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Re: Receipts

From athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid>
Newsgroups alt.usage.english, alt.english.usage
Subject Re: Receipts
References (6 earlier) <naccbnFd0bvU1@mid.individual.net> <mn.e2a67ea602f1d15c.127094@snitoo> <najpr7FjuhuU1@mid.individual.net> <mn.08c97ea70a0344cd.127094@snitoo> <1122sv7$1qjdt$1@dont-email.me>
Date 2026-07-01 12:57 +0000
Message-ID <1782910646-12588@newsgrouper.org> (permalink)

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> posted:

> On 01/07/26 20:21, Snidely wrote:
> > Remember when Hibou bragged outrageously?  That was Tuesday:
> 
> [Topic: the use of "receipts" to mean "proof" or "evidence".]
> 
> >> In this case the statement was a strong one, about armed forces
> >> deliberately choosing children as targets. It needed no decoration.
> >>  Trying to enliven it with non-standard words risks distracting
> >> readers and weakening it. If one has evoked an image of soldiers
> >> shooting children, does it help to overlay that with a picture of a
> >> stack of receipts?
> >
> > You mean a stack of register papers.  Try to get it right.
> >
> > [that's intended to be minor irony. or pointing the petard back at
> > you]
> >
> > You are acting as if the entire audience had the reaction you're
> > having.  While I'm not claiming they didn't, we both lack the data to
> >  support either claim.  I am going to assume that there were enough
> > people who weren't confused or bothered by the usage that we should
> > consider it acceptable in the context.
> 
> Enough information flows around the world that we're usually aware of
> words that are used differently in different countries. So, for example,
> if I hear someone using "gas" for a liquid fuel, I know that that is
> perfectly normal AmE. I wouldn't say it myself, but I understand it when
> I hear it.
> 
> That observation isn't confined to English. In most languages, people
> who speak one dialect have a pretty good understanding of at least some
> of the other dialects.

Yes, but misunderstandings can still arise. The common everyday word for
baby is "guagua" in Chile, Peru and Ecuador; in Cuba and the Canary Islands
the same word means bus. Elsewhere the word isn't used, but is understood 
with the bus meaning, and confusion can arise if you ask for the sección de
guaguas in a shop in Madrid, as my wife once did. She wasn't interested in
buying a bus.
> 
> The present case is unusual because the non-Americans among us had never
> heard "receipts" being used in that way. We were completely blindsided
> by it. For whatever reason, that usage had not escaped the borders of
> north America. And the explanations were slow in coming. When we heard
> that that meaning was understood by one person in Flanders and another
> in Florida, it wasn't yet clear that a lot of Americans understood it.
> 
> I, like Hibou, am still uncomfortable with it. The news that started
> this discussion was revelations by doctors of large numbers of young
> children who had been killed by a single shot to the head. (Something
> that doesn't often happen accidentally.) Using a cash register metaphor
> for that sounds tasteless, and an attempt to trivialise the incidents.
> 
> We wouldn't be disagreeing if the meaning "recieipts"="evidence" was
> widespread in the English-speaking world; but it isn't.
> 


-- 
athel

Living in Marseilles for 39 years; mainly in England before that,
with long periods in Singapore, California, Chile and Canada

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Thread

Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-26 17:00 +0200
  Re: Receipts athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-06-26 15:01 +0000
    Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-26 19:17 +0100
      Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 05:02 +0200
        Re: Receipts The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 06:10 -0400
          Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 03:29 +0200
          Re: Receipts Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2026-06-29 02:17 -0300
      Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-27 15:47 +1000
        Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-27 11:15 +0100
          Re: Receipts nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-27 13:25 +0200
          Re: Receipts Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> - 2026-06-28 08:29 +0100
            Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 17:09 +0200
        Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:49 +0200
        Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 11:30 -0400
          Re: Receipts richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2026-06-27 18:49 +0000
            Re: Receipts liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2026-06-27 21:58 +0100
            Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 11:21 +1000
              Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-28 05:51 +0100
            Re: Receipts Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> - 2026-06-28 18:57 +1200
              Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-28 11:46 +0100
                Re: Receipts Snidely <snidely.too@gmail.com> - 2026-06-30 19:40 -0700
                Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-01 07:19 +0100
                Re: Receipts Snidely <snidely.too@gmail.com> - 2026-07-01 03:21 -0700
                Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-01 11:49 +0100
                Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-07-01 21:16 +1000
                Re: Receipts athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-07-01 12:57 +0000
                Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-01 15:40 +0100
                Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-07-02 09:44 +1000
                Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-07-02 05:16 +0200
                Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-02 06:11 +0100
                Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-07-03 08:28 +0200
                Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-07-04 11:55 +0100
      Re: Receipts occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-06-27 14:22 +0200
        Re: Receipts Phil <phil@anonymous.invalid> - 2026-06-27 18:18 +0100
          Re: Receipts ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-06-27 18:35 +0000
            Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 15:05 -0400
    Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 04:44 +0200
      Re: Receipts nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-27 13:25 +0200
        Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 03:39 +0200
          Re: Receipts nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-28 11:01 +0200
            Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 21:21 +1000
            Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-28 15:48 +0200
              Re: Receipts nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-28 21:32 +0200
                Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-29 17:45 +0200
          Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-28 15:42 +0200
  Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-26 18:13 +0200
    Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-26 12:57 -0400
      Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:40 +0200
        Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 11:01 -0400
          Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 03:53 +0200
            Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 23:26 -0400
        Re: Receipts Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 11:37 +1000
          Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-28 05:51 +0100
          Re: Receipts nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-28 11:01 +0200
    Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-26 19:24 +0100
      Re: Receipts liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2026-06-27 12:23 +0100
      Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:41 +0200
        Re: Receipts Hibou <vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:39 +0100
    Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 05:04 +0200
  Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-26 12:46 -0400
    Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 05:25 +0200
      Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 00:31 -0400
        Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 19:00 +0200
          Re: Receipts The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 13:16 -0400
            Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 19:33 +0200
            Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 04:09 +0200
              Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 23:25 -0400
          Re: Receipts Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 14:51 -0400
      Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:58 +0200
        Re: Receipts Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 04:16 +0200
          Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-28 10:16 +0200
    Re: Receipts "s|b" <me@privacy.invalid> - 2026-06-27 13:31 +0200
  Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 12:10 +0800
    Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-27 19:05 +0200
      Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> - 2026-06-27 15:01 -0400
        Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-28 12:54 +0800
      Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-27 23:10 +0200
        Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2026-06-28 04:21 +0200
          Re: Receipts ... ignore threads? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-28 12:53 +0800
          Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-06-28 09:35 +0200
            Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-28 18:19 +0800
              Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org> - 2026-06-28 21:28 +1000
                Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? occam <occam@nowhere.nix> - 2026-06-29 08:16 +0200
                Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-29 19:18 +0800
          Re: Receipts <-- mis-dictation? cursed? nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2026-06-28 11:01 +0200
        Re: Receipts ... forcing delta updates to old NNTP servers? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-06-28 12:46 +0800
  Re: Receipts vs Magical Talisman??? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-01 14:42 +0800

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