Hi, All!

Can an Englishmen see in the gloom? :)

Is it a darkness or twilight?

Bye, All!
Alexander Koryagin
--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0
* Origin: Usenet Network (2:5075/128.130)

Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to All:

Can an Englishmen see in the gloom? :)

|Singular, Englishman. Plural, Englishmen.

Is it a darkness or twilight?

It could be either. Gloom = a state of partial or total darkness. Twilight occurs near dawn or sunset when the sun is below the horizon but you can see a bit of light in the sky. (This phenomenon apparently doesn't occur near the equator, where Kipling says "the dawn comes up like thunder".) :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 28.10.2022 21:46

ak>> Can an Englishmen see in the gloom? :)
AH> |Singular, Englishman. Plural, Englishmen.
ak>> Is it a darkness or twilight?
AH> It could be either. Gloom = a state of partial or
AH> total darkness.

Well... So an Englishman can see in the gloom and can not see in the
gloom. ;-)

Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
fido.english_tutor 2022
--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0
* Origin: Usenet Network (2:5075/128.130)

Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

Gloom = a state of partial or total darkness.

Well... So an Englishman can see in the gloom
and can not see in the gloom. ;-)

I see you got the idea. Good.... :-)

I added the correction just before posting my reply, then began to wonder if I should have said simply "-man", "-men". This pattern is akin to what dictionaries use, builds on what you & others here already know, and is easier to read. OTOH I wouldn't want anyone to read too much into it.

Man, men. Woman, women. The same applies to "Englishman" & other words you've probably encountered before. But times change, and where folks like me grew up hearing of policemen & policewomen many such terms have been replaced by gender-neutral terms... WRT this example, "police officer". :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 12.11.2022 22:40

AH>> Gloom = a state of partial or total darkness.
ak>> Well... So an Englishman can see in the gloom
ak>> and can not see in the gloom. ;-)
AH> I see you got the idea. Good.... :-)
AH> I added the correction just before posting my reply,
AH> then began to wonder if I should have said simply "-man",
AH> "-men". This pattern is akin to what dictionaries use, builds
AH> on what you & others here already know, and is easier to read.
AH> OTOH I wouldn't want anyone to read too much into it. Man,
AH> men. Woman, women. The same applies to "Englishman" & other words
AH> you've probably encountered before. But times change, and where folks
AH> like me grew up hearing of policemen & policewomen many such terms
AH> have been replaced by gender-neutral terms... WRT this example,
"police
AH> officer". :-)

So it would have been proper to ask "Can an English person see in the
gloom?" Does it sound well?


Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
fido.english_tutor,local.cc.ak 2022
--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0
* Origin: Usenet Network (2:5075/128.130)

Hi, Alexander! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

many such terms have been replaced by gender-neutral terms
... WRT this example, "police officer". :-)

So it would have been proper to ask "Can an English person

see in the gloom?" Does it sound well?

IMHO it's a good start... and a good example of how one must know at least half the answers in order to ask the right questions.

Personally, I understand what you mean when you say "Englishman". I grew up when the masculine pronoun was the default in formal grammar & I don't feel slighted if you'd rather not clutter your prose by including my gender in your enquiries. The word "Englishman" also includes folks of English ancestry
... such as myself... but doesn't have the multiple definitions "English" has.

The latter may include anybody who speaks English, which I figure is more realistic in this echo. But others may be sitting on their hands because they were born in e.g. Ireland or Russia or southeast Asia. Yes, the language originated in England. What you really want to ask, however, is probably more like "Is it acceptable &/or appropriate to write [blah blah] in English"? :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

alexander koryagin:

So it would have been proper to ask "Can an English
person see in the gloom?" Does it sound well?

I beg to remark that propriety and grammatical correctess
are largely orthogonal.

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)