a co-educational school, but it's used exclusively to indicate
    female college students attending co-educational schools.
             
    Oh well, C'est la gare!   {;-)  (Smiley face wearing a beret - 
                                     obviously French)                     
                                     
    					andrew

    Re - a few: you don't need to agree with me, though it's nice to
    have it [now *there's* a sentence to parse: what does 'it' refer
    to? :-)].  I was just pointing out the different British and American
    understanding of the word "coed".
    
    By the way, which gare was that - Gare du nord? Gare de Lyon? :->
    
    Jeff.
    
    PS: like the '�'

    The gare they turned into a museum...  Don't remember its name.
    
    					andrew

    	Maybe it's the result of a different history. In England, the
    sort of school that I attended was fairly common. It was founded
    about 400 years ago, and the boys' part and the girls' part were
    at opposite ends of the town.
    
    	Then, in the '50s and '60s they got the idea that it might be
    safe to allow girls and boys in the same building, and also built
    a lot of new schools. So it was never a case of one sex *joining*
    the other - the "coed" schools were mostly new.

    If you run out of cereal - can you run back into it again?
    
    Is a tablespoon to eat a table with?
    
    (I'm not sure if this one was mentioned - but)
    
    Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
    
    -Jody
    

  Re: .9, .11
  
  It's c'est la guerre, not gare.  I know from personal experience.  When
  I was in Geneva, I asked for directions to the nearest train station.
  I asked for guerre, not gare.  Boy, did I get a funny look!
  
  
  Back to the topic, does anyone know the true function of a caboose?
  A train in training, of course!
  
  
  							Terza
  

    Re .14

    > It's c'est la guerre, not gare.
    
    That was the whole point of my little joke.

    And here I thought that it was the whole point of Andrew's little joke. 

    	Jon

    A new art museum openly recently in Paris -- it's a beautiful
    building that used to be a train station.  Unfortunately, I've
    forgotten its name. 
     
    Obviously smiley faces aren't enough -- what's the symbol
    for "tongue firmly planted in cheek?"  How about -}  ??

         
    					andrew

    Re .18:
    
    >Obviously smiley faces aren't enough -- what's the symbol
    for "tongue firmly planted in cheek?"

    Usually, it's :-P
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re .18
    
    La Gare de la Bastille is now a modern art museum.
    	
    	roger
    

    re .18
    
    But the Musee d'Orsay is the latest railway/railroad station to
    become a modern art museum in Paris.
    

    Musee d'Orsay -- that's it!  Thanks!
    
    					andrew

    For a long time I thought an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
    meant the manufacturer who built the equipment.
    
    Masamichi

    re: .23 - and you were right!  The translation "Other Equip. Mfg."
    may make more sense, but the term refered to customers who were
    neither retail nor wholesale but "original".
    
    rmm
    

    
    If I "give" my word to someone, how can I be expected to "keep"
    my word at a later date ?
    
    --mva
    

    The "give" my word and "keep" my word thing reminds me of another,
    but cruder example:
    
    From my elementary school days I heard kids talking about "taking
    a crap".
    
    This always sounded strange to me.  Personally, I've never had such
    a desire, and without exception "give" such things.
    
    /Eric

        Eric, I thought the phrase was "you don't give a _S$%T_".
                                                  ^^^^
        But then I've heard you can take one too.

    Well, this seemed to fit under this title as well as anywhere (I
    was loath to start yet another new note :-) )
    
    Why did I find this statement (from a MAIL message) odd?
    
    > N.B. U.K. reverts to BST this week-end i.e. the clocks go forward
    > one hour.
    
    Jeff.

    Superficial oddness: `revert' suggests going back - apparent clash
    with `go forward'.
    
    Meaning-related oddness: the expression `reverts to BST' suggests that
    BST is the `default' time standard - but the S stands for `Summer'.
    Maybe whoever wrote the MAIL thought that on the analogy of EST the `S'
    stood for `Standard'; so after months of `non-standard' time keeping
    on the old fuddy-duddy GMT, we would `revert' to BST.
    
    b