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In lugnet.general, Jason J. Railton wrote:
>
> Okay, so technically, it's the 'Union' flag. A 'Jack' is the
> national penant hung at the rear of a ship, so it's only the
> 'Union Jack' when it's being flown by the Navy. It's like
> calling the parliament clock tower 'Big Ben'; it's the tower
> of Big Ben. Big Ben itself is the bell inside. But everyone
> calls it that, regardless. Tour guides explain it in depth,
> and ten seconds later everyone's saying "ooh yes, we just saw
> Big Ben". Do you have, like, X-ray vision then or something?
> And the 'Barbary Apes' on Gibraltar are macaques, a monkey
> species, not apes.
I suppose we can blame one of your countrymen for perpetuating that
misconception:
"There was an Old Man of the Cape,
Who possessed a large Barbary Ape;
Till the Ape, one dark night, set the house all alight,
Which burned that Old Man of the Cape."
(From The Complete Nonsense Books of Edward Lear, one of the all
time top picks on my kids' bedtime reading list)
> And Apple Pie is a German recipe, not American. And
> 'attendees' and 'standees' aren't proper words.
Neither is "irregardless", which Webster's calls a "substandard or
humorous redundancy" [1]-- but I see by the above that you are aware
of that. :-)
> And no one gives a ****, so why bother?... :-)
I almost didn't, but I could no longer restrain myself after I
read the Shakespeare quote in .castle by Dave!
But I will restrain myself from wondering aloud how the Jolly Roger
got its name.
Maggie C.
[1] I'd go down to the basement and check my OED, but it would probably
just say the word is a "substandard or humourous redundancy", so I'll
save myself the trip.
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