Klarinet Archive - Posting 000375.txt from 1999/12

From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: [kl] name
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 19:29:27 -0500

Oliver Seely wrote

There's a delightful book called "Made in America" by Bill Bryson who
returned
to the U.S. after more than 20 years of self imposed exile in England.

>"Made in America" is a high-interest-level chronicle of American English
>and all of the words we contributed to the English language, more than a
few of them
>coming from the movie industry.

Oliver, could you give me some more details about this book? As you may have
guessed from earlier contributions I sent to this list I am very interested
in what you might broadly call "language aspects", and it will help to
obtain this book.

I also liked very much David Niethamer's reaction to my loose remark about
the American and English language:

>Isn't there a joke that claims that the UK and USA are two countries
>divided by a common language? ;-)

BTW David, is your background Dutch? Your name seems to suggest so. If so do
you know the meaning of the word "Niethamer"? Short course of Dutch: a
"niet" or, more commonly, "nietje" is a staple, a "hamer" is a hammer, so
"niethamer" would mean something like Staple hammer. I think in English, and
thus probably in the language spoken in the USA (American?) it would be
called either an Engineers hammer or a Stapler, the difference between the
two mechanical tools mainly being of interest to mechanical engineers like
me from my first (academic) education.

Rien (pronounced like "Rheene")

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