A bit back on topic though... my girlfriend just atold me a story about a friend of hers who got detained at the airport after putting his wife on her flight to Florida. The police had been coming up to him and questioning him the whole time she was getting her ticket and checking her bags. On his way out the door, the police grabbed him and took him to a back room where they held him for four hours. They took all his stuff and grilled him as to where he had been, what he had been buying, etc.
Apparently they had mistaken him for a wanted felon (I guess the mugshot looked remarkably like him) and it took him a while to convince them that he wasn't this person. But there was a state trooper in his drivway when he got back to make sure he really lived there. And they wouldn't let him go anywhere until 8 that night until they had cleared him.
posted
Nice. My best friend's fiancee is from Switzerland, weighs about 98 lbs and is the sweetest, most harmless vegan you'd ever care to meet.
Her student visa expired while she was home visiting her parents and she tried to return to the US with a (new) toursit visa. This raised a red flag with someone at a computer and the not only prevented her from entering the country, they made her pay for her immeadeate return flight back to Switzerland and placed her on the Terrorist Watch List.
Un-fucking-believable.
We cant find Bin Laden, but a scrawny 3-D computer artist raises red flags with the Homeland Security guys. I know I feel secure. Really.
She's back now (after being away from her boyfriend four months), but I have not gotten the story as to how yet.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Aban: back on topic, my de facto advisor in college had (has) a similar problem. He looks almost exactly like Charles Manson. The beard, the coloring, the age, even the height. He can even do that thing where he makes his eyes turn away from each other so his right eye is looking right and left eye is looking left. The story I was told was that he was driving in Los Angeles many years back when the police pulled him over and detained him until they could confirm with corrections that Manson had indeed not escaped.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Cartman: [qb] And I wouldn't be too harsh on Andrew. I doubt the majority of the population knows when to use it. I've certainly seen "an hotel" enough to know that a large number don't.
I didn't write it. What are you bringing me into this for? You are an harsehole.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I hope he does not have a swastica tatoed on his forehead: that really should have tipped off the cops that he was not Manson.
...and the whole "forms coherent sentences" thing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
No, no swastika between the eyebrows. And if you had little contact with eastern philosophies, some of what he says would indeed sound incoherent. Brilliant man, though. (My professor, that is.) I am sorry I only had 2 years span to work with him. I hope some day in the future we might be working together again.
As for "an habitual drunkard", I would say no "an". When I am using the word "habitual", I am typically emphasizing the continual or involuntary or egregious nature of whatever it is I am describing as habitual. So there the "h" is very stressed along with the word. Instead I elongate the "a" (rhyming with "day"). Therefore no "an" is necessary, at so far as I speak.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
Might it also have something to do with the noun being modified in the case of adjectives? So that it's "an historic occasion", maybe "an historic assembly" but it's "a historical landmark" and certainly "a historic precedent". Seems like "histor-y" seems to be a special case. Because it's different than other silent H's. It's always "an honorable mention, an honorific title, and an hourly interval". I do pronounce the "h" in "habitual" so "an habitual drunkard" sounds really weird.
Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by David Sands: When I am using the word "habitual", I am typically emphasizing the continual or involuntary or egregious nature..."
Or, in other words, the "habitual" nature.
quote:So there the "h" is very stressed along with the word. Instead I elongate the "a" (rhyming with "day"). Therefore no "an" is necessary, at so far as I speak.
"Hay-bitual"? Or rather (since you are also emphasising the "h"), "Huh-ae-bitual"? Surely that would sound mildly retarded before anything else?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
There are quite a few rules and nuances in language that derive from a long forgotten speech pattern or source language (for example, the pointless guideline that says you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition is derived from the fact that you can't do so in latin). Maybe it's said "an history" because at one time the 'h' in 'history' was silent just as it is in the word 'honor'.
-------------------- "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I'm sticking with the French thing until someone proves it wrong.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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