I'm not participating in this particular thread. But thanks for the support.
Getting personal on this List was not what I had expected.
K.
On 31/08/06, Garth <garth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> William Sommerwerck (in response to Khen Lim's posts) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >> Maitani's suggestion for the OM-5 did not pass the mustard
> >> with the board.
> >
> > This is OT and perhaps a little too ad-hominem to be justified, but as a
> > professional writer, I have to say something about the way people mangle
> and
> > conflate metaphoric expressions.
> >
> > It should be "did not cut the mustard" or "did not pass muster".
> >
> > Why do people use such expressions when they haven't given one
> microsecond's
> > thought to what they're saying?
>
> Er, William? Without commenting on the remainder of your post, much of
> which I agree with, I'm assuming -- from some of Khen's personal
> background which he revealed -- that English is not his first language
> (although I must say his command of it is generally excellent, and far
> better than my command of, say, French). I *understood* what he meant,
> even though he somewhat mangled what is admittedly a rather obscure
> English idiomatic expression.
>
> Idiomatics are always the most difficult parts of the language,
> regardless of the language and, yes, regardless of whether the speaker
> has that language as his or her first one. We'd all do well to
> continually remind ourselves of the transnational nature of this List
> before we wail on someone for an inaccurate or imprecise use of slang or
> idioms.
>
>
> Garth
>
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--
Khen Lim
XIOS Network Solutions
IBM Business Partner
+60 +16 528 6010 / 016 528 6010
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