Gosh! I'm getting this warm fuzzy feeling inside from all the welcome backs! Thanks all!

As for the difference between American cheese and Greek cheese (what's this obsession with cheese, CJ?) I would say the main difference is that the latter is infinitely tastier! (especially when it's made from goat's milk. Yum!)

Thus Spake the Big Cheese

(what's this
obsession with cheese, CJ?)
*********************************

Maybe "CJ" stands for "Cheese Junkie."

quote:

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Originally posted by museamuse:
As for the difference between American cheese and Greek cheese (what's this obsession with cheese, CJ?) I would say the main difference is that the latter is infinitely tastier!

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Totally agree, M. If ever I met a woman made entirely of Feta cheese, I'd marry her on the spot. Thereby making her my wife. And thereby bringing this thread back to its original topic. (I know I can sometimes digress badly but it's not intentional.)

The term "American cheese" is almost nonsensical since all to often it identifies something that can also be ID'ed as "processed, over-pasturized, milk by-product/vegetable oil cheese substitute spread," or something else along those lines.

I love my country but its cheese and its beer? Nine times out of ten, blaaah!

One of the pleasures of this board is that it's prompted me to pull some of my old word-books off the shelf. Browsing there I found, "nestcock: the old term for a househusband, a man who stays at home and manages the house while his wife goes to work." Seems like it would be a useful word, but I couldn't find it in any on-line dictionary.

Quote:

"I love my country but its cheese and its beer? Nine times out of ten, blaaah!"

I suppose that, if one were cynical, one could suggest that in many cases the expressions "American Cheese" and "American Beer" are oxymoronic!

Having said which, our local Safeway has a special offer on for Anchor Steam (brewed by a small brewer in San Francisco that has managed to avoid the clutches of Anheuser Busch). Although not bottle-conditioned, it is quite a good beer with that characteristic, so lacking in most American beers, of having a flavour!

So far as cheese is concerned, I defer to nobody in my defence of Stilton - the Prince of cheeses!

Richard English

You haven't tasted real feta cheese until you have some made by a villager up on a mountain from the milk of his/her goats or sheep! Fantastic!

But I must admit I am a cheese fiend too and I swoon over an oozing Camembert, a sharp Wisconsin Cheddar, a fine English Stilton, a tangy Emmental, a nostril-tickling Roquefort as much as over a buttery peasant feta cheese.

Ahh, Richard, you warm the cockles of my heart! (BTW, I got all curious as to where that phrase originated and only found this link. Does anyone know more?) Anyway--my new favorite beer recently is Anchor Steam! I feel vindicated after your horrible description of Harp Beer, my past favorite beer.

As a cheesehead (yes, dear folks, my birth state was Wisconsin), I must comment in the cheese debate. Now, CJ, really--are you trying to tell the whole world that processed American cheese is THE cheese in America? Balderdash! Try going to one of the little creameries in Wisconsin and buying their freshly made cheese. No offense to museamuse, but Wisconsin's fine cheeses will rival Greek cheeses any day.

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Sun Dec 8th, 2002 at 12:20.]

By American beer standards Anchor Steam is just wonderful; by UK Real Ale standards it's not bad. That's not to try to be chauvinistic about English beers but simply to make the point that so much of the world is deprived of the wonderful choice of flavoursome beers that we, in the UK, take so much for granted that, even now, we risk losing them thanks to the efforts of the A-B fizz factories and their ilk!

As I believe I said, there are over 5000 different beers brewed in the UK, most of them Real Ales and all but a few of them wonderful. The ones that aren't wonderful are the products of the fizz factories, of course.

Incidentally, to give you and idea of the difference between a competent bottled beer like Anchor Steam and a bottle-conditioned beer such as Fullers 1845 I would draw the analogy of the difference between a sparkling wine and Champagne. The difference between regular American beer and Anchor Steam you can taste for yourselves and the difference between Anchor Steam and a bottle-conditioned beer is about the same again.

Richard English

Beer, schmeer - whatever became of good, old-fashioned mead? If it was good enough for Beowulf, it was good enough!

Mead? Once again, is my ignorance showing?

Richard, I visualize you enjoying a UK beer in your Rolls-Royce. It must be heaven!

I confess that, at Rolls-Royce rallies I tend to drink English wine.

Mead is a fine and noble drink, of course, and is readily available here. Like the honeys from which it's made it does have some variety but it is essentially a wine-type drink, not a session drink as is beer.

Beowulf would also have enjoyed Ale but it would not have been flavoured with hops in those days - maybe heather or some other herb

Richard English

Why can't I shake this image of R.E. and friends pounding down a
two-four of their favorite English brew while careening around a corner on two wheels in his Rolls while throwing empties out the windows?

What would your wives (none-to-subtle attempt to return to this thread's original subject) think?

quote:

---

Kalleh says,
Tell you what, CJ--I see you live in Illinois, as do I now. Meet me at the Wisconsin border, and I will accompany you to some of the best creameries around.

---

A plaintive wail heard from Chicago: "What am I, swiss cheese?"

BTW, the French cheeses aren't bad either!

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Sun Dec 8th, 2002 at 12:21.]

"...Why can't I shake this image of R.E. and friends pounding down a two-four of their favorite English brew..."

What is a two-four, please? Has it anything to do with that afront to the drinking public's sensibilities, canned beer?

Richard English

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard English:
What is a two-four, please? Has it anything to do with that afront to the drinking public's sensibilities, canned beer?

---

You bet, R.E.! A two-four is a case of 24 cans of brewski which, particularly in the case of American beer, have certain advantages over 24 bottles of same:
1. Cools more quickly.
2. Cans are more easily and profitably recycled.
3. In the event of bar fights, it's not likely you'll be hit over the head with a beer can.
4. Cans of beer are more safely tossed across the room to friends. Pull this stunt with bottles and your WIVES (am I the only one trying to keep this thread even remotely wife-related?) will object loudly.
5. Aluminum is cheaper than glass. And, yes, in the case of American brands, so is the beer. As in so many other instances, generally speaking you get what you pay for.
6. After finishing a bottle of beer, you can't impress the babes at the bar by crushing the bottle against your forehead. Not easily, anyway.

For the general info of our across-the-ocean friends, there are hundreds of what are called micro breweries sprouting up all over the place producing beer (AMERICAN beer, believe it or not) which rivals pretty much anything found overseas. You just have to dig for it. Budweiser is still the "King of Beers" (gag!) solely on its extensive and, to give them credit, often highly imaginative ad campaigns but certainly NOT for its quality.

Sidenote: I was at a party in a restaurant overseas one time when my host offered to buy me an imported Budweiser (at $7.00 a bottle!!!) so that I might feel more at home. I nearly choked myself in my rush to politely turn down his kind offer!

Shufitz is not Swiss cheese, Sarah is not chopped liver, and if I inadvertantly insulted Kalleh by implying that I was standing her up, I apologize. Aside from the occasional tug on R.E.'s beard, metaphorically speaking, I really do try to avoid rubbing people the wrong way. Including WIVES, my own and others.

quote:

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...I really do try to avoid rubbing people the wrong way. Including WIVES, my own and others.

---

CJ, it's been a valiant effort, I just say! Thank you. And this WIFE appreciates your efforts.

(P.S. Don't forget we have a Private Topic section to send each other private messages. Make sure you all check it when you are on.)

No, CJ, you didn't offend me at all, and I hope the reverse of that is also true (I'll let you figure that one out!)

Morgan, I don't know about the others here, but I find the private message system a bit unwieldy. Is there a way to know when you've received a message?

This is probably a question for our beer expert--Richard. I was watching a television show recently that stated that ales, stouts, and lagers are all types of beer. Is that so?

This is quite true and they are just three of the many beer styles to be found in the UK.

Ale was originally unhopped beer but this distinction has long gone. Stout is a dark beer using heavily roasted malt; lager should be a beer that has been stored (or "lagered") for some weeks to mature. Nowadays it is used to describe any light-coloured beer and, although there are good lagers, the style is best avoided unless you know what you're drinking since it can mean concoctions like US Budweiser. Czechoslovakian Budweiser, of course, is a quite different drink.

Other common draught beer styles include Old, Mild, Bitter (the most popular in the UK). Common bottled beers include light ale, brown ale and stout, plus a plethora of specialist styles, usually in bottle. As I have said before, around 5000 different types in the UK.

Go to http://www.camra.org.uk to find out more about proper beers.

Richard English

Having read the advantages I can conceive of none of them that would offer the slightest benefit to a Real Beer drinker.

With the ecological lobby gaining strength, I forsee a return to the use of returnable bottles (common here until about 30 years ago). The incentive to return them was a simple one - charge a small deposit on the bottle which could be redeemed when the empty was returned.

Small boys used to make pocket money by collecting discarded empties and drink-related litter just didn't happen.

And the beer tastes better as well (that's a fact, not an opinion - glass does not disolve in alcohol; aluminium does)

Richard English

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
And the beer tastes better as well (that's a fact, not an opinion - glass does not disolve in alcohol; aluminium does)

---

Taste-wise, I definitely agree but you've pointed out yet another advantage of cans over bottles. A can or two of beer a day supplies adults with 100% of their minimum daily requirement of aluminum!

A sidenote to all: R.E. says "aluminium," I say "aluminum." He's British, I'm American, and we're both correct, so no knock-down brawls over this point, thank you very much.

quote:

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With the ecological lobby gaining strength, I forsee a return to the use of returnable bottles (common here until about 30 years ago). The incentive to return them was a simple one - charge a small deposit on the bottle which could be redeemed when the empty was returned.

---

Where I live, almost everything is recycled. We pay deposit on all carbonated beverage containers, including beer, and thus have to return them to the store to get our money back. Most everything, glass, plastic, or can, is crushed in a machine and sent for recycling.

At home, very little goes into the waste can. We recycle all cans, bottle, jars, most plastic, newspapers, junk mail, boxboard and corrugated. We compost the appropriate food left overs and garden materials.

Tires are recycled, as well as car batteries and used engine oil.

I usually have two large recycling bins each week and one small bag of trash. And once a month, I return my containers to the store for the deposit money, unless the local high school band is collecting them for a fund raiser!

How are the recycling efforts in your area?

Thanks, Richard, for the beer lesson. We had our work Christmas party yesterday, and I sat next to a colleague who was drinking Sam Adams. I told him about my "British authority" on beer says that Anchor Steam is the best American beer. He had never heard of it. I tried to order one, and the waiter said, "Yes, it's a fine beer, but we don't carry it". So--my colleague is going to look for it. Just wanted you to know that your being on this board is making America a better place to live!

To get back to the original topic: housewife versus homemaker.

Mary Fairhurst was recently elected Washington State Supreme Court justice. The Seattle Times recently printed an article about her, which contained the following paragraph:

"Her father, a former Jesuit seminarian, was a maritime executive. Her mother was a homemaker and later founded a hospice in Spokane. The family moved often, living in Oregon, Seattle, Southern California and Hawaii, finally settling in Spokane."

(http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=fairhurst01m&date=20021201&query=mary+fairhurst)

The second sentence contains the dreaded word, homemaker. The word is concise and clear, I think. Is homemaker acceptable in this sentence? Would you rewrite it? How?

Incidentally, there are now four women and three men on the Washington State Supreme Court.

Tinman

Quote:

"...How are the recycling efforts in your area..."

Clearly not so good here as in your part of the USA. Since the "throwaway society" is supposed here to have originated in the US, maybe it's simply that we are a few years behind you. For how long have returnable bottles been common? They do not exist at all here nowadays.

Richard English

Quote

"...R.E. says "aluminium," I say "aluminum." He's British, I'm American, and we're both correct..."

I have never disputed accepted differences in spelling or pronunciation; my arguments have always been about grammatical errors.

Check back if you don't believe me!

Richard English

I had never heard aluminium pronounced nor spelled that way. However, I checked and see that you're right. I would probably not even understand what was meant if I were in England, and someone asked me if I wanted "aluminium foil".

So, Richard, if you're a grammarian, I have a question. How are "like" and "as" used? My husband recently corrected me on my use of "like"; he thought I should have used "as". When I went to a grammar site on the internet, it only specified between "like" and "as if". Unfortunately, I cannot remember the sentence I used.

"My husband recently corrected me on my use of 'like'."

That graceless cad!

Richard asks: "For how long have returnable bottles been common? They do not exist at all here nowadays."

Richard, I am 43, and I don't remember there ever NOT being returnable glass bottles!

Tinman asks: "Is homemaker acceptable in this sentence?"

As I stated in the post that started this thread, I was never married to a house. I am not a housewife. I am a homemaker. As they say, a house is just the building you live in. A home is where your heart is. I put the heart into this building making it a home.

Well, Morgan, I don't think the term housewife means that. To me, anyway, it means that the wife takes care of the house, and I see no difference between housewife and homemaker. There's just more to it than that. Hard to say what it should be, though.

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Sun Dec 8th, 2002 at 22:03.]

As I said, when a was young (which was, sadly, more than 43 years ago) we had returnable glass bottles. Around 30 years ago they began to disappear and I had always assumed that this was US influence.

Now all drinks are supplied in the same kinds of bottles as hitherto but there is no deposit on them and thus no incentive to return them - although we do have "bottle-banks" in most towns where they can be dumped for recycling. Of course, the returnable bottle went back to its provider and was cleaned and re-used - a much better system.

The only commonly recycled bottles used today are milk bottles when delivered by a milkman (although these carry no deposit they remain the property of the dairy and so most people are quite used to leaving them out for collection).

Richard English

Without seeing the sentence I couldn't pass an opinion on its accuracy. However, I would suggest that the two words are not normally interchangeable. Although sentences could by constructed using either, they would have different meaning.

For example, the sentence "We are as brothers" is metaphorical whereas "we are like brothers" is comparative. In other words, in the first sentence the suggestion is that we are as if we actually were brothers whereas in the second it is simply that we are the same as brothers, even though we are not.

Richard English

The only commonly recycled bottles used today are milk bottles when delivered by a
milkman
******************************************
Ah, there's another British/US diference. The milkman disappeared in the USA long ago, thereby eliminating a source of jokes about genetic anomalies.

quote:

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Ah, there's another British/US diference. The milkman disappeared in the USA long ago, thereby eliminating a source of jokes about genetic anomalies.

---

Hey, my cousin resembles that remark! He is the milkman around here! We still have them!

Hey, my cousin resembles that remark! He is the milkman around here! We still have
them!
**********************************************
Yeah, sure. He just puts on that white uniform and delivers milk so he can continue the red-haired Chinese baby phenomenon! Seriously, I had no idea that they hadn't disappeared completely country-wide. There are still ice cream trucks here and about, but real, honest-to-goodness milkmen? Wow!

Milkmen are an endangered species over here, too. Many areas have no milk delivery at all. Although I still get a delivery, the dairy has cut deliveries to alternate days. When my sister came to stay a few months ago she was amazed that we were still getting deliveries. They stopped in her area some 15 years ago, apparently.

the dairy has cut deliveries to alternate days.
When my sister came to stay a few months ago she was amazed that we were still
getting deliveries.
*************************************
I am cowed by my udder lack of accurate knowledge, so shall milk this thread for as much information, without bull, as I can. If you know more, horn in here, so we can ruminate further upon the milkman's demise.

MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmoooooooooooooo!

I do hate to interrupt this train of thought.... Let's see, in this thread we've discussed housewives and househusbands, milkmen, beer, grammar.
Perhaps we need a specific grammar thread that we can go to from time to time.

quote:

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Without seeing the sentence I couldn't pass an opinion on its accuracy.

---

Yes, Richard, I should not have posted the question without remembering the sentence. However, as CJ would say, Holy Sweet Jesus on a moped have I found some intricacies about using "like" and "as" in my AHD. My particular problem was using "like" in the following incorrect way: "The dogs howled like we expected them to" According to my AHD, that is illiterate. "Like" should only be used as a preposition meaning resembling; for example in, "It's not like you to take offense". Then there is the "as if" versus "as" problem. For example, in the following sentence it should be "as if", not "like": "It looks like we're in for a rough winter". There's more! There are the distinctions between "as....as" and "so....as". "So...as" is required in negative sentences, such as Shakespeare's: "'Tis not so deep as a well"; in questions, "Is is so bad as she says"; and in certain clauses, such as, "If it is so bad as you say, you ought to leave!". Well, I am sufficiently confused!

Yes, Kalleh, it can be confusing. If you reread the AHD, you will find that it doesn't actually condemn the use of as instead of like. It says "a writer who uses the construction in formal style risks being accused of illiteracy or worse". It says the construction is acceptable with some verbs in informal style. Most of the writing we do on this board is decidedly informal. He notes that Chaucer used the construction, and I don't think anyone would call Chaucer illiterate.

It sounds like (as if) you've read the usage note under as, also. It begins, "A traditional usage rule..." and continues to cite examples under the "traditional rules". It also says these rules are changing: "But this so.. as construction is becoming increasingly rare in American English, and the use of as.. as is now entirely acceptable in all contexts".

I find xrefer.com to be an excellent resource for word usage. Click on the "slect a topic" box, and a drop-down menu will appear. Select "language & usage", then enter whatever you want in the vacant box, click go, and several references will come up. For example, entering like will yeild over 200 results.

The fourth result is "like 1 As a conjunction...The New Fowler's Modern English Usage". Clicking on that will take you to an article fromThe New Fowler's Modern English Usage, © Oxford University Press 1968 (http://xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=594736&secid=.-&hh=1). Note that this is 32-year-old information.

Fowler's begins by condemning like used as a conjunction, but in the third paragraph it says, "I have reconsidered the matter..." It goes on to say there are "four main conjunctional uses of like": meaning 1. "in the way that"; 2. "as if, as though"; 3. "as"; 4. "in the manner that", "in the way that". He concludes: "It would appear that in many kinds of written and spoken English like as a conjunction is struggling towards acceptable standard or neutral ground. It is not there yet. But the distributional patterns suggest that the long-standing resistance to this omnipresent little word is beginning to crumble."

So 32 years ago the great Fowler's seemed willing to accept some of these newer uses, at least in informal writing.

Fowler'a continues with the prepositional, the "hated" parenthetic, and the idiomatic uses of like.

See the AHDI (The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms, 1997) for more on the idiomatic uses of like (http://xrefer.com/entry/633989)

You will find various sources who vehemently insist it must be one way, while others are equally insistent it should be another way. If the "experts" can't agree, what are you to do? Read what they say, consider their arguments, then make up your own mind. What is "traditional" often becomes "archaic".

Tinman

Thanks, Tinman, for the excellent clarification. It is always good to hear from a Third Grouper!

A Third Grouper reminded me of the old Winston commercial: Winston tastes good like a cigarette should! When people objected, Winston retorted with, "Do you want good grammar or good flavor?"

Winston tastes good like
a cigarette should!
********************************************
Despite my passionate hatred of cigarettes, I had to laugh when Buddy Ebsen, the actor who played Jed Clampett on the old TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies,said, "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette had oughta."

I hadn't heard that one, Asa!

I received the following and thought it appropriate for this thread (especially for FatStan!):
"Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0, and noticed a slowdown in the overall performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications that had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. In addition,
Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, but installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0 and NBA 3.0. And now Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?"

What is "traditional" often becomes "archaic".
****************************************
Thus, regarding the parts of speech of "as" and "like," we can't have archaic and edit too.

I wonder when we'll have a revisionist Shakespeare play, "Like You As It."

quote:

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"Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0, and noticed a slowdown in the overall performance, ...

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Oh, Kalleh, this is a hoot! And so very true, too! Although, I bet the only other one who will agree is Museamuse!

Kalleh, I found on-line the solution to the malfunctioning computer upgrade.

quote:

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Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind that Boyfriend 5.0 was an entertainment package while Husband 1.0 is an operating system. Try entering the command C:/ I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME and installing Tears 6.2. Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Guilt 3.3 and Flowers 7.5. But remember, overuse can cause Husband 1.0 to default to such background applications as Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please remember Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will create Snoring Loudly WAV files.

DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 or another Boyfriend program. These are not supported applications and will crash Husband 1.0 to default to the program Girlfriend 9.2 which runs in the background and has been known to introduce potentially serious viruses into the operating system.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program but it does have a limited memory and can't learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to enhance his system performance.

Good Luck,
Tech Support

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quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
I wonder when we'll have a revisionist Shakespeare play, "Like You As It."

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There are those who "translate" Shakespeare into modern English but many feel that this actually degrades the text. It's what as known as going from Bard to worse!