Re: Nit picky grammar question...

Subject: Re: Nit picky grammar question...
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 15:18:19 -0800

Dick Margulis wrote:

> That's a different question. Perhaps I am quartered at a branch office
> in Sheboygan of a company headquartered in New York. In that instance, I
> am not headquartered anywhere. However I have a headquarters. It just
> happens to be elsewhere than where I am. So if you were to ask me where
> I am headquartered, the truthful answer would be "nowhere." But if you
> were to ask me where my headquarters be, the truthful answer would be
> "New York."
>

Doesn't "quartered" have connotations of being officially posted
somewhere, and of having your bed and board arranged? As in Kipling:

You may talk of wine or beer,
When you're quartered safe out here

If so, then "quartered" or "headquartered" doesn't seem quite right
for a company. After all, you're perfectly free to leave (although
one of my ex-boss refers to people who do as "traitors"), and, the
occasional luncheon or evening pizza aside, you don't get room and
board (although I've known coders to sleep in the boxes that
full-sized file cabinets are shipped in)

On the other hand, I do enjoy my personal association of Kipling's
imperialists with modern capitalists, especially when I remember how
much the British Raj was associated with business,including running
opium to China. But that's another story.

--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"Oh play me a blues song and fade down the light
I'm sad as a proud man can be sad tonight,
Just let me dream on, just let me sway,
while the sweet violins and the saxaphones play."
- Richard Thompson, "Waltzing's for Dreamers"

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