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From: entropi@chess.cs.umn.edu (Bridget Kromhout)
Subject: Re: How language evolves-- "emails"
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Sender: Bridget Kromhout
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Organization: Univ of Minnesota ACM Student Chapter, Mpls. MN
References: <3s704g$dbe@Mercury.mcs.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 04:00:26 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:40611 comp.ai.nat-lang:3506

In article <3s704g$dbe@Mercury.mcs.com>, Jorn Barger <jorn@MCS.COM> wrote:
>
>I think a nice example of this is happening as we speak (+/- 2 years),
>as we try to decide how to talk about *email*...
>
>"I sent her an email letter."  Too formal
>"I sent her an e-letter."  Doesn't sound right.
>"I sent her an email."  Sounds fine... suprisingly.
>"I sent her a mail."  Doesn't work... but why not?
>
i usually say "i sent her email." or "i sent her mail." (i consider mail to be 
electronic unless specified to be snailmail.)

>The locution "My hard drive is filling up with emails" used to sound
>funny to me, a couple of years ago-- but for some reason it *works*,
>not by analogy with "mails" but by some subtler process...
i would say "my hard drive is filling up with email."

just my two cents....
--
bridget ~ entropi@monopoly.cs.umn.edu ~ http://monopoly.cs.umn.edu/~entropi
