Russell,

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:32:32 +1200, Russell McMahon wrote:

>...
> An interesting date related term which not too many people use, and 
> which some people get wrong when they do, is "xxx week" meaning the 
> occurrence of xxx which occurs in the week after this one. 

I use it quite a lot - but I have found that it confuses my (New Yorker) girfriend!

>... For reasons 
> which did and do escape me she took exception to my failure to 
> correctly comprehend which date she was actually referring to.

I believe that this escape of reason is fairly common when conversing cross-gender ;-)

> I can't complain - the late list member Peter Crowcroft reported his 
> wife having turned round with a loaded pistol pointed horizontally 
> after it jammed while target shooting. She realised what she had done 
> immediately and could not subsequently account for having done 
> something so lethally dangerous which she had had drilled into her as 
> an utter no no*. She still suffered the resultant compulsory eviction 
> from the shooting club as a consequence.

Quite!  Muzzle-sweep was an instant dismissal when I was doing some shooting, many years ago.  I did manage an Accidental Discharge (AD) at the 
end of a Practical Shotgun competition - I was cycling the pump action (with the barrel pointed skywards) to empty the gun, when somehow a finger 
made its way onto the trigger and fired one off.  The feeling of shock and utter, unaccountable stupidity is still a clear memory to me to this date.  
But the barrel was pointed in a safe direction, so it wasn't actually a dangerous act - but I have rarely felt so small!

> Compared to that, turning up 
> at an event a week early when MY wife has brain fade would be a truly 
> minor matter :-)

Indeed. 

>             Russell
> 
> *  no no = another Englishlanguageism of obvious meaning for the 
> ESOL**  amongst us to excercise their brains with.
> 
> ** ESOL    = English as Second or Other Language. (The official term 
> used here at least for English language courses for people whose 
> native tongue is not English (nor NZlandish).

Here it's known as EFL (English as a Foreign Language) because we don't assume they can speak only one language beforehand  :-)
 
> ***    While everyone has antipodes and most of them aren't here, we 
> claim the label as a geographic descriptive by dint of historical 
> usage. While the antipodes of NZ is/are in fact Spain,

I thought it was Portugal?

When I visited New Zealand I said that I was as far away from home as I could be, and still have my feet on the ground.  This may be true, or there 
may be some little island further South from there which qualifies - I don't have a globe with enough detail.
 
Cheers,

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England
51.72N  0.35W  (IO91tr for the Radio Amateurs)

Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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