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    From Alexander Koryagin@2:221/6 to All on Mon Jan 22 15:58:00 2024


    Hi, All!

    A women meets her girlfriend and notes that she has a blue eye.
    "What's happened to you?", she asked.
    "My husband struck me yesterday!"
    "Oh, that's awful, why?"
    "He told me an anecdote, and I didn't laugh."
    "Did it get him so angry?"
    "It was my lover in the wardrobe who laughed!"

    Bye, All!
    Alexander Koryagin

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    * Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)
  • From Anton Shepelev@2:221/6 to Alexander Koryagin on Mon Jun 10 00:07:36 2024
    Alexander Koryagin:

    "He told me an anecdote, and I didn't laugh."

    An anecdote is a personal and unverified story. The word you want is `joke'.

    ---
    * Origin: news://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)
  • From Ardith Hinton@1:153/716 to Anton Shepelev on Thu Sep 26 22:00:53 2024
    Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:

    I've never seen the word used as an adjective. I suspect
    it's an archaic usage. The Cambridge dictionary doesn't
    define it as an adjective (listing only "cowardly"),
    same for Merriam-Webster, Collins, and the Britannica
    Dictionary. The Oxford dictionary shows it used an
    adjective but last used in 1818!

    1913 Webster lists `coward' as an adjective:

    <http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=gcide&Query=coward>


    My 1983 GAGE CANADIAN DICTIONARY also lists it as an adjective, but in my experience this usage was rare at the time of publication.... :-)



    I think `coward' /can/ be an adjective by virtue of the
    ability of nouns in English to become adjectives in certain
    cirsumstances, such as:

    systems (vs. systematic) programming
    fall guy
    finger man
    glass (not glassy) jar.


    or

    gravel road
    pine cone
    sob sister
    spider vein

    ... AKA noun adjectives or attributive nouns. :-)



    that said, `coward' is no more an ajective than `widow' in
    the famous tautology `widow woman'.

    I ran across "widow woman" as an example of tautology as well. But in this case "woman" is redundant because a widow is by definition female, and if a male finds himself in a similar position he is a widower where I come from. :-)




    --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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