Klarinet Archive - Posting 000150.txt from 2000/02

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Jelly Doughnuts
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2000 04:05:35 -0500

If a Danish is really a breakfast article, maybe that explains the size of
the American tourists who fill our pavements...
Yours xenophobically,
Roger Shilcock

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Neil Leupold wrote:

> Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 08:22:09 -0800 (PST)
> From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] Jelly Doughnuts
>
> --- Tony Pay <Tony@-----.uk> wrote:
>
> > > On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 09:10:30 -0600, vfreyer@-----.net said:
>
> > > I am a Danish. (Short for Danish pastry, much like a jelly doughnut,
> > > describing my eating preferences.)
>
> > Yes. My point is that the second sentence, uttered by you, does not
> > mean -- could not *possibly* mean -- that you are a pastry.
>
> Not so. The only reason you can tell that the sentence refers to
> nationality -- as opposed to a pastry -- is the capital D at the
> beginning of the word. If somebody walked up to you and *spoke*
> this sentence, you would have no way of knowing whether they were
> revealing their nationality or having a serious identity crisis.
> If interpreted in the former sense, the sentence is gammatically
> incomplete, because the word Danish is a modifier, not a noun.
> If somebody walked up to you and said, "I am a Danish," and you
> assumed they were referring to nationality, your response would
> be, "A Danish WHAT?" But if you chose the latter interpretation,
> that the person was identifying themself as a pastry, your reaction
> would not be to the sentence itself, since it is grammatically cor-
> rect in this context. You might just take them seriously and, if
> you haven't had breakfast yet, start gnawing on their left arm.
>
> -- Neil
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
> http://im.yahoo.com
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
> Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
> Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
> Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org