[net.nlang] It"s OK by me.

solomon (02/19/83)

A recent item in this group contained the following:

	I think that "comprise" has aquired[sic] its new meaning through confusion
	with "compose", since the sentence:

		"The computer comprises a processor, memory, and peripherals."

	is okay by me.

Have you ever wondered about the colloquial usage "by me" to mean
"in my opinion"?  I strongly suspect the phrase comes from Yiddish.
Yiddish contains a word pronounced the same as the English words "by"
and "buy" (Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet, but the usual
transliteration would render the word as "bey" or "bei") which translates
directly to the French "chez", but seems to have no simple English equivalent.
About the closest we can get is "at the home of".  For example, the
Yiddish "bey mir" corresponds to the French "chez moi", the
Danish "hos mej", or the English "at my place".  I maintain (without
good direct evidence) that native speakers of Yiddish simply "translated"
"bey" to "by", since "by" is a good English word, expresses roughly the
same idea, and doesn't require the speaker to restructure his sentence.
(Yiddish word order is much closer to English than German is.)

jah (02/20/83)

Yiddish folks coming to America had difficulty in differentiating the English
words "woth" and "by."  They were often used interchangably and strong together.
Thus, My suspicion is that we need look no further than "with me" for the
origin of "by me."

jah (02/20/83)

Please excuse the spelling in the previous article (and this one) my
keyboard is having problems.
addenda to previous:
"woth" = "with"
strong together = strung together
My = my

stuart (02/20/83)

Strangely enough, German also has "bei mir", which is the same as
the Yiddish phrase modulo some possible TINY connotations. 

mat (02/21/83)

	Yes, there is a whole large class of things in written
language that need to have upper and lower case distinguished.

What is the difference between  ``mV'' and  ``MV'' ? About a factor of one
American billion.  Common abbreviations for units reuire proper capitalization.

					-Mark Terribile