ERDNASE

Discuss general aspects of Genii.
Jack Shalom
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » December 23rd, 2021, 11:04 pm

Perhaps I'm using the Gogle ngram incorrectly, but when I put in "more bosh than" (without quote marks) for 1880-1920, with American English I get no results, but with British English, at least some results, albeit very low.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » December 24th, 2021, 4:47 am

Bosh isn't a common word, so when you put it in a phrase you're making it that much less common. Hence little or no results depending on the corpus (english or american).

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » December 24th, 2021, 11:26 am

@Jack -- that must be a failing of the NGram viewer, because the phrase does exist in American and English corpuses in Google Books (from which NGram viewer draws its information).

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 27th, 2022, 10:37 am

After 20 years, is this thread finally settling down?

Reversed names: I just read about a restaurant co-owned by Bill Murray in Charleston SC. He owns it through his company, Yarrum Properties.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Joe S. » April 27th, 2022, 11:30 am

Bill - Perhaps it is timely for someone, such as you, to provide a relatively brief summary on this board of the leading Erdnase candidates, the main evidence favoring or not favoring each of those candidates, and the overall current status of Erdnase-related research. Some of us (at least me) have lost sight of where that research stands. Thanks.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 27th, 2022, 12:58 pm

There hasn't been much "news" on this front in quite some time. For most of the last half of the 20th century, Milton Franklin Andrews was the dominant candidate. Then in 1999, David Alexander proposed Wilbur Edgerton Sanders and Richard Hatch proposed Edwin Sumner Andrews. Marty Demarest expanded on the case for Sanders in a Genii article in 2011 and in an article in a Montana history journal soon after. In 2015-2016, Chris Wasshuber started pushing Edward Gallaway as a candidate, culminating in his ebook on the subject that he's updated a few times since then. Those are the dominant candidates, although others have been proposed.

M. F. Andrews -- Pluses: "Correct" last name, gambler/card cheat, died soon after publication (thus removing him from the record). Minuses: writing style inconsistent with the text, "wrong" initials, no reason to think he was a magician.

E. S. Andrews -- Pluses: "correct" name, played cards, many interesting circumstantial coincidences of geography, related to artist Dalrymple. Minuses: Not known to be a writer of significance, not known to be a magician or gambler, life prior to and after 1902 was rather open and public which would seem to be inconsistent with an "Expert at the Card Table".

W. E. Sanders -- Pluses: Name converts to pseudonym, his career of mining engineer correlates to "Erdnase" (earth nose), known to have played cards and been interested in magic at some level, significant writing experience. Minuses: Life prior to 1902 was open and public and probably precluded the acquisition of Erdnase's skill set, no reason to publish in Chicago, no identification with the text after 1902.

Gallaway -- Pluses: I don't really see any, although Wasshuber tries to make a case in his book. Minuses: Covered extensively in this thread 2016 and after -- not particularly interested in rehashing them now.

There are problems with each candidate, so much so that I think it is not probable that Erdnase is any of them. My own feeling is that of the ones mentioned, the best case can be made for E. S. Andrews. There are also interesting arguments for W. E. Sanders. Magicians latched on to M. F. Andrews at a time when there were no other serious candidates, but I don't think that anyone takes him seriously as a candidate now. As a point of comparison, I once showed that many of the arguments that are used to say a particular candidate is Erdnase also applied to Houdini; no one seriously thinks that Houdini was Erdnase, therefore a pile of correlations between a candidate and what we think must have been true for Erdnase is insufficient to say that a person was Erdnase.

My own affection for E. S. Andrews is partially based on the fact that "S. W. Erdnase" reverses to "E. S. Andrews". I think the author's pseudonym is a big flag being waved at the reader, and if your advocacy of a candidate doesn't address this (in the ways that Andrews, or to a lesser extent, Sanders do), then the case for that candidate gets much harder. OTOH, if you don't see the pseudonym to be as significant as I do, then it becomes easier to imagine someone with a name unrelated to "Erdnase" as being the author. All this is to say that how much one believes in a candidate is as much a function of the prejudices and beliefs of the advocate as it is of the facts about the candidate.

Much has been made of comparisons of literary style between known writings of the candidates and Erdnase's text. It would seem that this should be a more fruitful and revelatory area of research than it has turned out to be. The biggest problem with Forensic Linguistics and the like is that it (at least as it has turned out to be in this particular investigation) is simply a way of digitizing pre-existing opinions about what is important. There is very little science involved -- theories tend not to be testable, and the track record of success in identifying unknown authors is small and doesn't transfer well to the problem at hand. I think it can be useful in rejecting candidates (for example, by comparing M. F. Andrews's letters to the text), but will not be successful saying "Erdnase and the author of [x document] are the same person" for some time.

I don't expect much new in the search, short of something completely unexpected, like correspondence from the years when the author would have still been alive that reveal his identity or other new documentary evidence. For me, the search for Erdnase has been an interesting lens through which to study the book itself, and a diverting and interesting pastime on its own. It is not, and hasn't been for some time, an investigation that I think will actually lead to the identity of the author.

Richard Hatch is probably the most knowledgeable person on the subject. He's more or less dropped out of the discussion here, but it would be great if he offered any new thoughts he might have.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » April 27th, 2022, 1:17 pm

Bill Mullins wrote:After 20 years, is this thread finally settling down?

Reversed names: I just read about a restaurant co-owned by Bill Murray in Charleston SC. He owns it through his company, Yarrum Properties.


I believe this is common in the real estate industry. Also, I drove a Yellow cab in NYC during the late 70s/ early 80s and although there were a few big owners, they had separate little corporations set up for each cab for liability reasons, and they would be required to have the name of the corp on the taxi door. Many of the names of those corporations as I remember were reversed names.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jim Martin » April 27th, 2022, 1:46 pm

Thanks for the summation, Bill. Excellent work, as always.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 27th, 2022, 2:18 pm

I strongly suspect that Erdnase wasn't a gambler at all! A magician --yes! Gamblers and card sharks aren't the sort of people who write books. Gamblers and card sharks don't have almost encyclopediac knowledge of card sleights like Erdnase seems to. Card cheats don't do much in the way of card tricks either.

The book reminds me of pseudo gambling lectures that magicians sometimes do which consist of what they imagine card cheats get up to when they don't really know for sure what goes on. I bet ten to one Erdnase never used any of the techniques he described in an actual game. There is something fishy about the whole thing. I bet it was just some magician who realised that rather than writing a book on card tricks figured that a book on cheating at cards would sell better. And of course he wouldn't put his real name to it since everyone would realise he was a magician who had never cheated at cards in his lfe.

Sorry, but I smell a rat with this book. Besides I am psychic and know these things...................

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » April 27th, 2022, 9:33 pm

Anyone doing gambling demos "exposes" in 1902? "Reformed sinner" lectures were pretty popular at the time...

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 27th, 2022, 10:38 pm

I have met rather a lot of wicked people in my time including a few crooked gamblers. They are not nice people and have criminal backgrounds. They aren't the brightest sparks in the drawer. I doubt they can even spell let alone write books full of dozens of sleight of hand techniques. They know about two or three moves at the most and do them very crudely. People like that don't write books I can assure you.

Erdnase is too well written for that. A magician wrote it not a gambler.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 27th, 2022, 10:59 pm

Tarotist wrote:I have met rather a lot of wicked people in my time including a few crooked gamblers. They are not nice people and have criminal backgrounds. They aren't the brightest sparks in the drawer. I doubt they can even spell let alone write books full of dozens of sleight of hand techniques. They know about two or three moves at the most and do them very crudely. People like that don't write books I can assure you.

Erdnase is too well written for that. A magician wrote it not a gambler.

A counterexample is Persi Diaconis whose wiki page says:

According to Martin Gardner, at school, Diaconis supported himself by playing poker on ships between New York and South America. Gardner recalls that Diaconis had "fantastic second deal and bottom deal".

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » April 28th, 2022, 6:43 am

Tarotist wrote:I have met rather a lot of wicked people in my time including a few crooked gamblers. They are not nice people and have criminal backgrounds. They aren't the brightest sparks in the drawer. I doubt they can even spell let alone write books full of dozens of sleight of hand techniques. They know about two or three moves at the most and do them very crudely. People like that don't write books I can assure you.

Erdnase is too well written for that. A magician wrote it not a gambler.


Mark, you're missing my point. I agree with you. And so I was wondering if perhaps at the time could there have been magicians cashing in on the "reformed sinner" theme by giving "lectures" of gambling moves. In other words, was there a Darwin Ortiz of 1902?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » April 28th, 2022, 9:45 am

Tarotist wrote:I strongly suspect that Erdnase wasn't a gambler at all! [...]

Sorry, but I smell a rat with this book. Besides I am psychic and know these things...................
Check out the introduction to Sharps and Flats from 1894. ;) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41169/4 ... 1169-h.htm
It's as if someone wanted a more American version for the local market. Something more anodyne for the facile reader. Here's some text to compare:
In presenting the following pages to the public, I have had in view a very serious purpose. Here and there may be found a few words spoken in jest; but throughout my aim has been particularly earnest.

This book, in fact, tends to point a moral, and present a problem. The moral is obvious, the problem is ethical; which is, perhaps, only another way of saying something different.
[...] Although the immediate practical outcome of this book may be nil, I shall not be depressed upon that account. If it only has the effect of opening the eyes of the authorities to some extent, and of hinting a caution to gamblers generally, I shall be content; and, commending it to the public with this reflection, and with the hope that this much, at least, may be accomplished, I leave it to its fate.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 28th, 2022, 11:02 am

Jack Shalom wrote:
Tarotist wrote:I have met rather a lot of wicked people in my time including a few crooked gamblers. They are not nice people and have criminal backgrounds. They aren't the brightest sparks in the drawer. I doubt they can even spell let alone write books full of dozens of sleight of hand techniques. They know about two or three moves at the most and do them very crudely. People like that don't write books I can assure you.

Erdnase is too well written for that. A magician wrote it not a gambler.


Mark, you're missing my point. I agree with you. And so I was wondering if perhaps at the time could there have been magicians cashing in on the "reformed sinner" theme by giving "lectures" of gambling moves. In other words, was there a Darwin Ortiz of 1902?


I know you agree with me. I wasn't replying to you specifically. I was merely ruminating in my usual brilliant manner.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 28th, 2022, 11:17 am

Bob Coyne wrote:
Tarotist wrote:I have met rather a lot of wicked people in my time including a few crooked gamblers. They are not nice people and have criminal backgrounds. They aren't the brightest sparks in the drawer. I doubt they can even spell let alone write books full of dozens of sleight of hand techniques. They know about two or three moves at the most and do them very crudely. People like that don't write books I can assure you.

Erdnase is too well written for that. A magician wrote it not a gambler.

A counterexample is Persi Diaconis whose wiki page says:

According to Martin Gardner, at school, Diaconis supported himself by playing poker on ships between New York and South America. Gardner recalls that Diaconis had "fantastic second deal and bottom deal".


Well, of course if it is on the internet it must be true. I am quite sure that every young magician who is expert at cards tries their hand at cheating because of the foolishness of youth. It doesn't mean that they actually succeed in it. Anyway it is a criminal activity and I am sure you are not accusing him of that. He may well have "supported himself by playing poker" but that doesn't mean he was cheating. I am quite sure he had "fantastic second and bottom dealing" skills but that doesn't mean he was cheating either. Anyway, he didn't write any books on cheating and come to think of it I don't think he wrote any books on magic either although I may be wrong.

Actually I met him once. Many years ago I was wandering around Harbourfront in Toronto and suddenly heard a voice calling me by name and saw Tom Ransom (the well known magician and puzzle king) sitting there with Persi. He beckoned me over and I spent a few hours with them. He never took a deck of cards out or discussed card magic at all. I had a feeling he had given up all that stuff. He did say he was going to visit me the next day in Eatons department store where I was relieving the public of their money with the svengali deck but he never showed up.

Anyway I found this and found it rather fascinating.
https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/B ... /Diaconis/

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bob Coyne » April 28th, 2022, 11:47 am

Not to belabor the point, but in one of Persi's math papers it says:

Persi Diaconis left High School at an early age to earn a living as a magician and gambler, only later to become interested in mathematics...

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/P ... ffling.pdf

Perhaps Erdnase was that kind of gambler too. Not all gamblers and/or cheats need to be criminal types or dim-witted low-lifes. And I would think that back in 1900, with poker and gambling being a more integral part of the culture, that was even more the case.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » April 28th, 2022, 11:59 am

Jack Shalom wrote:I was wondering if perhaps at the time could there have been magicians cashing in on the "reformed sinner" theme by giving "lectures" of gambling moves. In other words, was there a Darwin Ortiz of 1902?


Jack -- I have looked at newspaper accounts of many reformed gamblers of the era (and gave a talk on one, Kid Canfield, at the final LA History Conference). I think the answer is probably "no". None of the prominent reformed gamblers of the era that I could identify had a magic background. Some of them wrote books or sold pitch books that may have included magic tricks (J. H. Green, for example), but they were stock tricks that were probably cribbed from existing books, and didn't represent any particular magic skill on the part of the lecturer.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Diego » April 28th, 2022, 1:17 pm

Reading Erdnase's reasons for writing his book to address a wrong and open eyes to it, reminds me of those who produced what was called, "White Coat Pornography": Porn with moral pronouncements at the end, to warn the public of such behavior. (Exploit, titillate, and moralize at the end.)

On a different note, Mark's assessment of crooked gamblers rings true. I remember those who worked the poker tables at The Union Plaza, and other lower-end casinos in downtown Las Vegas, were for the most part, pathetic criminals who only hustled the tables, (working with others at the table, giving each other the office) and then take the money they got over to the another casino, and blow it all...not even leaving themselves a dollar to buy the bargain breakfast....then back to the poker tables to get another score...only to blow it again.
Actually sad.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » April 28th, 2022, 2:14 pm

Bob Coyne wrote:Not to belabor the point, but in one of Persi's math papers it says:

Persi Diaconis left High School at an early age to earn a living as a magician and gambler, only later to become interested in mathematics...

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/P ... ffling.pdf

Perhaps Erdnase was that kind of gambler too. Not all gamblers and/or cheats need to be criminal types or dim-witted low-lifes. And I would think that back in 1900, with poker and gambling being a more integral part of the culture, that was even more the case.

The reports from a few who recall him when he was much younger have it that he was seen as very bright, talented, and skillful. One used the word "rescued" as regards getting him back into school.

In the erdnase text there's some mention of people living with gambling addiction. That's scary. I don't recall mention of how long it was between the time the author started learning about card cheating and sleight of hand, and when he started writing the "expert" book.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Diego » April 28th, 2022, 8:16 pm

Gambling addiction among professional gamblers...employees in the casinos and hustlers on the other side of the table, is familiar factor. Especially in downtown Vegas. Playing on Fremont Street, is like drinking on skid row, where addiction has become degeneration without pretense. Just like the hustlers who blew their scores within hours playing in another casino, I would see dealers take off their aprons, take the tokes they got that night and blow them across the street, the money never making it home. Amazing as you would THINK after watching players at their table blow their money, they should know they won't to any better playing the same themselves. Even the better mechanics still blowing their money on their addictions to gambling/booze/drugs, still think they are beating the system because they don't have a 9-5 job.
(From "The Gambler"-1974: "A gambler's life, is based on trying to prove that 2+2=5.")

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 28th, 2022, 8:21 pm

I half wonder if the original candidate Milton Franklin Andrews really was the author but paid someone to ghost write the book for him. He does fit the description of a low life criminal. On the other hand probably not. Card cheats really don't know all those fancy moves in the book. I doubt he did.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Joe Lyons » April 28th, 2022, 8:45 pm

Tarotist wrote:I half wonder if the original candidate Milton Franklin Andrews really was the author but paid someone to ghost write the book for him.

Isn't one of the posits of TMWWE book that Hilliar ghost wrote it?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Kaufman » April 28th, 2022, 8:49 pm

That has been mentioned but discounted.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » April 29th, 2022, 2:17 pm

Ah, so great minds think alike! And of course I have always considered myself a great mind! Anyway my final verdict on the matter is that there is no real evidence that any of the candidates mentioned is the correct one and all we have is speculation. But speculation is not evidence. My speculation is that it was a magician who never cheated at cards in the first place but thought writing a book on it would make a bit of money. I doubt we will ever find out who really wrote it.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Frame » April 30th, 2022, 6:49 pm

I’ve been rabidly reading this thread for years. There has been some discussion about why, after the publication of ECT, the author neither identified himself, nor published any other documents, even under another pseudonym, that exemplified both his sleight of hand acumen and his literary “voice.”

Has anyone explored the idea that a magician, who fits the requisite magical and literary criteria, died soon after the publication of the book? Say, between the years of 1902-1904?

I propose that, as a man who ostensibly “needs the money”, the author died before he had the opportunity to monetize his masterwork. Had he lived, he would done everything possible to earn money from the book. Whether he disclosed his true identity or not, he would have soaked up the accolades of other magicians and eventually booked as many lectures and performances as possible.

Just a thought.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Kaufman » April 30th, 2022, 7:26 pm

I believe, Tom, that subject has come up in researching several of the candidates. But you should also not take "Erdnase" at his work that he needed money.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » May 9th, 2022, 4:16 pm

Re: anagram names. I just got an email ad from Potter & Potter with some business cards. Note the all-but-identical pair of cards from Paul Daniels and The Eldanis. I've never run across that he performed under that name before.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » May 9th, 2022, 9:03 pm

Yes. He did an act with his first wife and they called themselves the Eldanis.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 9th, 2022, 10:08 pm

Jack Shalom wrote:Perhaps I'm using the Gogle ngram incorrectly, but when I put in "more bosh than" (without quote marks) for 1880-1920, with American English I get no results, but with British English, at least some results, albeit very low.

I don’t want to derail after a couple hundred pages, but, there is no such thing as British English. English is English. It is the the language of the English, from England.
There is American English, and Canadian English, of course. Just as there is Quebec French, Brazilian Portuguese, Mexican Spanish.
But there is no Portuguese Portuguese, and there is no Spanish Spanish, and there is no French French, and there is no British English.
Its just Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English.
Have a good day.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » May 10th, 2022, 1:34 am


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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 10th, 2022, 8:08 am

Jack Shalom wrote:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/British%20English

My point exactly.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 10th, 2022, 8:09 am


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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » May 10th, 2022, 8:22 am

there is no such thing as British English

I prefer to go with the OED and Merriam Webster, thanks. Language is not a consistent system; there are historical and usage reasons why the term does indeed exist and why in the kinds of contexts I used it in, it is more descriptive and communicates meaning better than merely the term English.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tarotist » May 10th, 2022, 8:33 am

I wonder if there is such a thing as Scottish English?
Incidentally I have always been amused that many of the giants of ENGLISH literature have all been Irish! I have also been further amused that most Irish people can't speak their own language!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 10th, 2022, 10:04 am

True. I'm glad to see Cornish making a comeback.
I guess if I go to Spain I'll hear people speaking Spanish Spanish. Lol.
Can you imagine a Quebecer telling someone from France that they speak French French?
Or a Brazilian telling someone from Portugal they're speaking Portuguese Portuguese?
I guess if someone adds it to a dictionary, it's gospel.
Oh, and for those who think there are three countries in North America, Google says there are 23. Soooo there must be 23.
If it's on Google, or a dictionary, it MUST be correct!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » May 10th, 2022, 12:23 pm

Any questions about this list (in alphabetical order) ?
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, United States

Anyway; any news of Chicago or authors of the time?
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 10th, 2022, 1:03 pm

Hi Jon. Great list of nations. Some from the Isthmus of Central America, some from the Caribbean and three from North America. I'd like to visit them all!
Back to Erdnase.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jack Shalom » May 10th, 2022, 2:18 pm

Or a Brazilian telling someone from Portugal they're speaking Portuguese Portuguese?


Look up "Portuguese Portuguese" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It doesn't exist. Yet "British English" does. Again, language is not a strictly consistent system of logical imposed rules.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby magicfish » May 10th, 2022, 2:36 pm

Jack Shalom wrote:
Or a Brazilian telling someone from Portugal they're speaking Portuguese Portuguese?


Look up "Portuguese Portuguese" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It doesn't exist. Yet "British English" does. Again, language is not a strictly consistent system of logical imposed rules.

Sorry, but no. I don't check dictionaries, or search engines, to find out if things exist.
American English doesn't exist either. Neither does Canadian English nor Australian English.
Portuguese Portuguese isn't in there because Brazilians as a whole dont have the audacity to imply that Portuguese people speak a "version" of Portuguese the way you and many others in North America imply that somehow English men are speaking a "version" of English- they most certainly are not.
English is English regardless of American isms.
Spanish is Spanish regardless of Argentina
French is French despite Quebec and Algeria's modifications.
Italian is Italian etc.
Anyway, language is a different thread- as is geography. I don’t want to derail any further.
Have a good day Jack.
P.s. I have a couple nice copies of Erdnase.


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