Reporters saying "TARMAC" how stupid!!

[CASK829]

Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"? Nobody in the aviation
world uses that term do they? But then again reporters usually know abolutely
nothing about aviation. What inspired this rant? The recent reporting on the
US Airways baggage situation and the Northwest airlines flight that kept the
passengers on the airplane for 14 hours. On another note did Northwest lose a
lawsuit awhile back for keeping people on an airplane while they sat on the
ground for a very long time. If I remember correctly there was talk of false
imprisonment charges against the airline.

[Gary Drescher]

"CASK829" > wrote in message
...
> Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"? Nobody in the
> aviation
> world uses that term do they?

Dunno, but it's a perfectly good English word (in lower case--it's not an
acronym), so why shouldn't reporters use it?

--Gary

[Bob Gardner]

It bugs me, too. Most ramps are concrete, not tar-macadam, but the newsies
think that saying tarmac makes them sound knowledgeable.

Bob Gardner

"Gary Drescher" > wrote in message
...
> "CASK829" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"? Nobody in the
>> aviation
>> world uses that term do they?
>
> Dunno, but it's a perfectly good English word (in lower case--it's not an
> acronym), so why shouldn't reporters use it?
>
> --Gary
>
>

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"CASK829" > wrote in message
...
>
> Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"? Nobody in the
> aviation
> world uses that term do they?
>

Not that I'm aware of, but there's nothing wrong with the word "tarmac".


>
> But then again reporters usually know abolutely nothing about aviation.
>

I've noticed reporters frequently have little knowledge of their subject
regardless what it is.


>
> What inspired this rant? The recent reporting on the
> US Airways baggage situation and the Northwest airlines flight that kept
> the
> passengers on the airplane for 14 hours. On another note did Northwest
> lose a
> lawsuit awhile back for keeping people on an airplane while they sat on
> the
> ground for a very long time. If I remember correctly there was talk of
> false
> imprisonment charges against the airline.
>

Wasn't it US Customs that kept them on the plane in this recent incident?

[[email protected]]

"tarmacadam"

That's a new one to me. What is it a type of material? I aways
wondered why it was called a "tarmac", but I must say it doesn't bother
me that reporters use the term. I'm a pilot and and I thougt "tarmac"
was a perfectly acceptable term...so I guess I can't expect any better
from them. I usually refer to it as the "ramp", or is it even the same
thing? I don't remember these terms from my checkride and it sure as
hell has never been a subject of conversation at my airport...I don't
know about you fellas....

[Jose]

> It bugs me, too. Most ramps are concrete, not tar-macadam, but the newsies
> think that saying tarmac makes them sound knowledgeable.

It bugs me not. English evolves through usage, and this usage is
reasonable. Tarmac (short for tarmacadam) is actually a trade name
for the substance; it (the word)is formed from "tar" and "macadam".
Macadam (the paving substance made of crushed stone and a binder,
usually tar) is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam, a Scottish
engineer.

Soon, places paved with tarmac started to be called "tarmac", and
since this began to especially be applied to areas around hangars,
those areas themselves were often called "tarmac" irrespective of what
they were paved with. (I don't know why (or even if) tarmac was the
pavement of choice). It's actually a good word - it fills a niche.

Are you equally bugged by people calling the place where planes are
parked "the ramp" when it's not sloped and doesn't connect a higher
place with a lower place (except in the sense of nothing being
perfectly flat)? Or calling clusters of well known thin vertical
hazards "antenna farms" when nothing is grown or harvested there?

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> Are you equally bugged by people calling the place where planes are parked
> "the ramp" when it's not sloped and doesn't connect a higher place with a
> lower place (except in the sense of nothing being perfectly flat)? Or
> calling clusters of well known thin vertical hazards "antenna farms" when
> nothing is grown or harvested there?

Let's not forget the flaps -- that don't.

And the throttle -- that doesn't.

Or "taxiing" and "Fixed Base Operator," for that matter. These are terms
that simply aren't logical, yet we use them all the time.

English often doesn't make much sense, except in context.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Peter Duniho]

"Jose" > wrote in message
m...
> [...] Or calling clusters of well known thin vertical hazards "antenna
> farms" when nothing is grown or harvested there?

Huh? Are you saying that those huge steel structures weren't planted as
tiny seeds and nurtured carefully until they reached full height? I'll bet
that, eventually, they will even be harvested. :)

(And some ramps are more ramp-like than others :) )

[Dave Stadt]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> "tarmacadam"
>
> That's a new one to me. What is it a type of material?

AKA asphalt.

[[email protected]]

Don't forget that you're driving on a parkway and parking on a
driveway...I usually don't think one is stupid for using these terms...

[Stefan]

Jose wrote:

> Tarmac (short for tarmacadam) is actually a trade name for
> the substance; it (the word)is formed from "tar" and "macadam". Macadam
> (the paving substance made of crushed stone and a binder, usually tar)
> is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam, a Scottish engineer.

Macadam is just the gravel, without any binder. John L. McAdam was the
first who built roads using several layers of gravel, without any
binder, each layer being pounded before the next layer was applied. This
method was new. The resulting surface was called macadam.

Tar-macadam most probably was the same thing with a binder, originally
tar, as I would assume.

Stefan

[[email protected]]

What do they use now? Sure smells like tar.

[ShawnD2112]

Now that's funny. Those of us in both the aviation and the civil
engineering fields use the term all the time.

Try a rant about something else?

Shawn
"CASK829" > wrote in message
...
> Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"? Nobody in the
> aviation
> world uses that term do they? But then again reporters usually know
> abolutely
> nothing about aviation. What inspired this rant? The recent reporting on
> the
> US Airways baggage situation and the Northwest airlines flight that kept
> the
> passengers on the airplane for 14 hours. On another note did Northwest
> lose a
> lawsuit awhile back for keeping people on an airplane while they sat on
> the
> ground for a very long time. If I remember correctly there was talk of
> false
> imprisonment charges against the airline.

[Frank]

Jay Honeck wrote:

<snip>

> English often doesn't make much sense, except in context.

Don't get me started on "pre-boarding"....

--
Frank....H

[Larry Dighera]

On 05 Jan 2005 17:36:23 GMT, (CASK829) wrote in
>::

>Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"?

Perhaps it's because of this entry in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary:

Main Entry:tarmac
Pronunciation:*t*r-*mak
Function:noun
Etymology:from Tarmac, a trademark
Date:1919

: a tarmacadam road, apron, or runway

[Denny]

Not to bust anyone's bubble but HYX is getting a new ILS and in the
process just got a new ramp - made of <guess what> -Tarmac... We have
already found the limitations of Tarmac and it is helicopters plus
sunshine... Helicopter skids, leetle round tubing thingies, leave
nasty dents in Tarmac in the summer...

Denny

[[email protected]]

Bob,

I keep thinking of the terms in aviation that have evolved. In World
War I Max Immelman performed what we would call a chandelle, creating a
maneuver that was given his name. It was a maximum performance
maneuver for the Fokker Eindecker he flew and was most definitely not a
half loop and half roll, the airplane would not do it and none of those
who observed it described it as such. Looking at books on aerobatics
in the '20s, the Immelman is a steep climbing turn. Sometime in the
'30s it became a half loop and half roll and the original Immelman turn
became the chandelle. Despite the error, we've long since accepted the
misuse of the name and probably couldn't correct it if we tried. The
only problem is that Max is credited with doing a maneuver he could not
have done, nor would he have ever done in combat because of the radical
loss of speed and risk of stalling at the top.

Warmest regards,
Rick

[[email protected]]

Jay,

Don't you love aviation terms.

We're going to depart from "the terminal".

Before landing we're on our "final" approach.
Really inspires confidence, eh?

Warmest regards,
Rick

[[email protected]]

Jay,

Actually, Fixed Base Operator is an accurate term. It was coined to
describe the operators who stopped going from place to place to teach
flying or give rides. When they decided to stay at one airport, they
established a fixed base.

Then again, a fixed base operator could have had a certain surgerical
procedure... He wasn't broken, but we got him fixed and now he
doesn't work.

Warmest regards,
Rick

[george]

wrote:
> Jay,
>
> Don't you love aviation terms.
>
> We're going to depart from "the terminal".
>
> Before landing we're on our "final" approach.
> Really inspires confidence, eh?
>
and taxiways without cabs lined up.
an apron that wouldn't fit Paul Bunyan.
and its always been the tarmac for the last 40 years that I've been
using the term

[Jose]

> and taxiways without cabs lined up.

Actually, at Montauk Point, you =can= get a taxi on the taxiway. And
as far as I know, the throttle does and always has.

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Larry Dighera]

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:22:27 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >::

>Money: What you need when you run out of brains.

Expletives and Swearwords:
The last refuge for those who have run out of brains.

[Jose]

> Expletives and Swearwords:
> The last refuge for those who have run out of brains.

Uh... was there anything in any of my posts that used or suggested
swearwords or explitives? Or do you find this week's sig line offensive?

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[G.R. Patterson III]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> And the throttle -- that doesn't.

Uh ... what exactly do you think a throttle does?

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

[John Harlow]

> Don't get me started on "pre-boarding"....

....or "preflight planning".

[Larry Dighera]

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 20:42:02 GMT, Jose >
wrote in >::

>> Expletives and Swearwords:
>> The last refuge for those who have run out of brains.
>
>Uh... was there anything in any of my posts that used or suggested
>swearwords or explitives? Or do you find this week's sig line offensive?

Don't get defensive Joe;I meant nothing personal.

I was just offering a corollary to your witty sig.

[Jay Honeck]

> Actually, at Montauk Point, you =can= get a taxi on the taxiway. And as
> far as I know, the throttle does and always has.

Just to make it even more interesting, it's the choke that does the
throttling.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

>> And the throttle -- that doesn't.
>
> Uh ... what exactly do you think a throttle does?

To "throttle" means to choke.

Which, now that I look it up, is actually what the throttle *is* doing, in a
strange, counter-intuitive way.

I.E.: Early engines (such as in World War I planes) ran at full power -- or
they were off. The "throttle" was developed to actually retard power, even
though in modern usage we tend to think of it as the "accelerator"...

And here I always thought of the throttle as the "go" lever -- but it's
really the "stop" lever!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Stefan]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Which, now that I look it up, is actually what the throttle *is* doing, in a
> strange, counter-intuitive way.

If you look how a carburator is built, it's very intuitive and not
strange at all. (Of course, on a fuel injected engine, you're correct.)

Stefan

[Colin W Kingsbury]

FWIW, the only place I hear the word used anymore is in aviation- "the
tarmac" being used to refer to anything outside the FBO and not in the
parking lot. When I was younger I used to hear older folks refer to parking
lots and such being "macadam" but now the "asphalt" or the generic
"pavement" seem to be all people use in the common argot.

-cwk.

"Larry Dighera" > wrote in message
...
> On 05 Jan 2005 17:36:23 GMT, (CASK829) wrote in
> >::
>
> >Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"?
>
> Perhaps it's because of this entry in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate
> Dictionary:

[tscottme]

"Steven P. McNicoll" > wrote in message
nk.net...
>
> I've noticed reporters frequently have little knowledge of their subject
> regardless what it is.
>
>

That's the iron law of modern journalism.

--

Scott

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neill and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans
took down their own haughty Frenchman. - Ann Coulter

[tscottme]

"CASK829" > wrote in message
...
> Why is it that idiot reporters use the term "TARMAC"?


I worked my way through college working at various US airports, refueling
GA, and airlines. I never heard the word "tarmac" until some Brit used it
on TV and then it seemed like every Ted Baxter wannabe in the US picked up
the term to impress other Ted Baxter wannabes.

In the US the word should be "ramp." It seems to me that if the proper
terms are best defined by the people that are most directly related to the
use, then the word in the US should be "ramp."

Everytime I hear some idiot reporter in the US use the term I remember an
episode of the old Dick Van Dike Show. Rob and Laura have some reason to
call the police to investigate some matter at their home and when the police
officer shows up Rob is fumbling and trying to use "police lingo" to impress
the officer. As the cop leaves Rob declares "Mark 7", thinking that's how
cops sign off, not realizing that's just an artifact of the Dragnet TV show.

I fully expect to see some silly CBS reporter describing a lorry crash near
Denver or a shortage of water closets for new homes.



--

Scott

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neill and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans
took down their own haughty Frenchman. - Ann Coulter

[Gig Giacona]

"John Harlow" > wrote in message
...
>
>> Don't get me started on "pre-boarding"....
>
> ...or "preflight planning".
>

My fav... "Please stay in your seat until the aircraft has come to a full
and complete stop."

[John Harlow]

> In the US the word should be "ramp." It seems to me that if the
> proper terms are best defined by the people that are most directly
> related to the use, then the word in the US should be "ramp."

Considering the slope of most so-called "ramps" is nearly flat, I fail to
see how this is the correct term.

Perhaps it should be called the more logical "plane park".

It reminds me of the term The Simpsons has made popular for a garage: "car
hole".

[Gig Giacona]

"tscottme" > wrote in message
...
> "Steven P. McNicoll" > wrote in message
> nk.net...
>>
>> I've noticed reporters frequently have little knowledge of their subject
>> regardless what it is.
>>
>>
>
> That's the iron law of modern journalism.
>

THough I am ashamed to admit it I was once a reporter for a lo-cal TV
station. Our news director made it very clear one day after a young
reporter-ette used the term "War Zone" to describe the aftermath of a
tornado that if anyone used it again there had better be some pictures of
tanks and soldiers to go along with the story.

Slow fade to latter that very same day. There was one of those little
inserts the networks feed to the locals to insert in the 5 o'clock news
about upcoming stories the network will have that night. A network reporter
was describing the aftermath of some battle somewhere and acctually said,
"...It looks like a war zone here..." The news director who was also the
local anchor could not even begin to stop laughing before he was back on the
air.

[David CL Francis]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 at 09:59:54 in message
>, Bob Gardner >
wrote:

>It bugs me, too. Most ramps are concrete, not tar-macadam, but the newsies
>think that saying tarmac makes them sound knowledgeable.

I would have thought it was English 'oldies' like me who might say it in
all innocence. My dictionary is a bit old (1982) but says:

Tarmac. Trade name (often not cap.) a paving material that consists of
crushed stone rolled and bound with a mixture of tar and bitumen. esp.
as used for a road, airport runway, etc. Full Name Tarmacadam.

The Tarmac group is a construction company in the UK.

A Google search found the following:

"John Loudon McAdam (born 1756) designed roads using broken stones laid
in symmetrical, tight patterns and covered with small stones to create a
hard surface. McAdam discovered that the best stone or gravel for road
surfacing had to be broken or crushed, and then graded to a constant
size of chippings. John Loudon McAdam's design, called "macadam roads,"
provided the greatest advancement in road construction at the time.

The water bound Macadam roads were the forerunners of the bitumen-based
binding that was to become tarmacadam. The word tarmacadam was shortened
to the now familiar tarmac. The first tarmac road to be laid was in
Paris in 1854."

So it has a long history!


--
David CL Francis

[David CL Francis]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 at 18:32:01 in message
<yoWCd.620206$wV.185193@attbi_s54>, Jay Honeck
> wrote:

>And the throttle -- that doesn't.

Actually in its original form it does 'throttle' the air intake to the
engine thus reducing the flow and the power. It does require a bit more
that that though to get the mixture right!
--
David CL Francis

[Bob Noel]

In article <yoWCd.620206$wV.185193@attbi_s54>,
"Jay Honeck" > wrote:

> And the throttle -- that doesn't.

it doesn't? Mine sure seems to throttle the engine power

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Chris]

"David CL Francis" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 at 09:59:54 in message
> >, Bob Gardner >
> wrote:
>
>>It bugs me, too. Most ramps are concrete, not tar-macadam, but the newsies
>>think that saying tarmac makes them sound knowledgeable.
>
> I would have thought it was English 'oldies' like me who might say it in
> all innocence. My dictionary is a bit old (1982) but says:
>
> Tarmac. Trade name (often not cap.) a paving material that consists of
> crushed stone rolled and bound with a mixture of tar and bitumen. esp. as
> used for a road, airport runway, etc. Full Name Tarmacadam.
>
> The Tarmac group is a construction company in the UK.
>

Tarmac is used in the UK as a generic term for any form of asphalt surface
as in a tarmac drive, or a tarmac pavement (sidewalk in your language). Most
or our roads are made of asphalt and in the old days the major company doing
road building was called Tarmac. They had a proprietary brand of road
surfacing material also called Tarmac.

The way it has developed is similar to the way hoover has become synonymous
for vacuum cleaner. Again in the UK, people refer to any vacuum cleaner as a
hoover not just those made by Hoover.

There are many other examples where a trade name or proprietary product has
become to be used generically. The most recent being Viagra which is
attributed to all products of the same formulation, not just the product
from Pfizer.


By the way the company called Tarmac changed its name to Carilion about 10
years ago in a shift away from its association with the black top trade
although it is principally still a civil engineering group

Chris

[Bob Fry]

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is
it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends
but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of
all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why
didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Why do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck
and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How
can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a
wise guy are opposites? Drive on a parkway, and park in a driveway?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your
house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

[Jose]

> If teachers taught, why
> didn't preachers praught?

Yup, English is difficult even for those who mock it. The foregoing
should really be "If teachers taught, why =haven't= preachers
praught?" (It's not really necessary to say "If teachers have
taught...", but the original is definately wrong)

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Cub Driver]

My favorite is in Michael Herr's "Dispatches", where he speaks of the
helicopters picking up the "tarmac" when the Marines pulled out of Khe
Sahn (however spelled).

At first I had an image of the choppers with bags of broken-up
asphalt, but eventually I realized he was talking about the
pierced-steel planking.

Evidently tarmac has become shorthand for "runways and stuff". I look
forward to the day when we read that a certain airport has a grass
tarmac.

[Cub Driver]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 12:44:24 -0500, "Gary Drescher"
> wrote:

>Dunno, but it's a perfectly good English word (in lower case--it's not an
>acronym), so why shouldn't reporters use it?

Tarmac is short for "tar macadam" and refers to the system used for
laying down roads with alternating layers of sand and hot tar. In
these yere parts, it was called "tar vee", as in: "He was out drag
racing all night on the tar vee."

I haven't seen tar macadam put down for many a year, but it used to
make driving hell in the summertime. They usually tarred the road the
day after you brought your new car home.

[Cub Driver]

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:26:24 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
> wrote:

>To "throttle" means to choke.

Actually, it means "the throat". Therefore, by logical extension, it
came to mean a valve for controlling fuel or steam, in much the same
way that the throat controls the ingestion of food. And by further
extension, the lever or rod that controlles the throttle.

The verb is different. "To throttle" does indeed mean to stop the
engine, or anyhow to bring it to an idle.

Now, you really want a fun word, try cockpit!

[Cub Driver]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:07:50 -0600, "tscottme" >
wrote:

>I fully expect to see some silly CBS reporter describing a lorry crash near
>Denver or a shortage of water closets for new homes.

I have heard both these terms (well, lorry, not lorry crash) from
American friends who spent their working lives in Cambridge MA.

(Though "loo" is actually more common than water closet. Come to think
of it, I have even heard my wife say "loo," and she never worked in
Cambridge!)

[Cub Driver]

>What do they use now? Sure smells like tar.

Asphalt is a pre-mix that can be applied and rolled in one
application, and has the great virtue of drying quickly so we don't
have to worry about getting the tar flecks off our cars.

[Gary Drescher]

"Cub Driver" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 12:44:24 -0500, "Gary Drescher"
> > wrote:
>
>>Dunno, but it's a perfectly good English word (in lower case--it's not an
>>acronym), so why shouldn't reporters use it?
>
> Tarmac is short for "tar macadam" and refers to the system used for
> laying down roads with alternating layers of sand and hot tar.

Yup. Further, the Merriam-Webster dictionary distinguishes "Tarmac", a
trademark, from "tarmac", a generic term.

--Gary

[tscottme]

"Gig Giacona" > wrote in message
...
>
> THough I am ashamed to admit it I was once a reporter for a lo-cal TV
> station. Our news director made it very clear one day after a young
> reporter-ette used the term "War Zone" to describe the aftermath of a
> tornado that if anyone used it again there had better be some pictures of
> tanks and soldiers to go along with the story.
>
> Slow fade to latter that very same day. There was one of those little
> inserts the networks feed to the locals to insert in the 5 o'clock news
> about upcoming stories the network will have that night. A network
reporter
> was describing the aftermath of some battle somewhere and acctually said,
> "...It looks like a war zone here..." The news director who was also the
> local anchor could not even begin to stop laughing before he was back on
the
> air.
>

That's a good story. I still shake my head when they dispatch some schmuck
to stand on the shoulder of an overpass and broadcast live what it was like
7 hours ago when there was a fatal car wreck "not far from where I'm
standing." Or the ever present real or fake stand up shot outside City Hall
so they can tell us they are considering this or that. God forbid we learn
of these considerations from a reporter in a studio, how can we trust them
if they aren't standing in front of the building where this future decision
will be announced?

I'm as big a news junkie as ever there was, but I've discovered that I can
learn more by watching less. Despite the incessant complaining that they
only have 22 minutes to broadcats news, they seem to fill 8 minutes of it
with the latest bogus "medical research" discovered by some grad student
that eating Twinkies doubles your chances of contracting dropsey or
interviewing the receptionist for the drive-in wedding chapel where Brittney
Spear's hairstylist got htiched.


--

Scott

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neill and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans
took down their own haughty Frenchman. - Ann Coulter

[Gig Giacona]

"tscottme" > wrote in message
...
> "Gig Giacona" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> THough I am ashamed to admit it I was once a reporter for a lo-cal TV
>> station. Our news director made it very clear one day after a young
>> reporter-ette used the term "War Zone" to describe the aftermath of a
>> tornado that if anyone used it again there had better be some pictures of
>> tanks and soldiers to go along with the story.
>>
>> Slow fade to latter that very same day. There was one of those little
>> inserts the networks feed to the locals to insert in the 5 o'clock news
>> about upcoming stories the network will have that night. A network
> reporter
>> was describing the aftermath of some battle somewhere and acctually said,
>> "...It looks like a war zone here..." The news director who was also the
>> local anchor could not even begin to stop laughing before he was back on
> the
>> air.
>>
>
> That's a good story. I still shake my head when they dispatch some
> schmuck
> to stand on the shoulder of an overpass and broadcast live what it was
> like
> 7 hours ago when there was a fatal car wreck "not far from where I'm
> standing." Or the ever present real or fake stand up shot outside City
> Hall
> so they can tell us they are considering this or that. God forbid we
> learn
> of these considerations from a reporter in a studio, how can we trust them
> if they aren't standing in front of the building where this future
> decision
> will be announced?
>
> I'm as big a news junkie as ever there was, but I've discovered that I can
> learn more by watching less. Despite the incessant complaining that they
> only have 22 minutes to broadcats news, they seem to fill 8 minutes of it
> with the latest bogus "medical research" discovered by some grad student
> that eating Twinkies doubles your chances of contracting dropsey or
> interviewing the receptionist for the drive-in wedding chapel where
> Brittney
> Spear's hairstylist got htiched.
>
>

Oh no, you got me started now. I too am a news junkie but I refuse to watch
lo-cal news. It is without a doubt the worst possible way to get information
on anything. Large market or small market it doesn't matter. You would be
better of walking outside your house and listening for news to happen.

One of the reasons for this is the very nature of the 22 minute newscast.
Because 22 minutes doesn't mean 22 minutes for news you give up at least 10
to sports and weather of which at least 3 was our much loved weather person
telling people who live here what the weather had already done and was doing
at that very moment.

During the summer when ad time was at its low point, NEWS had at most 12
minutes to fill. During an election season when there was actually some
local news to cover we might be down as low as 8.

Since it came down from on high that our audience didn't have an attention
span we were maxed at a maximum of 3 minutes on a story unless we had video
of the world ending. In that case we would have gotten an extra 30 seconds
but 15 of those seconds would have been used in extra anchor toss where the
anchor would have to ask me a question that I wrote and specifically left
out of the story in the first place.

Those same powers that be also decided that the one thing short of the end
of the world that could go over 3:30 was features that weren't news at all
but fluff.

I hate lo-cal TV news. Can you tell?

[Colin W Kingsbury]

"Cub Driver" > wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:07:50 -0600, "tscottme" >
> wrote:
>
> >I fully expect to see some silly CBS reporter describing a lorry crash
near
> >Denver or a shortage of water closets for new homes.
>
> I have heard both these terms (well, lorry, not lorry crash) from
> American friends who spent their working lives in Cambridge MA.

More so than other cities Boston seems to pick up a decent amount of
British/Irish usage, but I've been here ten years and never heard "lorry"
used by a native American... I mean someone born in America, not a casino
operator. It might just be an affectation, as New Englanders are definitely
of the "European = More Sophisticated" school of thought.

-cwk.

[tony roberts]

> . . . is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam . . .

I believe that to be incorrect.
It was invented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901
In 1903 he formed the TarMacadam syndicate, which today is a company
named Tarmac Plc.

For more than you ever wanted to know about Tarmac, go here:
http://www.tarmac.co.uk/live/welcome.asp?id=0

I know the history quite well as I was a senior manager with Tarmac
International Ltd., for several years.
Here is an extract from their history, as displayed on their corporate
website.


"It was the start of a new century. The Boer War raged, Queen Victoria's
long reign had just ended and roads across the civilised world were just
feeling the first effects of the new age of the motor car. The search
was on for a material that would create better road surfaces.

As if by chance, on a road near Denby ironworks in Derbyshire in 1901,
the county surveyor of Nottingham - Edgar Purnell Hooley noticed a
barrel of tar had fallen from a dray and burst open.

To avoid a nuisance, someone from the ironworks had thoughtfully covered
the black sticky mess with waste slag from nearby furnaces... and the
world's first tarmacadam surface was born by accident!

Hooley noticed that the patch of road, which had been unintentionally
re-surfaced, was dust-free and hadn't been rutted by traffic. So he set
to work and by the following year, Hooley obtained a British patent for
a method of mixing slag with tar, calling the material Tarmac.

By June 1903, as Orville and Wilbur Wright were preparing to make
mankind's first powered flight, Hooley formed the TarMacadam Syndicate
Limited and business was brisk. Works had been built in Denby,
Derbyshire, and Hooley also began to look to the American market and
took out a US patent in the same year

But the original syndicate hit financial troubles and the Tarmac story
would have ended there but for the financial backing it received from
Wolverhampton Member of Parliament, Sir Alfred Hickman, who owned a
thriving iron works in Ettingshall.

By 1905, Sir Alfred had become chairman, changed the syndicate's name to
Tarmac Limited, moved the company to a site next to his Staffordshire
steelworks and the orders came flooding in.

Sir Alfred was a great benefactor of Wolverhampton, but he died in 1910
and thousands came to watch his funeral procession.

The task of improving Tarmac's fortunes fell on his son Edward, who
reported a profit in his first year to the princely sum of ?4,742. But
expansion was vital and, in 1913 with profits soaring, Tarmac Limited
became a public company. "

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE




In article >,
Jose > wrote:


>
> It bugs me not. English evolves through usage, and this usage is
> reasonable. Tarmac (short for tarmacadam) is actually a trade name
> for the substance; it (the word)is formed from "tar" and "macadam".
> Macadam (the paving substance made of crushed stone and a binder,
> usually tar) is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam, a Scottish
> engineer.
>
> Soon, places paved with tarmac started to be called "tarmac", and
> since this began to especially be applied to areas around hangars,
> those areas themselves were often called "tarmac" irrespective of what
> they were paved with. (I don't know why (or even if) tarmac was the
> pavement of choice). It's actually a good word - it fills a niche.
>
> Are you equally bugged by people calling the place where planes are
> parked "the ramp" when it's not sloped and doesn't connect a higher
> place with a lower place (except in the sense of nothing being
> perfectly flat)? Or calling clusters of well known thin vertical
> hazards "antenna farms" when nothing is grown or harvested there?
>
> Jose

[Jose]

>> . . . is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam . . .
>
> I believe that to be incorrect.
> It was invented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901

The three dots above left out the crucial information. I did not
claim Tarmac was invented by John, just Macadam.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary's etymology, Macadam was
invented by John L. McAdam. It used crushed and graded stones for a
road surface. What Hooley did (according to your quote) was to add
tar to the mix.

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[tony roberts]

Hi Jose
I was simply correcting the statement.

Here is McAdam's role:
In 1816 the engineer John McAdam was appointed General Surveyor of
Bristol Roads. A Scot who had moved to Bristol, he had worked out on a
new approach to road construction. He instructed that stones should be
graded and laid in three levels, with the smallest stones crushed and
laid as a top surface. This ensured a smoother well-drained finish.
Such roads were said to be 'macadamised'. The technique revolutionised
the local turnpike roads, allowing swifter and safer travel.

Here is what you said:
Tarmac (short for tarmacadam) is actually a trade name
for the substance; it (the word)is formed from "tar" and "macadam".
Macadam (the paving substance made of crushed stone and a binder,
usually tar) is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam, a Scottish
engineer.

In fact MacAdam did not add any binder (that was the error that I
referred to) - he simply used 3 different grades of crushed stones. And
his method was not called Tarmac, or Tarmacadam, it was called Macadam.

Quite honestly I don't care what anyone calls it. It's just that, as
probably the only person in rec. aviation who actually knows the history
of Tarmac in great detail, having worked for them and having explained
the history many times to their clients, I decided to help clarify the
issue.

HTH

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE



In article >,
Jose > wrote:

> >> . . . is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam . . .
> >
> > I believe that to be incorrect.
> > It was invented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901
>
> The three dots above left out the crucial information. I did not
> claim Tarmac was invented by John, just Macadam.
>
> According to the American Heritage Dictionary's etymology, Macadam was
> invented by John L. McAdam. It used crushed and graded stones for a
> road surface. What Hooley did (according to your quote) was to add
> tar to the mix.
>
> Jose

[Jose]

> In fact MacAdam did not add any binder (that was the error that I
> referred to)

Thanks for the correction. Always good to have real expertise. (but
it would have been helpful to have quoted the actual mistake, as
above). :)

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 01:13:05 GMT, tony roberts >
wrote:

>> . . . is named after its inventer, John L. McAdam . . .
>
>I believe that to be incorrect.
>It was invented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901
>In 1903 he formed the TarMacadam syndicate, which today is a company
>named Tarmac Plc.

Macadam or MacAdam devised the system of laying down small or crushed
stones to make a weatherproof road.

Tarmacadam improved on this by using tar as a binder, making the world
safe for the bumper-to-bumper traffic we now know and love. (Oh, I
know there's concrete, but that's not much used in the cold climates
like mine.)

[Cub Driver]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:50:23 GMT, "Colin W Kingsbury"
> wrote:

>It might just be an affectation,

Oh, it's definitely an affectation. I said "Cambridge," but what I
really meant was Harvard. I doubt you would hear it at MIT.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> >It might just be an affectation,
>
> Oh, it's definitely an affectation. I said "Cambridge," but what I
> really meant was Harvard. I doubt you would hear it at MIT.

don't be so sure...

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[gregg]

Cub Driver wrote:

> On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 16:50:23 GMT, "Colin W Kingsbury"
> > wrote:
>
>>It might just be an affectation,
>
> Oh, it's definitely an affectation. I said "Cambridge," but what I
> really meant was Harvard. I doubt you would hear it at MIT.


Well I work at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge
and we work wiht MIT all the time. The only time I've heard words such as
"lorry" were from foreign born folks.

Never heard a native New Englander use such terms.

Gregg

--
Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm

[gatt]

"Chris" > wrote in message news:cri2kh$s47

> >>It bugs me, too. Most ramps are concrete, not tar-macadam, but the
newsies
> >>think that saying tarmac makes them sound knowledgeable.

Anybody ever bothered to correct the newsies? This would be interesting to
most of them.
For example, editors reject terms like "Dumpster" and "Velcro." Meanwhile,
Thermos is so old that it's acceptable to call any such container a thermos,
just as Webster's Dictionary can be published by anybody. It may also be
acceptable to call any paved surface upon which aircraft operate a "tarmac,"
and/or this acceptability in print may vary from country to country.

Probably not worth getting all het up about. If they called the surface
pavement, or ashphalt, they'd likely get a ration of crap from hotheaded
aviators telling them the term is "tarmac." (Also, by way of trivia, cement
is what is used to make concrete. A sidewalk is concrete, not cement, but
that's been misused into pointlessness by the average American just as the
term "nauseous" has.)

Meanwhile, most critics of the media don't know the proper useage of an
apostrophe or comma. And, keep your eye on pilots' misuse of the word
"hanger." (It's "hangar.")

-c

[gatt]

"Bob Fry" > wrote in message

> Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

Nauseous originally applied to that which causes nausea. It's been so
misused that lexicographers punted and included a second definition which is
equal to nauseated.

Our language is difficult because it's a living language, and people
interpret to mean that however the common folk use it, that's how it should
be. My generation destroyed the word "awesome." Werd, dawgs.

> Why do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck
> and send cargo by ship?

....park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? And why in hell is it
called a "hot water heater"?

[gatt]

"Cub Driver" > wrote in message

> My favorite is in Michael Herr's "Dispatches", where he speaks of the
> helicopters picking up the "tarmac" when the Marines pulled out of Khe
> Sahn (however spelled).

daaaaaang. Somebody ELSE who's read that book, from which so much of Full
Metal Jacket was drawn. (Did you catch the part about the crazy Marine
named Dale Dye? Do a netsearch on him. He's a Hollywood standard now.)

....well...that went completely off the topic.

[Jose]

> My generation destroyed the word "awesome." Werd, dawgs.

Which generation destroyed the word "awful" (which used to mean "awe
inspiring"?

> And why in hell is it
> called a "hot water heater"?

Actually, dishwashers have a hot water heater. You connect it to your
hot water, and it heats it even hotter before it washes the dishes.
And actually, all water has heat content, so can be called "hot", even
when it's cold. :)

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[David CL Francis]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 at 16:50:23 in message
t>, Colin W Kingsbury
> wrote:

>> I have heard both these terms (well, lorry, not lorry crash) from
>> American friends who spent their working lives in Cambridge MA.

There is no end to the strangeness of language and the subtle
differences between USA and UK English (in as much as there is any such
thing as UK English nowadays - the BBC have more or less abandoned it
for some time now).

On an area of 'tarmac' inside our factory there was once a notice
painted on the ground. 'Lorry's Only' it spelled. Leaving aside that
the plural of 'Lorry' is 'Lorries' it led to comments like who is Lorry,
and to what is he laying claim?

Have you all heard of the Englishman, who while in America, saw a sign
saying, 'Do not walk on the pavement', and was shortly afterwards killed
by a truck?

Some of our police forces have acquired PC madness. One is now referring
to minorities as 'Visual Minority Ethnics'. They don't even know that
ethnic is an adjective not a noun.

Another Force had Police districts which everyone had happily called
'townships' for years, but are now to be called 'partnerships' would you
believe? I leave you to guess the reasoning behind this.
--
David CL Francis

[Chris]

"David CL Francis" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 at 16:50:23 in message
> t>, Colin W Kingsbury
> > wrote:
>
>>> I have heard both these terms (well, lorry, not lorry crash) from
>>> American friends who spent their working lives in Cambridge MA.
>
> There is no end to the strangeness of language and the subtle differences
> between USA and UK English (in as much as there is any such thing as UK
> English nowadays - the BBC have more or less abandoned it for some time
> now).
>
> On an area of 'tarmac' inside our factory there was once a notice painted
> on the ground. 'Lorry's Only' it spelled. Leaving aside that the plural
> of 'Lorry' is 'Lorries' it led to comments like who is Lorry, and to what
> is he laying claim?
>
> Have you all heard of the Englishman, who while in America, saw a sign
> saying, 'Do not walk on the pavement', and was shortly afterwards killed
> by a truck?
>
> Some of our police forces have acquired PC madness. One is now referring
> to minorities as 'Visual Minority Ethnics'. They don't even know that
> ethnic is an adjective not a noun.
>
> Another Force had Police districts which everyone had happily called
> 'townships' for years, but are now to be called 'partnerships' would you
> believe? I leave you to guess the reasoning behind this.

Paradoxically, American English is an older style of English and more akin
to 17th C English, whereas English English has moved on. Churchill was right
where he described "Britain and America as two countries divided by a common
language".

The is an excellent book by Bill Bryson which explores the differences
"Made in America"

[Chris]

"gatt" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Bob Fry" > wrote in message
>
>> Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
>
> Nauseous originally applied to that which causes nausea. It's been so
> misused that lexicographers punted and included a second definition which
> is
> equal to nauseated.
>
> Our language is difficult because it's a living language, and people
> interpret to mean that however the common folk use it, that's how it
> should
> be. My generation destroyed the word "awesome." Werd, dawgs.
>
>> Why do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck
>> and send cargo by ship?
>
> ...park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? And why in hell is it
> called a "hot water heater"?

Hamburgers made of beef?

[Gary Drescher]

"David CL Francis" > wrote in message
...
> They don't even know that ethnic is an adjective not a noun.

English adjectives, nouns, and verbs morph into each other all the time.
Dictionaries have long recognized 'ethnic' as a noun.

Taste in language is like taste in music. Whatever has changed since your
youth seems to you like a decline. :)

--Gary

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 13:12:22 -0800, "gatt" >
wrote:

>It's been so
>misused that lexicographers punted and included a second definition which is
>equal to nauseated.

But this is equally a cause of the problem. Lexicographers prior to
about 1975 believed that part of their job was to instruct people in
the proper use of the word, so they used pejoratives like "vulgar" or
"among stupid people" (well, they didn't go quite that far :) to
discourage misuse. Since I was educated by the nuns, I still believe
in the immutability of grammar and word definition.

Oh sure, things change over time, but the dictionaries should be a sea
anchor slowing change. For that reason, I much prefer the Shorter
Oxford to the Webster's Collegiate.

The SOE, by the way, defines Tarmac (which it capitalizes) in the
strict way, then adds:

"the tarmac: colloq. the runway at an airport etc:"

So the British evidently first stretched the word to the runway,
probably because it was indeed made of tarmadam, and the SOE editors
hadn't yet caught up with the notion that Americans apply it to the
ramp.

[Cub Driver]

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 09:37:00 -0000, "Chris" > wrote:

>Hamburgers made of beef?

Hamburgers made in Hamburg, of gehactis, if I spell it correctly.

At the Frankfurt Press Club, the sovereign remedy for a hamburger was
gehactis mit ei (again, if I spell it correctly): a raw egg broken
upon a generous patty of raw hamburger.

Presumably an American sailor was served that remedy in Hamburg, and
imported the notion to the United States.

"What the hell do you call that?" he was challenged.

"Uh, uh, a hamburger?"

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 13:08:18 -0800, "gatt" >
wrote:

>Anybody ever bothered to correct the newsies? This would be interesting to
>most of them.

I used to correct people who say "rice paddy" when they meant "paddy
field", but after thirty years I quit.

For the record, "paddy" is the young rice plant, which grows submerged
in water, in a paddy field.

When the water is drained, the same area becomes a rice field.

Now, I'll bet you all go home and talk about rice paddies! You can't
educate people if they don't give a damn, and who gives a damn about
paddy fields and tar macadam in this world of sorrow and sin?

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 22:58:54 GMT, David CL Francis
> wrote:

>Have you all heard of the Englishman, who while in America, saw a sign
>saying, 'Do not walk on the pavement', and was shortly afterwards killed
>by a truck?

That was Winston Churchill, wasn't it?

Oh no, he was only knocked down by a taxi cab because he looked the
wrong way when crossing the street.

When I lived in England, I used to shout silently at myself whenever I
stepped into the street: LOOK RIGHT UP! (The "up" helped, somehow.) I
is hard to break the habits of a lifetime.

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 13:16:11 -0800, "gatt" >
wrote:

> (Did you catch the part about the crazy Marine
>named Dale Dye?

No, I didn't. Likely I read the book after I saw the movie. I really
liked Full Metal Jacket, though cineophiles generally hold their noses
at mention of it.

[Martin Hotze]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:38:26 -0500, Cub Driver wrote:

>
>Hamburgers made in Hamburg, of gehactis, if I spell it correctly.
^^^^^^^^^
it is: Gehacktes

:-)

#m
--
<http://www.terranova.net/content/images/goering.jpg>

[Martin Hotze]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:38:26 -0500, Cub Driver wrote:

>gehactis mit ei (again, if I spell it correctly)

Gehacktes mit Ei

Ei = egg
mit = with (here: with an)

#m

--
<http://www.terranova.net/content/images/goering.jpg>

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

> When I lived in England, I used to shout silently at myself whenever I
> stepped into the street: LOOK RIGHT UP! (The "up" helped, somehow.) I
> is hard to break the habits of a lifetime.

In London, some streets have it painted on the streets for pedestrians.

--
Bob Noel
looking for a sig the lawyers will like

[Larry Dighera]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:41:28 -0500, Cub Driver
> wrote in
>::

>this world of sorrow and sin?

Your view is a bit dour, IMO.

[Jose]

> In London, some streets have it painted on the streets for pedestrians.

In London, it's very necessary, as traffic comes from every which way.
Sometimes one must look left, sometimes one must look right, and
it's not at all obvious which way to look until you look. I'm
surprised pedestrians aren't exinct there.

> You can't
> educate people if they don't give a damn, and who gives a damn about
> paddy fields and tar macadam in this world of sorrow and sin?

Actually a lot of people "give a damn" inasmuch as they are interested
in the etymology of words and phrases. I didn't know that about "rice
paddy". The thing about ignorance is that one often doesn't know that
one is ignorant about any given thing. Which is why we want Flight
Service to know when the ball games are on. But that's another rant
for another day (or for Google).

Knowing the etymology of a word, misused or not, one can then make a
decision as to what to say. I will say "paddy field" from now on, but
will continue with "tarmac" as a synonym for "ramp", just as I'm sure
you will continue saying "ramp" even when it doesn't slope. :)

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[vincent p. norris]

>More so than other cities Boston seems to pick up a decent amount of
>British/Irish usage.....

I live in central PA, but I habitually say "telly" and occasionally
use other Brit slang, just for fun. Never been to England; just
picked it up here and there, sometimes from the telly.

vince norris

[john szpara]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:22:18 -0600, "Gig Giacona"
> wrote:

>
>"John Harlow" > wrote in message
...
>>
>>> Don't get me started on "pre-boarding"....
>>
>> ...or "preflight planning".
>>
>
>My fav... "Please stay in your seat until the aircraft has come to a full
>and complete stop."

Yeah! Can an aircraft come to a full but *incomplete* stop?

Sounds like a case for the Department of Redundancy Department.


John Szpara
Affordable Satellite
Fiero Owner 2-84 Indy Pace cars, 86 Coupe, 88 Formula 3.4, 88 Coupe, 88GT

[Jose]

> Sounds like a case for the Department of Redundancy Department.

.... which is not redundant at all.

Jose
--
Money: What you need when you run out of brains.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[john szpara]

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 06:24:25 -0500, Cub Driver
> wrote:


>Now, you really want a fun word, try cockpit!
>

And, like the old joke goes, with all female crew, it's a Boxoffice.
John Szpara
Affordable Satellite
Fiero Owner 2-84 Indy Pace cars, 86 Coupe, 88 Formula 3.4, 88 Coupe, 88GT

[Judah]

Martin Hotze > wrote in
:

> On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:38:26 -0500, Cub Driver wrote:
>
>>gehactis mit ei (again, if I spell it correctly)
>
> Gehacktes mit Ei
>
> Ei = egg
> mit = with (here: with an)
>
> #m
>

Isn't Gehacktes anything chopped? Like when I was growing up my
grandfather used to called Chopped Liver "Gehackte Liver".

And that ain't chopped liver!


Why don't they call it "Gehackte Fleishen" or something like that? (My
German is nicht so gut.)

[Tobias Mock]

> Why don't they call it "Gehackte Fleishen" or something like
> that? (My German is nicht so gut.)

"Gehacktes Fleisch" (chopped meat). "Gehacktes" is just a
short form of "gehacktes Fleisch" that has become a synonym
for chopped meat with an egg.

Tobias

[Cub Driver]

>Gehacktes mit Ei

Thank you! I will try to remember the spelling against the next time I
have occasion to invoke the memory, though since 46 years have elapsed
since dining at the Frankfurt Press Club and posting the information
here, my mind might well betray me again.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net

[Cub Driver]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 08:43:08 -0500, Bob Noel
> wrote:

>In London, some streets have it painted on the streets for pedestrians.

They wearied of cleaning up the messes made by foreign tourists,
smashes under the tires of the omnibusses?


-- all the best, Dan Ford

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[Cub Driver]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 17:13:33 GMT, Jose >
wrote:

> I will say "paddy field" from now on,

I am humbled and pleased, and I pledge to continue my vain campaign
against the oxymoronic "rice paddy".



-- all the best, Dan Ford

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Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net

[Cub Driver]

On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 21:41:12 -0500, vincent p. norris >
wrote:

>"telly"

Telly is a good word; I'm surprised it hasn't replaced the rather
awful "TV".

Have you noticed you aren't supposed to use the "the" with it, at
least not if you are belly-scratching lower class?

"Saw it on telly, Mum."



-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
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[gatt]

"Cub Driver" > wrote in message

> > (Did you catch the part about the crazy Marine
> >named Dale Dye?
>
> No, I didn't. Likely I read the book after I saw the movie. I really
> liked Full Metal Jacket, though cineophiles generally hold their noses
> at mention of it.

Dye is the guy that runs the Hollywood boot camp. Was the captain in
Platoon ("Lovely ----ing war"), was in Saving Private Ryan on the
President's staff and appears in just about every American war movie made
since the '80s. If it's the same guy, Herr describes the guy as a nutjob
who painted a flower-shaped target on the front of his helmet.

The other classic example borrowed by FMJ from Dispatches is the helicopter
doorgunner screaming "Git some!" and answering questions about shooting
civilians from the helicopter.

-c