Re: schoen

Reinhold (Rey) Aman wrote:
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > Reinhold (Rey) Aman wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > > Actually, it's not *my* proposition; I merely disseminate it. The
> > > credit goes to Byron Koekkoek, who in the 1960s or '70s suggested
> > > to Herbert Kufner (Cornell) that he not use "Middle Bavarian" but
> > > "Central Bavarian" for _Mittelbairisch_.
>
> > And did Kufner accede?
>
> Of course, because Kufner is a smart and reasonable man. He thanked
> Koekkoek for his suggestion and changed his terminology.
>
> [...]
>
> > > Anyone who henceforward misuses "Middle" for "Central" when speaking of
> > > *regional* languages/dialects is dumber than a lobotomized wombat.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> > There are three Federal judicial disctricts in Tennessee, one to the
> > east, one to the west, and one between them. It's called the Middle
> > District of Tennessee.
>
> That's fine, but I have been limiting the Central/Middle distinction to
> the names of LANGUAGES/DIALECTS (see, e.g., my statement above) and have
> been avoiding references to GEOGRAPHICAL designations and toponyms.

But you based your (artificial) distinction on the claim that in English
"Middle" refers only to time and "Central" only to place. This is
empirically incorrect. I quote your passage that you snipped above:

> > Koekkoek's astute distinction is obvious when considering the two
> > precise English meanings of "Central" (place only) and "Middle" (time
> > only) for the ambiguous German _Mittel-_ (time or place):

English has no such "precise" meanings for the two words.

> The reason is simple: names of geographical areas and their
> translations are a mess. There's CENTRAL America and MIDDLE America,
> The MIDDLE East, The MIDDLE West, The MIDDLE Kingdom, etc., etc.

And all those terms, and many more, have clear and distinct referents,
and they do not confuse the people who use them.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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