On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:27:26 +0000, "Dave Doty" <davedoty@hotmail.com> wrote: | >From: "Joshua Hutchinson" <joshua@hutchinson.net> | | | >PS The expression is part of a two phrase dichotomy. Free speech (rights) | >and free stuff (beer). The two types of free. | | And if we have to use the phrase "free stuff" to explain the phrase "free | beer," maybe we've hit on the alternate choice right there. | | For the record, I'm not familiar with "free beer" as some sort of idiom, but | I understood the distinction from "free speech" instantly. I'm confused why | people are confused, to be honest. But if we can find an alternate phrase | that maintains the parallelism, I say go for it if it makes people happy. Just to point out that although we have free speech in the UK, we do not bang on about it like the leftpondians. So any parallelism will fall flat on its face here. When writing for a worldwide audience, I try to write things which will be understood by readers in the UK, India, Australia, etc not forgetting the USA. This is IME quite^h^h^h^hextremely difficult. -- Dave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> "Intelligent Design?" my knees say *not*. "Intelligent Design?" my back says *not*.