Kenji Okamoto wrote:
> Thanks Ron.

>>US Gummint is one way to say: "United States Government"

My favourite US saying is "If the opposite of pro- is con-, what is the 
opposite of progress?"

> This is understandable to me when I was taught the meaning.
> The thing always annoyes me is Bob is Robert.   I asked why this
> can be the Americans around me when I was in US, and got no
> solid answer.    Most just smiled.   Bob has quite different sound 
> from Robert, hasn't it?

Bob and Rob sound very similar in English (Australian English).

Many people called John seem to be called Jack (although that seems to 
be an early to mid- 20th century abbreviation, not so common now).

I'm curious how much of the SMS message-speak is dependent on language. 
   When I see messages such as "c u l8r", phonetically in English it is 
"see you later" which makes sense in English.  Try it in Spanish (the 
only other language I'm at least vaguely familiar with) and I think you 
end up with "kuh uh lu-ocho-r"

Maybe time for an overlay file-system that translates file names into 
localised spellings!

> In case of Rob = Robert, I can understand it, of course.

> Off topic, sorry.

Always relevant on an internationally distributed mailing list.

> Kenji

	Adrian