bostonman

Oh, this is certainly a separate conversation for a different thread - but opera singers in certain opera houses HAVE occasionally been miked. It's just that no one wants to admit it, lol. But yes - when on Broadway, do as the Broadway shows do, lol - I believe the 2002 Broadway production of the Baz Luhrmann Boheme, which did feature young bona fide opera singers - was also miked. (And also, the Ronstadt Pirates Of Penzance was miked - and not very well, as I remember my experience seeing it - but that's a different story IMO. And despite the primitive miking, what a wonderful production!)

I think I saw that.

Some years back, I somehow settled on "take care" as an exit greeting - but the actual implication that I'm hoping the person to whom I'm saying goodbye actually takes care of themselves isn't the point. One also has to wonder how many people who avoid any undue talk of religion and/or who don't like to say "god" in casual conversation (taking the lord's name in vain) also have no problem saying "goodbye" (i.e. god be with you") either because they just don't think about it or that they know it doesn't really mean what it used to mean. On a similar note, I remember a story from years ago where a woman (a receptionist, I think) was fired from her job because she would end conversations with "have a blessed day." But I do have to wonder how many of the people who complained about her "pushing religion on people" also automatically said "bless you" as a default when someone sneezed. The problem is that "bless you" has become benign and meaningless as a phrase, even though it is short for "GOD bless you" (which some people also say in that context). Gesundheit - which literally means health ("to your health" is implied, of course) - is probably a safer way to go, lol. Words can sometimes lose their meaning the more we use them in repetition. One of my goals in being a vocal coach with theatre students and professionals is to make sure that the words that are sung have actual meaning behind them. Often, people performing a song are doing it by rote repetition, and aren't truly thinking about communicating the lyric - but the mark of a good singing actor is to remember that expressing the words is crucial. (This, William, is why I notice when I hear great professionals sing wrong lyrics, lol.) I often make a comparison to things we've learned to recite in our youth, like the Pledge of Allegiance, or the Lord's Prayer, etc. Many of us grew up reciting such things almost every day. Do we ever really think about the meaning of those phrases, or do they just become a pattern? I think most of us would agree it's the latter. (And a shout-out to my mother, though she doesn't read this board, lol - who told me that when she was a kid, she thought the "of thee I sing" lyric in "My Country 'Tis Of Thee," sung every morning when she was in school, was really "of T-I-C" - because that was one of the local radio/TV stations. )

Great post gp. I took some linguistics courses in college and I don't remember covering phatic expression, but it reminds me a lot of similar things we did cover, like our use of "filler" words and sound (like "um") to avoid silence in speech and conversation. We say a lot of things and give off a lot of language-oriented cues to help a conversation along that are otherwise not meant to be understood literally.

Yes - but that seems to be a universal thing, not just in English. The languages I know all have greetings that are similar to that. And I think it's always understood that it's colloquial for "hi" - that a literal answer to "how are you" is not really the point.

And if they're all gluten-free?

It IS interesting to find out the origins of some of these songs. And let's not forget that Elvis' famous "Love Me Tender" is a lyric rewrite of an old folk song, "Aura Lee." (Which is one of those songs I remember having to sing in some school choir, as we all laughed under our breath because of the wordplay with the title lol.)

I have occasionally seen ads on BP and other places that have headlines like "last day in Boston" etc - and then the same ad appears a few days later...and again...and again...so yeah, you have a point lol.

Except I recall that he said that once before as well.

I sent you a private message. I think we should talk about this privately at this point. Thanks.

Which - not to push the point, but even so - which is why I wonder if he's struggling more with his addictions than you realize. Maybe indeed this is NOT characteristic of his sober self. I'm only conjecturing, but that does seem plausible.

Fair enough. I just figure I get these ranting emails from someone, and that consequently they can't be in their right mind. So I thought perhaps it was the addiction talking. In any case, he made himself look entirely unappealing. It's a shame, really. I would have liked to have met him - but certainly not with the baggage he just unloaded on me. (And by the way, he continued to email me, to get his last word in, even after I had specifically asked him to stop.) I never even had the chance to let him know that I had thought about the travel fee issue and was willing to honor it. He attacked me before I could even get there. And I tried very hard to remain respectful when the fee issue came up. I explained how I felt about it and kept trying to emphasise that I understood his reasons for the fee, etc. But he just totally flew off the handle. I have better things to do with my time than to argue with someone as unstable as that.

I'm sure he's going to tell you a great Trump-style yarn, and I couldn't care less what he thinks or says. In any case, I feel he way way way way overreacted to my question about his travel fee, and he seems to have some big jealousy issues with another area escort. And he already admitted to me about addiction issues he has, which I'm sure is part of this - which is a huge red flag regardless. His behavior seems all so childish and petty, and frankly, I don't want to hear one more word about it. It's all a huge waste of time.

Collin just launched into an unprovoked hissy fit with me over another escort I saw some time ago. (Two emails' worth.) I don't know why he chose to involve me in his petty personal problems, but it was very uncomfortable stuff to read. I wrote back, saying I wish not to be involved in his personal squabbles, and that it was incredibly unprofessional for him to presume to use me for such a bitch session about a colleague. This is NOT how any escort should act. I was planning to try to meet up with him in the near future. There was a slight issue over a travel fee which I was thinking about, and was prepared to forget about for the sake of meeting him. That, obviously, is no longer an issue. I'm not going to get involved with someone who sends me emails like he just did. Especially as we have not met - I was still nothing more than a potential client. Amazingly unprofessional behavior, and disturbing as well. I would not recommend Collin to anyone based on this erratic behavior. I can't vouch for him in person, but he certainly knows how to drive away potential clients. I give him a big "WTF."

A truly astounding version (along with the rest of his fast-forward adaptation of the film), by a truly astounding artist:

That milquetoast revival of Gigi last season with Ms. Hudgens should never have happened, even with tried-and-true pros like Clark and McGillin in the cast. Actually, it never should have been made into a stage show, period. (It was a flop in 1973, and it was flop this time.) It's not really a truly favorite film of mine either lol, but the film is miles superior to the stage show, and yes, Chevalier and Tucker are well-matched. (But again, I don't think the Clark/McGillin version qualifies as a "cover" - it's just the wrong terminology. But at this point it seems we're opening this up to alternate performances of songs in general, so fine by me lol.)

No need to delete anything, my friend. It's all part of a valid discussion.

Well, lol, I did say that a new arrangement is most often implied - but there are certainly degrees of that. For instance, the Whitney Houston cover of "The Greatest Love Of All" is still very much in the same spirit as the George Benson original - they are different arrangements, but in the same essential vein. But take the 1980's cover of the Burt Bacharach "Always Something There To Remind Me" (as sung by Dionne Warwick), reimagined in new-wave style by a band called Naked Eyes (which was a major hit at the time) - virtually a whole different song, lol. So there really are no rules in terms of how the arrangement differs or not.

I would debate that these recordings - i.e. Stokes doing this song, or Martin doing "Hello, Dolly," are not "covers." A "cover" is ordinarily purely a record industry term, not a term for someone else who plays the same role in a later stage production of a show. Sometimes the word "cover" is used to mean "understudy" (especially in opera, where any big company will have "covers" for the lead roles of a major production), but it's not used the same way it is in the recording industry. However, one would certainly classify the songs on Streisand's "Broadway Album" (and its sequel) to be covers, because they are simply recordings, not stage performances. Also - to me, a "cover" version most often implies a new and different arrangement of the song - which is not true for either the Stokes or Martin versions posted here. (It is true for the Streisand albums, sometimes to the songs' detriments, like her horrid, synth-laden goopy rendition of "Somewhere.") Famous cover versions of showtunes include the Beatles' "Till There Was You," The 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" and Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life." But I'm also quite partial to this rather surprising cover of one of my favorite standards (originally from the Kern/Hammerstein show Very Warm For May). Dig the groovy 1970's sound on this, lol:

Some info: https://www.tomatofest.com/what-is-heirloom-tomato.html

Some info: https://www.tomatofest.com/what-is-heirloom-tomato.html

Mais non. Again, I disagree, based on the principle that assimilation from one language into another happens all the time and shouldn't be counted in the same way. If you're going to see the great cathedral in Paris, it's (approximately)"No-tra Dahm." If you're going to be the QB for the Fighting Irish at that university in Indiana, it's "No-duhr Daym." And that's that. Any lawyers on here want to defend the often brutally twisted Anglicised pronunciations of (formerly) Latin legal terms?

I would also point out one important distinction. Words do get assimilated as they pass from one language to another - it happens with English words in other countries as well as foreign words in ours. I haven't checked a dictionary, but I assume that "croissANT" as an assimilated American word is - like it or not, correct. It wouldn't be the way you'd want to say it on a trip to Paris, lol, but it may indeed be totally acceptable here. I know it may hurt your ears, but it is a part of how words change from language to language. What we refer to as a "cal-zone" is not correct Italian either. But try to order a "cahl-tzo-nay" and you'll get odd looks lol. BUT - as you rightly pointed out, if we're talking about actually speaking in a foreign tongue, like the French diplomat you mentioned, then yes, it should be accurate to the original language.