On 6/26/2007 10:13 AM Duncan Craig exclaimed:
> "Brian K" wrote in message
> news:ce2gi.1162$rR.537@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
>> I've seen these two words used interchangeably. I looked up debarking.
>> The only definitions I can find have to do with the removal of bark from a
>> tree. There is a third vaguely diabolical meaning, it is to surgically
>> remove the vocal chords from a dog. But what about the latter? The only
>> definitions I can find for disembark mean 'to leave a ship' or 'to leave a
>> vessel'.
>>
>> It's not really a major issue. However, it could be confusing for someone
>> for whom English is a second language happening upon this group. They
>> could mistakenly think that a cruise originating from the US winds up with
>> passengers being pressed into labor removing bark from trees. Worse yet,
>> they might think that the end of a cruise involves the ritual removing of
>> a dogs ability to bark.
>>
>> I did check, there is no word for putting the bark back on a tree, unless
>> some German speaking folk want to invent one. :-)
>>
>> --
>> ________
>> To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
>> Brian M. Kochera "Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
>> View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951
>>
>
> In 1955, our family was sent to Europe (Royal Canadian Air Force transfer)
> and we travelled on Cunard's "Samaria." My grandparents came to Quebec City
> for the sailing, and I can remember my Grandfather being OUTRAGED at the
> term "disembark!" He was a professor and the Dean of Humanities at Sir
> George Williams University (now Concordia in Montreal) and also an author.
> He had come to Canada from England as a young man.
> He kept going on about how you can EMbark, and you can DEbark, but you can't
> DISEMbark, apparently becaus "dis" cancels "em." (sort of the same theory
> that you can't "dispersist, you can only persist or desist)
> He'd be even more outraged, were he still alive, to know that I use
> "disembark." But I think of him every time I hear the expression
> "disembark."
>
>
>
So your grandfather favors debark? What does he have to say about the
word applied to bark removal and (shudder) bark removal from dogs?
--
________
To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951 |