We've all read that thing about being able to read jumbled words: https://www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-letters-cambridge-typoglycaemia

But do they have to be in sentences so we see context?

Here are anagrams where the first and last letters are the same. Does this make them obvious to solve?

puottlsae

ilcebenirde

adtcbiae

Reply with some for me.

On 27/01/24 11:12, Vladimir Putin wrote:

> We've all read that thing about being able to read jumbled words:
> https://www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-letters-cambridge-typoglycaemia
>
> But do they have to be in sentences so we see context?

Yes -- see below.

> Here are anagrams where the first and last letters are the same.
> Does this make them obvious to solve?
>
> puottlsae
>
> ilcebenirde
>
> adtcbiae
>
> Reply with some for me.

Solving anagrams, without context, is a different skill.

We can read jumbled words in context because the context suggests just a
small set of possible words. Consider the following sentence.

"I couldn't XXX last night. I lay awake in YYY for ZZZ."

You can probably guess what XXX, YYY, and ZZZ are, even though I haven't
given you any of the letters. If I had given you the first and last
letters, that would have been an extra clue that would have limited the
possibilities even more.

Of course, native speakers will always do better than non-native
speakers on this sort of test. For languages that I read imperfectly,
the candidate words won't be right on the tip of my tongue.

(I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
that instinct.)

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sat, 27 Jan 2024 00:12:03 -0000, Birdbrain Macaw (aka "Vladimir Putin",
"Commander Kinsey", "James Wilkinson", "Steven Wanker","Bruce Farquar",
"Fred Johnson, etc.), the pathological resident idiot and attention whore
of all the uk ngs, blathered again:

<FLUSH the subnormal sociopathic trolling attention whore's latest
attention-baiting sick bullshit unread again>

--
damduck-egg@yahoo.co.uk about Birdbrain Macaw's (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL)
trolling:
"He is a well known attention seeking troll and every reply you
make feeds him.
Starts many threads most of which die quick as on the UK groups anyone
with sense Kill filed him ages ago which is why he now cross posts to
the US groups for a new audience.
This thread was unusual in that it derived and continued without him
to a large extent and his silly questioning is an attempt to get
noticed again."
MID: <be195d5jh0hktj054mvfu7ef9ap854mjdb@4ax.com>

--
ItsJoanNotJoann addressing Birdbrain Macaw's (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"You're an annoying troll and I'm done with you and your
stupidity."
MID: <e39a6a7f-9677-4e78-a866-0590fe5bbc38@googlegroups.com>

--
AndyW addressing Birdbrain:
"Troll or idiot?...
You have been presented with a viewpoint with information, reasoning,
historical cases, citations and references to back it up and wilfully
ignore all going back to your idea which has no supporting information."
MID: <KaToA.263621$g93.262397@fx10.am4>

--
Phil Lee adressing Birdbrain Macaw:
"You are too stupid to be wasting oxygen."
MID: <uv2u4clurscpat3g29l7aksbohsassufe2@4ax.com>

--
Phil Lee describing Birdbrain Macaw:
"I've never seen such misplaced pride in being a fucking moronic motorist."
MID: <j7fb6ct83igfd1g99rmu4gh9vf610ra3jk@4ax.com>

--
Tony944 addressing Birdbrain Macaw:
"I seen and heard many people but you are on top of list being first class
ass hole jerk. ...You fit under unconditional Idiot and should be put in
mental institution.
MID: <VLCdnYC5HK1Z4S3FnZ2dnUU7-dPNnZ2d@giganews.com>

--
Pelican to Birdbrain Macaw:
"Ok. I'm persuaded . You are an idiot."
MID: <obru31$nao$3@dont-email.me>

--
DerbyDad03 addressing Birdbrain Macaw (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"Frigging Idiot. Get the hell out of my thread."
MID: <4d907253-b3b9-40d4-be4d-b32d453937e0@googlegroups.com>

--
Kerr Mudd-John about Birdbrain Macaw (now "Commander Kinsey LOL):
"It's like arguing with a demented frog."
MID: <op.yy3c02cqmsr2db@dell3100.workgroup>

--
Mr Pounder Esquire about Birdbrain Macaw (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"the piss poor delivery boy with no hot running water, 11 cats and
several parrots living in his hovel."
MID: <odqtgc$iug$1@dont-email.me>

--
Rob Morley about Birdbrain:
"He's a perennial idiot"
MID: <20170519215057.56a1f1d4@Mars>

--
JoeyDee to Birdbrain
"I apologize for thinking you were a jerk. You're just someone with an IQ
lower than your age, and I accept that as a reason for your comments."
MID: <0001HW.1EE2D20300E7BECC700004A512CF@news.eternal-september.org>

--
Sam Plusnet about Birdbrain (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"He's just desperate to be noticed. Any attention will do, no matter how
negative it may be."
MID: <rOmdndd_O7u8iK7EnZ2dnUU78TGdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>

--
thekmanrocks@gmail.com asking Birdbrain:
"What, were you dropped on your head as a child?"
MID: <58ddfad5-d9a5-4031-b91f-1850245a6ed9@googlegroups.com>

--
Christie addressing endlessly driveling Birdbrain Macaw (now "Commander
Kinsey" LOL):
"What are you resurrecting that old post of mine for? It's from last
month some time. You're like a dog who's just dug up an old bone they
hid in the garden until they were ready to have another go at it."
MID: <59d8b0db.4113512@news.eternal-september.org>

--
Mr Pounder's fitting description of Birdbrain Macaw:
"You are a well known fool, a tosser, a pillock, a stupid unemployable
sponging failure who will always live alone and will die alone. You will not
be missed."
MID: <orree6$on2$1@dont-email.me>

--
Richard to pathetic wanker Hucker:
"You haven't bred?
Only useful thing you've done in your pathetic existence."
MID: <orvctf$l5m$1@gioia.aioe.org>

--
clare@snyder.on.ca about Birdbrain (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
""not the sharpest knife in the drawer"'s parents sure made a serious
mistake having him born alive -- A total waste of oxygen, food, space,
and bandwidth."
MID: <s5e9uclqpnabtehehg3d792tmll73se0g8@4ax.com>

--
Mr Pounder exposing sociopathic Birdbrain:
"You will always be a lonely sociopath living in a shithole with no hot
running water with loads of stinking cats and a few parrots."
MID: <os5m1i$8m1$1@dont-email.me>

--
francis about Birdbrain (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"He seems to have a reputation as someone of limited intelligence"
MID: <cf06cdd9-8bb8-469c-800a-0dfa4c2f9ffa@googlegroups.com>

--
Peter Moylan about Birdbrain (now "Commander Kinsey" LOL):
"If people like JWS didn't exist, we would have to find some other way to
explain the concept of "invincible ignorance"."
MID: <otofc8$tbg$2@dont-email.me>

--
Lewis about nym-shifting Birdbrain:
"Typical narcissist troll, thinks his shit is so grand he has the right to
try to force it on everyone
MID: <slrnq16c27.1h4g.g.kreme@jaka.local>

On Sat, 27 Jan 2024 12:01:06 +1100, Peter Moylan, the brain dead,
troll-feeding, senile ASSHOLE, blathered:

> Solving anagrams, without context, is a different skill.

Detecting a notorious, attention-starved wanker and troll is obviously not
among the skills of you troll-feeding senile assholes (as long as your
feeding of the troll allows you to spend your senile time by smartassing and
babbling senilely). <BG>

On Sat, 27 Jan 2024 01:01:06 -0000, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> On 27/01/24 11:12, Vladimir Putin wrote:
>
>> We've all read that thing about being able to read jumbled words:
>> https://www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-letters-cambridge-typoglycaemia
>>
>> But do they have to be in sentences so we see context?
>
> Yes -- see below.
>
>> Here are anagrams where the first and last letters are the same.
>> Does this make them obvious to solve?
>>
>> puottlsae
>>
>> ilcebenirde
>>
>> adtcbiae
>>
>> Reply with some for me.
>
> Solving anagrams, without context, is a different skill.
>
> We can read jumbled words in context because the context suggests just a
> small set of possible words. Consider the following sentence.
>
> "I couldn't XXX last night. I lay awake in YYY for ZZZ."

I couldn't fuck last night. I lay awake in wait for her.

> You can probably guess what XXX, YYY, and ZZZ are, even though I haven't
> given you any of the letters. If I had given you the first and last
> letters, that would have been an extra clue that would have limited the
> possibilities even more.
>
> Of course, native speakers will always do better than non-native
> speakers on this sort of test. For languages that I read imperfectly,
> the candidate words won't be right on the tip of my tongue.
>
> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
> that instinct.)

On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
> that instinct.)

Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
same as the other two put together.

Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?

Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
"l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".

I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
you'll be told that you're already in the USA.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?

No.

> If you go to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
> that you are already in Spain.

In modern times we don't speak of Denmark+Greenland+Faroe Islands as one
kingdom. We call it "Rigsfællesskabet" - the Community of Empires.
("Empire" may be too grand a word, but I know no better word. In German
it's "Reich").

When I was a child, I think it would have been different, but I don't
recall any specific case.

Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands have acquired homerule, which means
that only foreign politics is decided by Folketinget (our parliament). A
small majority of Greenlanders want to keep it that way, but many others
want to break completely free. I do not know how the Faeroese status is
in this regard.

By the way: Greenland and the Faeroese Islands both have two members in
Folketinget.

If I were to travel to Greenland, I of course would just say "Jeg skal
til Grønland", but I wouldn't think of it as a part of Denmark - only as
a connected region. I definitely wouldn't say that I was going to a
foreign country.

--
Bertel, Denmark

On 29/03/24 21:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>
>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
>> sentence and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A
>> native speaker would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit
>> in that sentence, regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a
>> learner I don't have that instinct.)
>
> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
> Orkney in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population
> about the same as the other two put together.
>
> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?

This goes beyond the amount of Irish I've already learnt. (My recent
lessons have introduced so many new words that I can hardly remember any
of them. I might have to repeat those lessons.) Anyway, my Irish
dictionary says that "inis" means "island", with plural insí. (A rare
case of a more-or-less regular plural.) And that "Orc" means the
Orkneys, so that Insí Orc is also modern Irish. The English spelling
strongly hints at an Old Irish name Orcnaibh or possibly Orcnaigh, but
Google tells me it actually comes from Orkneyjar, which I guess is Old
Norse. And that it means Seal Islands, which if true demolishes the pig
theory.

I can make a pretty good guess at the pronunciation of Arcaibh, even
though it's not an Irish word. Not a hundred miles distant from English
"archive", except that the Gaelic pronunciation would have first
syllable stress and a short "i", and a slender "bh" sounds more like
bilabial "w" than "v".

Your mention of a prepositional case ending gave me the shudders. The
Irish language is full of inflected prepositions, which means you have
to learn eight forms of each preposition. (Infinitive, first and second
person singular, third person masculine and feminine, and first, second,
and third person plural.) So, for example. I've had to learn that "orm"
is the first person singular form of "ar", and "liom" is the first
person singular of "le". For most of these I've learnt only the first
and second person singular, leaving the rest for more advanced lessons,
although it looks as if the first person plural ... oops, I've just
looked up "le" in the dictionary, and the plural forms can't be guessed
if you know the singular ones. The sad fact is that they're all irregular.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
me@yahoo.com says...
>
> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
> >
> > (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
> > and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
> > would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
> > regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
> > that instinct.)
>
> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> same as the other two put together.
>
> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>
> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>
> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.

In Shetland, they refer to their largest island as The
Mainland.

Janet

On 2024-03-29 11:33:02 +0000, Bertel Lund Hansen said:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
>
> No.
>
>> If you go to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>> that you are already in Spain.
>
> In modern times we don't speak of Denmark+Greenland+Faroe Islands as one
> kingdom. We call it "Rigsfællesskabet" - the Community of Empires.
> ("Empire" may be too grand a word, but I know no better word. In German
> it's "Reich").
>
> When I was a child, I think it would have been different, but I don't
> recall any specific case.
>
> Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands have acquired homerule, which means
> that only foreign politics is decided by Folketinget (our parliament). A
> small majority of Greenlanders want to keep it that way, but many others
> want to break completely free.

What did they think of Trump's wish to buy them?

> I do not know how the Faeroese status is
> in this regard.
>
> By the way: Greenland and the Faeroese Islands both have two members in
> Folketinget.
>
> If I were to travel to Greenland, I of course would just say "Jeg skal
> til Grønland", but I wouldn't think of it as a part of Denmark - only as
> a connected region. I definitely wouldn't say that I was going to a
> foreign country.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On 2024-03-29 11:41:30 +0000, Peter Moylan said:

> On 29/03/24 21:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>
>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
>>> sentence and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A
>>> native speaker would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit
>>> in that sentence, regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a
>>> learner I don't have that instinct.)
>>
>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
>> Orkney in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population
>> about the same as the other two put together.
>>
>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>
> This goes beyond the amount of Irish I've already learnt. (My recent
> lessons have introduced so many new words that I can hardly remember any
> of them. I might have to repeat those lessons.) Anyway, my Irish
> dictionary says that "inis" means "island", with plural insí. (A rare
> case of a more-or-less regular plural.) And that "Orc" means the
> Orkneys, so that Insí Orc is also modern Irish. The English spelling
> strongly hints at an Old Irish name Orcnaibh or possibly Orcnaigh, but
> Google tells me it actually comes from Orkneyjar, which I guess is Old
> Norse. And that it means Seal Islands, which if true demolishes the pig
> theory.
>
> I can make a pretty good guess at the pronunciation of Arcaibh, even
> though it's not an Irish word. Not a hundred miles distant from English
> "archive", except that the Gaelic pronunciation would have first
> syllable stress and a short "i", and a slender "bh" sounds more like
> bilabial "w" than "v".
>
> Your mention of a prepositional case ending gave me the shudders. The
> Irish language is full of inflected prepositions, which means you have
> to learn eight forms of each preposition. (Infinitive, first and second
> person singular, third person masculine and feminine, and first, second,
> and third person plural.) So, for example. I've had to learn that "orm"
> is the first person singular form of "ar", and "liom" is the first
> person singular of "le". For most of these I've learnt only the first
> and second person singular, leaving the rest for more advanced lessons,
> although it looks as if the first person plural ... oops, I've just
> looked up "le" in the dictionary, and the plural forms can't be guessed
> if you know the singular ones. The sad fact is that they're all irregular.

Maybe that's a Celtic thing. In many respects Welsh is quite regular,
but not for forming the plurals of nouns. I was never able to discern
any rules.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?

> No.

>> If you go to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>> that you are already in Spain.

> In modern times we don't speak of Denmark+Greenland+Faroe Islands as one
> kingdom. We call it "Rigsfællesskabet" - the Community of Empires.
> ("Empire" may be too grand a word, but I know no better word. In German
> it's "Reich").
...

Realm?

--
Jerry Friedman

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

>> Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands have acquired homerule, which means
>> that only foreign politics is decided by Folketinget (our parliament). A
>> small majority of Greenlanders want to keep it that way, but many others
>> want to break completely free.
>
> What did they think of Trump's wish to buy them?

I don't think that I have heard reactions except from people here, but I
would be surprised if they didn't shake their heads or burst out
laughing.

I just found an article on the web. The headline is (translated):

The leader of Greenland looks back on Trump's offer:
"It was an insult."

The article is here in Danish:

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/groenlands-leder-ser-tilbage-paa-trumps-tilbud-det-var-en-fornaermelse

--
Bertel, Denmark

jerryfriedman wrote:

>> In modern times we don't speak of Denmark+Greenland+Faroe Islands as one
>> kingdom. We call it "Rigsfællesskabet" - the Community of Empires.
>> ("Empire" may be too grand a word, but I know no better word. In German
>> it's "Reich").
> ..
>
> Realm?

On second thought I think that "region" suffices.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
...

> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> same as the other two put together.
...

> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
...

For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".

--
Jerry Friedman

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> jerryfriedman wrote:

>>> In modern times we don't speak of Denmark+Greenland+Faroe Islands as one
>>> kingdom. We call it "Rigsfællesskabet" - the Community of Empires.
>>> ("Empire" may be too grand a word, but I know no better word. In German
>>> it's "Reich").
>> ..
>>
>> Realm?

> On second thought I think that "region" suffices.

"The Danish term /rigsfællesskabet/, translated as "The unity of the
Realm",[18] the "commonwealth of the Realm",[26][27] or the "Danish
Commonwealth"[28] refers to the constitutional status of the
relationship between Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.[29]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Realm#Naming

The references are to Danish sources and one Nordic source.

--
Jerry Friedman

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>
>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>> that instinct.)

> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> same as the other two put together.
...

> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".

> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.

I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.

And what if you asked "How far is it to Britain?" or "How far
is it to the UK?" in Northern Ireland, Man, Jersey, Gibraltar,
the Falklands, etc.? Would the two questions get the same
answer? Would the answer depend on who you asked?

--
Jerry Friedman

jerryfriedman wrote:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
> > I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe
> > Hawaii. If you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away
> > the USA is I expect you'll be told that you're already in
> > the USA.
>
> I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
> you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
> Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.
>
> And what if you asked "How far is it to Britain?" or "How far
> is it to the UK?" in Northern Ireland, Man, Jersey, Gibraltar,
> the Falklands, etc.? Would the two questions get the same
> answer? Would the answer depend on who you asked?

Jersey, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and the Falkland Islands are
not part of the UK, so anybody in those places saying that they
were already in the UK would be wrong!

In article <xn0ojwkd63lfruu002@news.eternal-september.org>,
Blueshirt <blueshirt@indigo.news> wrote:
> jerryfriedman wrote:

> > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >
> > > I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe
> > > Hawaii. If you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away
> > > the USA is I expect you'll be told that you're already in
> > > the USA.
> >
> > I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
> > you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
> > Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.
> >
> > And what if you asked "How far is it to Britain?" or "How far
> > is it to the UK?" in Northern Ireland, Man, Jersey, Gibraltar,
> > the Falklands, etc.? Would the two questions get the same
> > answer? Would the answer depend on who you asked?

> Jersey, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and the Falkland Islands are
> not part of the UK, so anybody in those places saying that they
> were already in the UK would be wrong!

But they might point in different directions

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 2024-03-29 15:55:27 +0000, jerryfriedman said:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> ..
>
>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>> same as the other two put together.
> ..
>
>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
> ..
>
> For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
> paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".

Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.

I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
island?"

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
>In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>me@yahoo.com says...
>>
>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>> >
>> > (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
>> > and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>> > would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>> > regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>> > that instinct.)
>>
>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>> same as the other two put together.
>>
>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>>
>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>>
>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>
> In Shetland, they refer to their largest island as The
>Mainland.
>
In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I believe
the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the Cherbourg
peninsular, "the mainland" is England.
--
Paul W

In article <l6od0sF7ergU1@mid.individual.net>, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 2024-03-29 15:55:27 +0000, jerryfriedman said:

> > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote: ..
> >
> >> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> >> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> >> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
> >> Orkney in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population
> >> about the same as the other two put together.
> > ..
> >
> >> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> >> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
> > ..
> >
> > For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first paragraph,
> > and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".

> Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
> though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.

> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
> island?"

Does Ile de la Cité count?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
>> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>> me@yahoo.com says...
>>>
>>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>>
>>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
>>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>>>> that instinct.)
>>>
>>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>>> same as the other two put together.
>>>
>>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>>>
>>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
>>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
>>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>>>
>>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>>
>> In Shetland, they refer to their largest island as The
>> Mainland.
>>
> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I believe
> the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the Cherbourg
> peninsular,

Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains all
the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen at
random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places where
the sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.

Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person I've
ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically belong to
France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as far from
Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France (1131 km).
Maybe people in Normandy think differently.

> "the mainland" is England.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On 29-Mar-24 18:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:
>
>> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
>>> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>>> me@yahoo.com says...
>>>>
>>>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>>>
>>>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
>>>>> sentence
>>>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>>>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>>>>> that instinct.)
>>>>
>>>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>>>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>>>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>>>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>>>> same as the other two put together.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>>>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>>>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>>>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>>>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>>>>
>>>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>>>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
>>>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>>>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
>>>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>>>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>>>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>>>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>>>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>>>>
>>>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>>>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>>>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>>>
>>> In Shetland, they refer to their largest  island as The
>>> Mainland.
>>>
>> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I
>> believe the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the
>> Cherbourg peninsular,
>
> Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains all
> the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen at
> random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places where the
> sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.
>
> Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person I've
> ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically belong to
> France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as far from
> Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France (1131 km). Maybe
> people in Normandy think differently.
>

On the other hand, the architecture on the Channel islands tends more
towards Germany than France.

--
Sam Plusnet

On 29-Mar-24 16:05, jerryfriedman wrote:
> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>
>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>>> that instinct.)
>
>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
>> Orkney in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population
>> about the same as the other two put together.
> ..
>
>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>
>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>
> I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
> you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
> Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.
>
> And what if you asked "How far is it to Britain?" or "How far
> is it to the UK?" in Northern Ireland, Man, Jersey, Gibraltar,
> the Falklands, etc.?  Would the two questions get the same
> answer?  Would the answer depend on who you asked?
>
Whenever I ask for directions, the answer is always:
"I don't know. I'm a stranger here."

--
Sam Plusnet