Conference thebay::joyoflex

I call them parmenters.

    Verbs + Prepositions, e.g. go in, go on, go along or look after,
    look for, look at are known in the TELF and TESOL Business as 
    "phrasal verbs". They are the bane of many students studying English
    as a second language.
    
    Let me think about your other questions.
    
    Cheers,
    Mich�le

    "Bad apple" and "silver lining" are possibly examples of culturally
    based idioms. The silver lining idiom is from a song, I think, and the
    song is American--hence culturally based or oriented.
    
    Michele
    
    

    Re: .3
    
    I thought that the proverb "every cloud has a silver lining" came
    before the song "Look for the Silver Lining" (not to be confused with
    "Look for the Union Label").
    
Lew Lasher

    	"Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
    	Turn forth her silver lining on the night"?
    
    		John Milton.

    The Random House Webster's uses "phrasal verbs" and "idioms", but I
    agree that the concept "unit of English with whitespace" is useful.
    I suggest we call them "colonialisms".
    
    Ray

    It seems to me there are three things here. .-1 suggests `idiom' (eg
    bad apple) and `phrasal verb' (eg go in) for two of them, and that
    seems right to me.
    
    Tom's last two examples aren't so easy to define. The point is that
    someone who says `if there are no further questions' is usually packing
    up xir slides and/or moving to the door, or in some way giving an
    extra-linguistic cue that implies `That's all folks'. Similarly, the
    person saying `after you' is usually holding a door open, or waving
    another person into a conversation - again, giving an extra-linguistic
    cue that implies `I shall walk/talk/whatever when you've had your
    crack'.
    
    You can't, I'd say, ask for a linguistic term for a form of words that
    depends on an extra-linguistic cue - that is, it's just an incomplete
    form of words that depends on an extra-linguistic cue to complete its
    sense.
    
    But there are partial quotations that seem to bridge the gap between
    incomplete forms of words and idioms - eg `a rose by any other
    name...'. I'd call this a `partial quotation'. 
    
    Digression
    ==========
    
    There is something rather more insidious that happens to quotations -
    when a word or words is made to serve a different syntactic purpose
    from the original: horrible, most horrible is this `Now is the winter
    of our discontent', used as though there were a full-stop after
    discontent and as though `winter' were in apposition to `Now' (which is
    made into a pronoun, rather than the adverb in 
    	Now is the winter of our discontent 
    	Made glorious summer by this sun of York. 
    ) It was even worse when headline writers, then everyone, and now
    twentieth-century historians, hi-jacked a bit of the same quotation to
    call a period in Britain's recent industrial history `the winter of
    discontent' - thus putting another nail in the coffin of... Uh, where
    am I? What started me on this? Oh yes, Milton. Don't worry, I feel much
    better now.
    
    b 
    ps Re nails/coffins: yes, I know, that's the great richness of
    language etc. That sort of change is a fact. I just wish someone who
    had the option of not instigating such changes had chosen differently
    back when there _was_ a choice. This is the way the world will end, as
    the poet said, not with a wedge getting thicker and thicker but with a
    surfeit of thin ends (as he didn't). Digressed enough?

    G'day,
    
    
    Re -.1 Whilst respecting your more thorough knowledge of the English
    language, I should like to challenge you a little on your comments
    about 'if there are no more questions' and ' After you'
    
    
    The former is surely a phrase in an unfinished sentence and would
    normally be written followed by an elipsis?
    
    or, maybe, it is a rhetorical question?  
    
    
    The other I feel is likely to be an imperative 'After you!' with
    perhaps an implied 'I will go'.
    
    
    Just a discussion point...
    
    
    derek
    

    Re.-1
    
    I think we agree.
    
    �    or, maybe, it is a rhetorical question?  
    
    I think this is right, but I'd say the rhetorical question itself (the
    ...?) is implied by raised eyebrows or something like it. My note sort
    of implied that in each case there would be only one extra-linguistic
    cue, whereas there can be countless such cues.
    
    �    The other I feel is likely to be an imperative 'After you!' with
    �	 perhaps an implied 'I will go'.
    
    I think I agree here too, with maybe a bit of latitude for personal
    assertiveness. When I hold a door for someone, my `after you' maybe
    comes out more gentle-sounding than my intention (which, depending on
    circumstances, can be more like `you'd better keep moving and not waste
    my time'). I'd just not say `after you' was imperative, as it has no
    verb - although the verb might well be `go' in the implied part of
    `[Go, and I'll follow] after you'.
    
    b

    Well wordists, I'll have a lot more time to write that book on usage
    I've been working on. I have been laid off and am officially outta here
    as of Tuesday.
    

    	We'll miss you.
    
    	I still find the U.S. speed of laying off amazing. Some of the
    people here still had NOTES access via a gateway a year after they were
    laid off.

    Sorely.  Thanks for all the fun you've brought us here, Tom.  Be well.
    
    :-<
    

    Argh.  It's been fun, Tom, and we will indeed miss your wit and wisdom.

    Collateral damege: no more Desperado, at least not internally
    generated.
    
    Adieu, et bon chance.
    
    					andrew

	bonne

    Bye Tom - I sure will miss your "tidbits" in JOYOFLEX.  
    
    Make sure that you finish that book - and let me know the 
    Barnes&Noble reference when you're done :-)
    
    Good Luck,
    Chris.

    Unfortunately, the desperadoes who commit these crimes will
    remain to generate further internal damage.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    [email protected]