From hunsucker@uba.uva.nl Fri Oct 1 01:48:35 1999 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id BAA10286 for ; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 01:48:35 -0700 Received: from barlaeus.ic.uva.nl (barlaeus.ic.uva.nl [145.18.68.50]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id BAA15033 for ; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 01:48:34 -0700 Received: from UvA.uba.uva.nl (L-Hunsucker.uba.uva.nl [145.18.84.210]) by barlaeus.ic.uva.nl (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA09317 for ; Fri, 1 Oct 1999 10:48:32 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: barlaeus.ic.uva.nl: Host L-Hunsucker.uba.uva.nl [145.18.84.210] claimed to be UvA.uba.uva.nl Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19991001104937.007a3930@mail.uba.uva.nl> X-Sender: hunsucke@mail.uba.uva.nl X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 10:49:37 +0200 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: "R.L. Hunsucker (UvA/UBA)" Subject: Re: Chester Starr R.I.P. ; TAN: English usage In-Reply-To: <199910010215.VAA18742@darwin.helios.nd.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Many thanks to Al Kriman for supplying the entire wire item. I'm just wondering two things, totally unrelated to each other. 1. My impression was always that Chester Starr and classicists -- even those specializing in ancient history -- didn't mix very well; he went his own way, and they didn't have all that much to do with him. Is this more or less correct? (N.b., I'm not inviting any particular critique of anyone, certainly not of our former and still much- (also here; he has 24 entries in our library catalogue, dating from 1941 to 1992) read colleague; only curious whether this impression is correct, and how it can be explained.) There are probably many of you who know more about this than I. I was myself as visiting assistant professor active in the Dept. of Classical Studies (etc.) in Ann Arbor in 1972-1973, and stayed on later to do research in the papyrology rooms of Hatcher (when the great Herbert Youtie was still in charge there). I can't remember ever meeting Starr, and recall that he was hardly ever even mentioned by my colleagues, students or others, even the other ancient historians (who were at UMich to be found both in the History and in the Classical Studies Dep't.). 2. The AP wire story states that "Starr served with the U.S. Army from 1942-46." Is this kind of usage (instead of e.g. "from 1942 to 1946" or "in 1942-46") now totally normal over there? I hear and even read also things like "between ten to fifteen minutes" where I'd think there's nothing wrong with "between ten and fifteen minutes", which is no longer or harder to pronounce than the new expression, or depending on the context instead of "from ten to fifteen minutes", or "in ten to fifteen minutes", which are even shorter. I find it very jarring (is that MY problem?; is this just another example of language evolution which old fuddy-duddies (like me) shouldn't consider to be 'incorrect'?; should I above have written "dating between 1941 to 1992"?) (This sort of usage is even creeping into Dutch the last year or so -- also other languages?) Comments? - - - - - - - - - - - Laval Hunsucker hunsucker@uba.uva.nl --------------------- .