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01-01-2016, 09:02 AM
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#1
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Carl, nn5i
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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Ahoy! Ahoy!
Ahoy! Ahoy! Where is everyone? There hasn't been a post here since last year!
Happy New Year, y'all.
__________________
-- Carl
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01-01-2016, 02:07 PM
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#2
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Ft. Collins, CO (mail forwarding)
Posts: 303
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Happy New Year to all!
Starting the year off by doing accumulated laundry from our Christmas time trip to California.
Sunny skies, temps in mid 20's, in beautiful Colorado
__________________
Dick KE0ME
Pam
Gandalf the White (miniature Schnauzer)
2014 Silverado 2500
currently don't own an RV
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01-01-2016, 04:34 PM
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#3
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Maine
Posts: 709
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Best wishes from Maine! Started off the new year putting chains on the diesel tractor hard pack snow, slicker than scum on a swamp.
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01-02-2016, 08:57 PM
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#4
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Administrator
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Fayetteville, GA, USA
Posts: 3,017
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It actually felt like the first days of January. Quite a change from the last few days that felt like a tropical swamp!
Happy new year to all of our ORR.net cohorts.
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01-07-2016, 07:39 PM
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#5
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Administrator
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Fayetteville, GA, USA
Posts: 3,017
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And speaking of "ahoy"
Telephone trivia: Alexander G. Bell wanted telephone subscribers to shout "Ahoy" into the instrument upon "answering" ... calmer heads suggested the public would figure out the most appropriate greetings on their own.
Most of us settled for the generic "Hello?" Interesting that a single word can be both greeting and question depending on the inflection.
"Ahoy?" ... seems filled with trepidations at worst and a bit awkward at best.
*****
Fact is the telephone was an accident. Bell was trying to invent what he would call a "harmonic telegraph" which would allow (what we now call) frequency multiplexing so that multiple messages could be passed simultaneously on a single set of wires.
He had never considered voice-over-wire communications. Until he spilled battery acid in his lap.
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01-07-2016, 09:13 PM
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#6
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Carl, nn5i
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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Interesting.
One of the interesting things about the Icelandic language is that it is very consistent in the placement of the accented syllable. In Icelandic, essentially every word is accented on the first syllable. Every word, that is, except one: hallo, which is used only in answering the telephone, is accented on its second syllable. The textbook I'm using (I like to study languages) hints that there may be other words in Icelandic that are accented on some syllable not the first, but it gives no examples, and states the rule as basically absolute.
__________________
-- Carl
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01-07-2016, 09:18 PM
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#7
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Carl, nn5i
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio
"Ahoy?" ... seems filled with trepidations at worst and a bit awkward at best.
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Trepidations? Awkward? Naah. It's a standard hailing word. Much less awkward than, say, Hey there! You in the boat! Most of us don't need hailing words very much, but coxswains and officers-of-the-deck need them rather often.
__________________
-- Carl
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01-08-2016, 08:25 PM
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#8
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Ft. Collins, CO (mail forwarding)
Posts: 303
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famous words
Language is always such fun to study. There are so many good anecdotes to share.
Example --- when Teddy Roosevelt urged his troops to charge up San Juan Hill in 1898, he shouted what a good Harvard educated man would say:
not "Charge", but "Hasten forward quickly there", or so I've read in a book somewhere.
Happy New Year.
__________________
Dick KE0ME
Pam
Gandalf the White (miniature Schnauzer)
2014 Silverado 2500
currently don't own an RV
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01-09-2016, 11:59 AM
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#9
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Carl, nn5i
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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"Hasten forward quickly there" -- love it.
__________________
-- Carl
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01-09-2016, 08:00 PM
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#10
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Administrator
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Fayetteville, GA, USA
Posts: 3,017
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ke0me
not "Charge", but "Hasten forward quickly there", or so I've read in a book somewhere.
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Well, ummm, when you think about it, "Charge" is a bit ambiguous.
Teddy's phrase gives much more detailed instruction.
Hasten (what to do)
Forward (which direction)
Quickly (in what manner, or at what time)
There (an even more specific target, likely pointed out by an officers sword, perhaps)
*****
In Ken Burns film "The Civil War" southern historian Shelby Foote makes the case that a cavalry officers sword was just a fancy pointing device and was practically never used as a weapon. The movement of troops could be directed from a distance by pointing the sword. They had to make do without radios.
And when Lee surrendered to Grant, he (Lee) offered Grant his sword in the usual tradition. But Grant had such respect for Lee he declined and told him to keep it.
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01-09-2016, 08:22 PM
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#11
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Carl, nn5i
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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I disagree (with Wade, but not with Foote). Charge! is a specific command with a very specific meaning not ambiguous at all because of training. Troops were (and are) drilled to respond to it in a particular way, and it's been standard among all English-speaking infantry and cavalry for several centuries. Roosevelt was not a professional soldier, and actually had very little (almost no) military training -- he was a lifelong politician who got appointed to lead a brigade, basically as a political appointment. If the troops followed him, it was because of his body language, not because of his innovative terminology.
As for Shelby's opinion, sure enough, the sword was obsolescent as a weapon during the Civil War -- but it was a frequently-used weapon as late as a few decades earlier, even in naval battle, when the capture of a ship was often accomplished by boarding; and when mounted cavalry fought infantry in the Napoleonic wars, the cavalry sword (and the horse itself) were fearsome weapons indeed. A pikeman and a cavalryman were approximately an even match. The advantage of cavalry was that it was mobile and could easily be concentrated. The disadvantage of cavalry was that cavalry was expensive to maintain and deploy.
__________________
-- Carl
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01-10-2016, 09:26 AM
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#12
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Maine
Posts: 709
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Ahoy seems to come from middle English "hoy".
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01-10-2016, 04:25 PM
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#13
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Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Ft. Collins, CO (mail forwarding)
Posts: 303
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re: Teddy R
I guess what I found interesting is that Teddy R was leading a bunch of essentially cowboy volunteers, so the language seemed a bit high class for such a bunch, albeit courageous and probably good shots.
I do agree with your point about body language and action, sometimes them guns get so loud you can't hear what's said anyway.
__________________
Dick KE0ME
Pam
Gandalf the White (miniature Schnauzer)
2014 Silverado 2500
currently don't own an RV
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