LINGUIST List 2.493

Tue 10 Sep 1991

Disc: Just In case, and the Curate

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Directory

1. Steve Harlow, RE: Queries /2-472
2. "(eve Harlow, Re: Queries /2-472
3. Scott Delancey, Re: 2.482 Just in case
4. Lars Henrik Mathiesen, just in case
5. Tom Lai, "just in case"

"Curate's eggy" = "good in parts" It comes from a 19th century Punch cartoon
depicting a curate being entertained to breakfast by his superior and dealing
with a rotten egg. In response to his host's inquiry "How is your egg?", he
replies "Good in parts". This has given rise to various locutions of the form
"Like the curate's egg".
Steve Harlow
sjh1vaxa.york.ac.uk

An answer for Paul Chapin:
Look up _curate_ in the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary
(or in the second ed. of the Dictionary, presumably). Makes me feel
excessively English to have to refer you to (a) OED, (b) old cartoons in
Punch, (c) ecclesiastical patronage, but there you go.
 David D

Message 3: Re: 2.482 Just in case

Comment on the postings by EDMONSONWH:
1) What in Heaven's name (informally I could say it much more
rudely ...) does 'at the weekend' mean? Whatever it is, it's not
familiar out here in the American wilderness.
2) You're surely on the right track in suggesting that untameable
metaphor is having its way in all this. The distinction that a couple
of respondents have reported for on vs. in x's view is, from a
metaphorical point of view, perfectly natural. If I say *in* X's
view, I am adopting a viewpoint close to X's, and the content
which I ascribe to the view should be content that I assume X
will feel comfortable with. In contrast, if I say *on*, I am
looking at the view from outside, so to speak--the view is there,
and I am suggesting further edifices which can be constructed
with it as a base; but it is entirely possible that someone happily
ensconced within the view might not be aware of the affordances
that it seems to provide to an external observer.
Scott DeLancey
University of Oregon

What I find most remarkable in this is that philosophers (or whoever)
choose an expression that has an idiomatic meaning very different from
the one they intend, when there are a lot of similar expressions that
have no idiomatic baggage to contend with.
I am not a native speaker of English, but wouldn't any of the
following phrases be understood by lay and learned alike to mean "if
and only if" --- "just in the case", "exactly in case", "precisely
when", or even "just if"?

I have reservation about the use of "just in case" in the sense of
"iff" by famous English-speaking logicians (and mathematicians) as
reported by Dana Scott as first-hand experience. I am not a native
speaker of English, but I did receive my mathematics training in this
language. (Isn't English an international academic language?) My
experience has been that I have never used "just in case" in this
sense. I say this with due regard for Russell and Quine (and others).
Tom Lai (Hong Kong)