Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
First, consider the vernacular: "Go to town" means to cut loose, pull out all the stops, have at it with abandon. This probably derives from the idea of going to the busy part of town, having a good time. In my area, the vernacular has mostly subsumed the literal, with help from the mall.
Which bears on the difference between those two words. "Town" has a rather broader meaning that encompasses "city" but also evokes a more personal sense of the community. I remember hearing that there is a specific classical indicator for what constitutes a city: the presence of a cathedral. Hence, a larger, more impersonal space that it might be less likely that you would feel part of the community, perhaps not even "downtown".
When I was young I noticed that we Yanks say one is in the hospital, but the Brits say one is in hospital. I thought it was strange—strange of the Brits, of course (I was young, remember)—and beyond that didn't think about it much.
It wasn't until much later that I noticed we do the same thing. I go into town but into the city; I go on vacation, but other times I'm on the job; I'm on salary, on staff, on time; I go to work and to bed, and sometimes I'm at lunch or dinner. I'm usually on the telephone and in a conversation, but other times I'm in conversation. I can be in uniform or in mufti but always in a suit; I'm in school or college; I'm in transit but in a car; I can be on holiday but at those times I'm out of the office.
Who makes up these things? I dunno, and I've given up on ever making sense of them, I mean, of predicting which ones will need an article and which ones won't. The only thing I've settled on is after the fact: When the article is missing, it gives one the sense of being a description of status rather than a more mundane location. "In hospital" doesn't mean only that I'm located there, it means I'm sick. (Are the nurses and doctors who work there "in hospital"? I don't think so.) "At play" hasn't anything to do with my location, it means I'm goofing off. That's the best I can do.
No, that didn't work. But I think I see the HTML code in the post that did it; when I take out the <pre> and </pre> codes, it went back to displaying things correctly in my reply panel. I'm guessing, however, that it won't fix the problem in the main page; if not, we'll have to report that post to have it removed.
biziwen said:
very body wants to succeed. But when it comes to the question that which factor leads to success, opportunity or hard-work, different people will offer different answers. San Francisco Escort Some people think that opportunity is the first factor leading to success. They hold the idea, as a proverb saying, “Man proposes, god disposesâ€. San Francisco Escorts Because almost all successful people have good luck and have caught their valuable opportunities, they believe that opportunity is a leading condition of the success. San Francisco Asian Escort If seizes and makes the best use of opportunity available, one can succeed surely. In summary, to them, chances and lucks play the most important role on the road to success. San Francisco Asian Escorts
And anyway, it doesn't look like anyone really meant to post this here; it looks like some sort of computer glitch.
Bob Bridges said:
No, that didn't work. But I think I see the HTML code in the post that did it; when I take out the <pre> and </pre> codes, it went back to displaying things correctly in my reply panel. I'm guessing, however, that it won't fix the problem in the main page; if not, we'll have to report that post to have it removed.
biziwen said:
very body wants to succeed. But when it comes to the question that which factor leads to success, opportunity or hard-work, different people will offer different answers. San Francisco Escort Some people think that opportunity is the first factor leading to success. They hold the idea, as a proverb saying, “Man proposes, god disposesâ€. San Francisco Escorts Because almost all successful people have good luck and have caught their valuable opportunities, they believe that opportunity is a leading condition of the success. San Francisco Asian Escort If seizes and makes the best use of opportunity available, one can succeed surely. In summary, to them, chances and lucks play the most important role on the road to success. San Francisco Asian Escorts
And anyway, it doesn't look like anyone really meant to post this here; it looks like some sort of computer glitch.
Mine's all scallywompus, too. Lines don't wrap around when they hit the end of my window. My plan is to wait helplessly until something magic happens to fix it.
Your citation above isn't a glitch - it's spam. It's just enough of a snippit of some random text to get you to read it. Then, you're supposed to be curious enough about the link to get the stinkin' thinkin' started. I get regular cynicism shots to innoculate against this sort of infection.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)