There is the "nurse's walk"...they walk with their arms folded and
hands clasping the opposite elbow. Since I'm married to a nurse, and
spent my business career in hospitals, I've been observing nurses for
decades.

My wife claims that there isn't any such thing, but it's uncanny how
many times you can tell that a woman's a nurse just by watching the
way she walks. And, I am talking about how she walks when she's not
in any sort of uniform.

On Apr 22, 8:46 pm, Robert Bannister <robb...@bigpond.com> wrote:

Clearly, it is not automatic in English. We have always had considerable
variation in the use of pronouns in various dialects, while now we have
the almost accepted use of "between you and I".


Name a dialect with "considerable variation."

"Between you and I" speakers have a different rule from you.

There's not much sign of Finnish, Estonian, Chantyal or Tibetan becoming
world languages, I wonder why?

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:30:29 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
athel_cb@yahoo.co.uk>: in sci.lang:

A long time before I could understand much Spanish I could recognize
within two or three words if a Spanish person appeared on TV in Chile,
long before the first word with a z in it appeared. Even now, though, I
don't immediately recognize an Argentinian accent, though most Chilean
people say they are completely obvious. My wife reckons she can
recognize Argentinians without hearing a word. Years ago we were in a
train in China and there was a group of obviously non-Chinese people at
the far end of the carriage, far out of earshot, and she said "they're
Argentinian". When I said "how can you possibly tell?" she said "they
move like Argentinians".

Not as unlikely as it seems. US body language for example (movements
of hands, eyes, head) is very typical and different from European body
language(s).

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he was
wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the codpiece effect.

[Deleted <uk.people.parents>]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[...]

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he was
wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the codpiece effect.

Codpieces are so gay!  Lots of them in San Francisco.

[Deleted <uk.people.parents>]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[...]

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he was
wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the codpiece effect.

Codpieces are so gay! Lots of them in San Francisco.

On Apr 24, 12:08 am, "Reinhold (Rey) Aman" <a...@sonic.net> wrote:
[Deleted <uk.people.parents>]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[...]

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he was
wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the codpiece effect.

Codpieces are so gay!  Lots of them in San Francisco.

Nice to know the homophobe stares at gay men's crotches.

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:13:22 +0200, Ruud Harmsen
realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote:

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:30:29 +0200: Athel Cornish-Bowden
athel_cb@yahoo.co.uk>: in sci.lang:

A long time before I could understand much Spanish I could recognize
within two or three words if a Spanish person appeared on TV in Chile,
long before the first word with a z in it appeared. Even now, though, I
don't immediately recognize an Argentinian accent, though most Chilean
people say they are completely obvious. My wife reckons she can
recognize Argentinians without hearing a word. Years ago we were in a
train in China and there was a group of obviously non-Chinese people at
the far end of the carriage, far out of earshot, and she said "they're
Argentinian". When I said "how can you possibly tell?" she said "they
move like Argentinians".

Not as unlikely as it seems. US body language for example (movements
of hands, eyes, head) is very typical and different from European body
language(s).

For those who doubt this, I would refer you to our (USA) dearly
beloved president who affects a particular style of Texan "macho
walk".

Reinhold (Rey) Aman wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[...]

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he
was wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the
codpiece effect.

Codpieces are so gay!  Lots of them in San Francisco.

Nice to know the homophobe stares at gay men's crotches.

[Deleted <uk.people.parents>]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

[...]

That particular occasion may have related to the cincture he was
wearing (a la bucking broncos in rodeos) to create the codpiece effect.

Codpieces are so gay! Lots of them in San Francisco.

~~~ Reinhold (Rey) Aman ~~~

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:42:28 +0000 in
8wDPj.4238$ko5.888@news-server.bigpond.net.au, John Atkinson wrote:

"Alec Kojaev" <AlecKojaev@excite.com> wrote...
James Silverton wrote:

Just an ignorant question; does Latvian hold the record for number
of
cases or are there languages with more?

Of those that I know of, Finnish has fifteen, Estonian fourteen.
There may be much more elaborate systems. A cursory glance at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammatical_cases> makes me
shudder.

Chantyal has 23 cases, which may well be the record. Interestingly,
the
other Bodic languages (including closely related Nar-Phu and Tamang)
have only about five or six. Classical Tibetan has seven.

John.

Hah! I see your 23 and raise you 42 (or 64, or even 126 by other
counts): Tsez (Dido) language, Northeast Caucasian family. Huge number
of
locatives for various positions and directions, plus eight syntactic
cases.

--
Alec Kojaev
St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56]

John wrote on Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:47:25 GMT:

JA> "Alec Kojaev" <AlecKoj...@excite.com> wrote in message
JA>news:pan.2008.04.23.18.01.56@excite.com...
JA> Neither Chantyal nor Dido are included in the sample of 24
JA> languages with 10 or more cases listed in the World Atlas
JA> of Linguistic Structures (Chap 49,http://wals.info/feature/49). But they have a nice
JA> map showing the distribution of case numbers across the
JA> world.

JA> Looks like a useful site nevertheless, with lots of
JA> different stuff of the kind that tends to come up here..
Quote:
JA> "WALS consists of 141 maps with accompanying texts on
JA> diverse features (such as vowel inventory size,
JA> noun-genitive order, passive constructions, and
JA> "hand"/"arm" polysemy)". Worth a browse!

A very interesting map indeed! I could not find Hindi but I
suppose it is similar to the indicated Urdu in construction even
if the alphabet is different.

Another question intrigues me. I wonder which languages are
most irregular, in other words, having a formal grammar but many
exceptions to it? I'm not talking about applying the grammar of
another language to a very different one.I suppose there must be
some languages for which a formal grammar has never been worked
out.

??>> Alec Kojaev
??>> St.Petersburg, Russia [30E18 59N56]

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not