tiigerrick, I guess it's what one is familiar with. What blows my mind is that some people pronounce "Mary," "merry," and "marry" all the same! Chacun à son goût.

AnWulf, I'm not sure I agree. Even if you use oblige in its strongest sense, you may ALWAYS choose not to do something that you're obliged to do (if you are willing to bear the consequences). Even if you use the word compel in its weakest sense, you are NEVER able to avoid doing something you are compelled to do. If you avoid doing it, then you weren't actually compelled.

Kate, referring to the pronunciation as "long a" is standard terminology. Most vowels have a long and short version. The long version actually is longer to say because it is a dipthong. Long A is two different sounds, -eh followed by -ee, to create the --ey sound. The short version, as in "cat" is a single, short phoneme.

Pluralizing as e-mails shouldn't really upset you. If you compare electronic and paper correspondence, then you have mail and e-mail as mass nouns describing general correspondence. If you talk about individual countable pieces of mail, then for paper, you'd have a letter or letters. While you might find it unfortunate, the electronic version of letter is e-mail. so "a letter" becomes "an e-mail" and letters becomes e-mails. Sure, we could have come up with another word, but, er, we didn't. I guess e-letter never caught on.

oops, bad edit. delete the last two lines of my post above:

"i have a choice.
For one thing, you can be obliged to stay in a job you hate."

shouldn't be there

I would agree that oblige is not really the right word. I'd go as far as to say it's a a misquote of the familiar saying. I think "forced" is the more common word. They don't mean the same thing. If I'm obliged to do something, I'm supposed to do it but I don't have to. I can choose not to. If I'm forced to do something, then I cannot opt out. I must do it. If I'm obliged to go to a social event, I can still choose not to go and risk the wrath of my family and friends. If I'm forced to go to jail, I can't choose otherwise. I'll be dragged there physically, against my will.

Next, if you look at the actual meaning of the saying, "obliged" doesn't make any sense. Plenty of people, perhaps most, are obliged to stay in their job, whether they hate it or love it. On the other hand, no one is "forced" to stay in their job. That's the point of the saying. If you hate your job, you always have other options.

i have a choice.

For one thing, you can be obliged to stay in a job you hate.

oops, that's ...stand..., not ...sand...

While some may disagree, I would not use "to stand down" to mean "to resign". More often, to sand down means to cease hostilities or cease preparation for hostilities. Telling someone to stand down is like saying, stop your "sabre-rattling". Instead, I would use "step down" to mean "resign".

In any case, while I have never heard "to be stood down" before, it's certainly a plausible construction. Someone or something can stand up, or can also be made to stand up by someone or something else. Similarly, if someone else forced the commander to stand down, then he would have been stood down by that person, yes? ...was compelled to resign rather than simply resigned.

Sigurd, I would disagree. I don't think that African-American necessarily implies that one is descended from transaltantic slaves. Rather, I think it simply denotes an American of African origin, no different in structure than, say, Italian-American is an American of Italian descent. I would further suggest that all "black" Americans are ultiimately African-Americans, at least if they consider their heritage ultimately to be African. Actually, I would suggest that all Americans are ultimately African Americans, as all humans are ultimately of African descent.

Hailey, "border" in border collie refers to the herding dog's origin, the border between Scotland and England. The border between two countries is not a proper noun, so should not be capitalized.