On Thu, 8 Mar 2001 04:14:53 -0500, Huw Porter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:09:56 -0500, Reef Fish
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>

JMV>>>"trying to enlist me" and "asking me to join" doesn't equate to
JMV>>>"I was recruited".

RF>>It was your English.   They mean the SAME.

I apologize for the ambiguity of that statement to you 'ferners.  :-)
Since this IS as South East USA List, and Lee is presumably using
USA English, I should perhaps have written, "They mean the SAME,
in the USA" which I later clarified to JM which he seemed to have
accepted with a gnatish barb <G> that I've been around students
too long.  But NOT long enough to have affected my own usage of
the English language.

Besides, many of the college atheletes do not IMPLY "students".  :-)
I also added the example of corporations (again in the USA) "recruit"
("head hunt", WITHOUT success in most cases) high-level employees/
officers.  Those are definitely not "students" in any ordinary
sense of that word.  :-)

>
>Not in UK English.  "Recruit" implies success

I had already explained to JM that I was speaking of the COOMON usage
in the USA and that there may be different usage in other countries.

Did the Oxford English Dictionary include "implies success" in
the definition?   What you wrote seems to suggest the usage in
the UK has a IMPLIED meaning, because it certainly does NOT
have an "implied" meaning of success in "Persuade to do" below.

- (Oxford English
>Dictionary:  'Enlist (someone) in the armed forces; Enrol as a member or
>worker in an organisation; Persuade to do or help with something.')
>
>"trying to enlist me" would therefore equate to "*attempting* to recruit
>me".  US English may be different.

In the USA pidgin English <G>, if there is an IMPLIED meaning of
success, it would have to be STATED as "SUCCESSFULLY recruited me",
in ALL of the examples I gave.  Because in all those examples
I cited, the "success" rates are usually VERY LOW.   :-)


Why are the USA (pidgin English) users mum on the usage of the
word "recruit" and MY explanation of its usage (in the USA)?

-- Bob.