[Jukebox-list] etymological

[Steve Wahl]

Ron,

I've known for a while that a Queue was a line for something, that it
apparently was the more often used term in England, and that in my
computer science clases we used the term Queue for a list of things to
be done or similar ("queueing theory," "enquing" and "dequeuing"
printer jobs, etc.).

But here in Minnesota, I've not heard the term in general usage.  We
still speak in terms of "getting in line" for things, and "waiting in
line for hours."  (See esp. gov't agencies for that last usage.)
You're on the west coast, right?

I believe sometimes the news media has fads of word substitution, that
eventually return to the usual usage.

I also haven't noticed the disappeared / gone missing thing, but I'll
keep my ears open for it.  (Could it be a political correctness thing,
to pander to those parents who were in a tizzy over the Harry Potter
books / movies?  I reason that "disappear" is close to apperate /
disapperate, terms used in that series, and somehow might imply more
"magic" than the phrase "went missing".)

--> Steve

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 07:29:30AM -0800, Ron Rich wrote:
> Prof. Higgins,

>   Since we have wondered so far OT, I have a question---When did we,
>   in the US, decide that the word "queue" should be used instead of
>   the word "line" ?  Also, when did "went missing" (or "go/gone
>   missing") become the word to use for "disappeared"? For some
>   reason that now seems "the norm". Ron Rich
> 
> David Breneman <david_breneman at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
> --- Joey McDonald wrote:
> 
> > David,
> > 
> > I am sure you are aware that etymological means the study or
> > words. I had to look it up.
> > I don't get the question.
> >
> 
> Hi, Joey -
> 
> I'm curious as to why you said "the wiring needs replaced" rather
> than the gramatically correct "the wiring needs *to be* replaced."
> "Needs" is future-looking, "replaced" is past-looking. I never
> heard sentences formulated this way until about 10 years ago,
> and most of the people I heard using this fromulation were
> from the Washington DC area. I don't mean to be critical,
> it's just interesting; like where, geographically, "pop"
> gives way to "soda", or "standing in line" gives way to
> "standing on line". About 15 years ago, I started to hear
> people use "anymore" to reinforce a *positive* observation,
> whereas it has always been used to reinforce a negative
> observation, ie "Nobody does that anymore" vs. "I'm doing
> that anymore" or even the more extreme "Anymore, people
> do that." Formulations like "my house needs painted" are
> becoming more common in my part of the country and I'm
> fascinated to find out where that comes from, and if it's
> long established in those areas, or relatively new, like
> the positive assertion "anymore" is here in the Northwest.
> Your reaction leeds me to believe that it's long engrained
> in your area. Sorry for being such a Henry Higgins! :-)
> 
> 
> 
> David Breneman david_breneman at yahoo.com
> 
> 
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-- 
Steve Wahl    steve at pro-ns.net

There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who
understand binary and those who don't.  -- Unknown