Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 15:37:43 -0500 From: Mathew KANNER <mat@cs.mcgill.ca> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Laugh: [Fwd: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-008] Message-ID: <20010209153743.D18596@cs.mcgill.ca> In-Reply-To: Greg Lehey's message [Re: Laugh: [Fwd: Microsoft Security Bulletin MS01-008]] as of Fri, Feb 09, 2001 at 02:31:21PM %2B1030 References: <xzpzofxffa2.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <3A81DDC9.EF6D7D84@originative.co.uk> <3.0.6.32.20010207223155.009d42a0@mail85.pair.com> <20010208110159.E2429@lpt.ens.fr> <xzpzofxffa2.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <20010208150641.A15166@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010208193726.04763b10@localhost> <20010209143121.J16260@wantadilla.lemis.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Feb 08, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Thursday, 8 February 2001 at 19:39:21 -0700, Brett Glass wrote: > > At 07:06 AM 2/8/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > >> And I learned of this amusing situation in French: the plural pronoun, > >> unlike in English, is gender-biased; it's "elles" only when the gender > >> of all parties is feminine, otherwise (for all-masculine or mixed) > >> it's "ils". > > > > Ah, but at least they have the unisex pronoun "on." > > "on" is masculine. Yes, it's used to represent females as well. But > that's what we did in English too, until Political Correctness got the > better of grammar. Really? I have a vague memory of being taught that it was used when the speaker is referring to a group of people, which he is a member of -- no inference on the makeup of the group nor speaker can be made, Much like "we" in English. On a un-related note, when I was growing up, I bounced between fracophone and anglophone schools, as a result, I don't really know any language well. Can anyone suggest a good "English grammar for programmers" type book? --Mat > > Greg > -- > Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key > See complete headers for address and phone numbers -- Mathew Kanner <mat@CS.McGill.CA> Sys Admin at large Obtuse quote: He [not me] understands: "This field of perception is void of perception of man." -- The Quintessence of Buddhism To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010209153743.D18596>