LINGUIST List 4.639

Thu 26 Aug 1993

Misc: Before, Man on, Linguists in Court

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Michael Kac, Re: 4.625 Qs: Before, Dictionary, Lexicon, Malinke
2. , Man on!
3. Randy Allen Harris, General interest: linguist in court

Message 1: Re: 4.625 Qs: Before, Dictionary, Lexicon, Malinke

In response to Michael Henderson's query regarding *before*: I seem to
remember using it in the way he describes younger speakers using it and
being corrected. So my guess would be that the newer usage has actually
been around for a while but that perhaps the prescriptive pressures on it
are lessening.

Michael Kac

Larry Trask has given me permission to post the following comment he
sent me about the use of "man" in sports. This was in response to a
posting I made a couple of weeks back about the warning cry "man on!"
used in both men's and women's soccer to warn a teammate of a
defensive attacker.

 >From: larrytcogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
 >Subject: Man on!
 >To: 00hfstahlkeBSUVC.bsu.edu

 >In cricket, there is a fielding position called "third man". This term
 >is faithfully preserved in women's cricket, and I understand that
 >women cricketers indignantly reject the suggested innovation
 >"third woman". One can hardly appeal to the heat of the moment
 >to explain this preference, and I would tentatively suggest that
 >the women's reaction derives from a feeling that tinkering with
 >the traditional and well-established terminology of the game
 >would imply that they were playing an inferior version of cricket.

 >Incidentally, I've no idea what the origin of `third man' is. There
 >is no "first man" or "second man", nor is there anything noticeably
 >thirdish about the position. Like "shortstop" in baseball, the
 >term appears to reflect some ancient and long-forgotten arrangement
 >of the fielders.

 >Larry Trask
 >University of Sussex

 ====================================================================

Herbert F. W. Stahlke (317) 285-1843
Associate Director (317) 285-1797 (fax)
University Computing Services 00hfstahlkevirgo.bsuvc.bsu.edu
Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306 00hfstahlkebsuvax1.bitnet

>From the 18 August _Globe and Mail_ (a Canadian newspaper):

LINGUIST TESTIFIES
Messages on a telephone line run by the Heritage Front are worded to incite
hatred of minorities, a linguist testified yesterday. The Federal Court of
Canada resumed a hearing in Toronto to determine whether Wolfgang Droege
and the Heritage Front should be cited for contempt of court for violating
an order to stop running telephone messages that subject groups of people
to hatred or contempt. Susan Ehrlich, associate professor of linguistics
at York University, explained her analysis of transcripts of several
messages that ran on the Front's phone hotline and said the construction of
the sentences and the context of their references makes them racist in this
society. The hearing resumes today.



Randy Allen Harris rahawatarts.uwaterloo.ca
Rhetoric and Professional Writing 519 885-1211, x5362
English, U of Waterloo FAX: 519 884-8995
Waterloo ON, CANADA, N2L 3G1