but = only?

Good Morning, O!
It's 3AM here so I shall try to be cogent.

The use of 'but' here is like saying "against all the odds, the least likely, least desirable, most unexpected, person I would expect to see"

And it's sort of meaningless as well, you can leave it out and it still makes sense.

"And who should I see in the lobby, sitting in a chair and reading a newspaper. Mr. Earl Higgins, alias Old Cue-Ball. I pass him as silently as I can..."

The 'but' is in there as kind of a word punctuation mark. A pause.

Others could be put in:
And who should I see in the lobby, sitting in a chair and reading a newspaper? You guessed it. Mr. Earl Higgins, alias Old Cue-Ball, I pass him as silently as I can...


And who should I see in the lobby, sitting in a chair and reading a newspaper? Of course, Mr. Earl Higgins, alias Old Cue-Ball, I pass him as silently as I can... (you can hear some kind of sigh going on in that one. 'Tis not a good thing for the speaker that ol' Earl has shown up in the lobby.)

English has numerous words that we stick to help with what seems like rhythm more than meaning. "Do you see what I mean?" contains the word 'do' for no apparent reason.

There are more. You'll trip over them.

Joe(See what I mean?)Nation

Joe is not actually a native speaker of English--in fact, he's a Ruthene, but he lies about it.

Excellent!

Thank you Joe.

Well, the truth you've offered makes him adorable!

See what my ID means, Set? OristarA is after the Origin of Stars. Joe is a star here! He's inspirational.

Defeat him in the English field, if you think he's Ruthene, with the advantage of your native language.

(I) disagree, you silly American billy.

We need reasons more than lessons, McTag.

Go ahead and let us hear your fine voice, not a harsh one.

Well, i guess that puts McT in his place . . .

The 'meaningless do' is a little plaything for linguists to argue about, especially about from whence it came. I am not a linguist, I just like reading about English.
~~
(Do) you see what they are doing?
(Do)you see the truth in that?
(Do) you eat apples?
(Do) you agree that any of these sentences beginning with 'do' would be just as understandable without it, but we English speakers have stuck the 'do' in there (as do the Celts) as a emphasizer, a rhythmic marker, not because it has a meaning.
It sounds right to our ears because that is how we learned to play the music.

It's different in a sentence like "Do as I say, not as I do." because DO there means 'act' 'perform' 'proceed'.
---
"Act as I say, not as I act." doesn't have the same punch, but it does have the same meaning.

See John McWhorter's book " Our Bastard Tongue" for more.
~~~~
Thanks to Set for teaching me the word "Ruthene".
I try to learn something new every day.
"Ruthene" is my something new for September 9, 2004.
I'm a little behind.
~~
And now for something completely different that I saw written on a lavatory wall many years ago that has nothing to do with this discussion:
Voltaire : Be all and do!
Kant: Do all and be!
Sinatra: Doo be doo be doo.

Thanks for your very kind words, OristarA.
Joe(I hope I can continue to earn them.)Nation

You hear the same as me

is a statement.

Do you hear the same as me

is a question.

Not if the inflection you put on each are the Declarative and the Interrogative.

Captain : "You hear the same as me ?"
Crew : "Aye, Captain."
Clearly a question.

It comes from the Old English forms
"You doth/didst hear the same as I."
"You do/didst hear the same as I?"
Middle English reversed the do position.
Do you hear....
Did you hear the same..


DID is a past tense marker.
Did you hear me?
or in the Old, You didst hear the same.
It could be argued that there is something more going on with DID/didst in terms of some activity, but again, it's a more of a clarifier than any kind of action word.

Next we can talk about why we add -ING to a word when we want to know what someone is DO-ing.
German:
I eat. ...................Ich esse
I am eating. ..............Ich esse
I eat apples. ..............Ich esse Äpfel
I am eating apples. ...Ich esse Äpfel

Joe(How come we get so fancy?)Nation

meaning.

By that logic, why not miss more words out? You can do it, if you know the context, and use the device of altered inflexion:

"Hear that?" might be quite all right as a dialogue line from The Wire, but it's not standard English.

And that is important how?

Don't be silly. You're just being deliberately awkward.

How to understand the TROIKA says? Correct me if I get it wrong:

Be all and do! ===>>> Imagine that you can be all the roles in this world and then do it! (that ends up Voltaire being a writer).

Do all and be! ===>>> Do all you can and thus find whom you are (that turns out Kant being a thinker and an investigator).

Doo be doo be doo ===>>> Do it around but not really do it in the way of reality (that presents us with an actor and a funny singer).

You see what you've done now, Joe?

No, he was just being sillywith that, he was repeating a joke. By the way, your use of troika is inappropriate. Although many, perhaps most, English speakers are familiar with the word troika, they would not use it in such a context. I don't see any reason why an English speaker would emphasize that there are three parts to the little ditty--but in English, troika is a specialized noun almost always used either in the literal sense of a sleigh pulled by three horses, or a government of three men.

Hello and good morning from New York!

Okay. Before this gets more out of hand, let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea of removing "do", I was just pointing out that, in English, in certain circumstances, the use of 'do' is meaningless, it just adds rhythm to the sentences. It's fun, at least for me, to think about stuff like that. It's what drew me to the question about BUT OristarA asked to begin this thread.

As for the idea of Standard English, I am one of those English speakers who is very glad we do not all speak to each other as if we were reading the news on television. (A speaker from the British Isle might say that sentence as "I am very glad indeed we ...." . Indeed is another one of the empathizers in English. What meaning does it add? Oh, well. enough of that.)

OristarA: My apologies to you for posting that joke. You understand it pretty well, but it's it's sillier than how you say it, maybe I can make it clearer. (That's a big maybe.)

Someone once said explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog; you understand it better, but the frog dies. So now, I will try to explain a joke. Good luck, OristarA!! Good luck, frog!

The joke is a silly contrast between the supposed words of two very serious philosophers, Kant and Voltaire and (this you did not know) Frank Sinatra, who was a pop music singer a few years ago. A seriously good singer, but not a serious philosophical person.

It's a play on the words DO and BE.
First, we have the very serious Philosophers supposedly saying "Be all and do" and "Do all and be" then, for the punchline, we add the not serious at all singer who at the end of one of his songs sings: "Doo be doo be doo." which are nonsense words.

So, it's:
Supposed very serious words.
Supposed very serious words.
Silly nonsense words.

Voltaire : Be all and do!
Kant: Do all and be!
Sinatra: Doo be doo be doo.

Get it? How's the frog doing?
Hey, I found the song : http://youtu.be/rDA33hGFNgQ
Listen at 2:22 near the end.
See? He's just making up words to finish the song.

Another try:
It's as if you had two of your best poets come out on a stage.
Each one reads one of their most beautiful verses.
Everyone is quiet, thinking.
Then out onto the stage comes another man.
He walks to the microphone.
Waits just a moment.
Then he makes a sound like a duck quacking, a baby crying and a car horn.

(I don't know. Would Chinese people think that was funny??)


It is always a pleasure for me to read your writing, OristarA, and to try to answer your questions.
Joe(I promise. No more jokes!)Nation

Joe ( I am thoroughly chastened ) Nation