Search found 232 matches

by brogine
Wed Feb 21, 2024 5:01 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: AA Meeting
Replies: 16
Views: 1727

Re: AA Meeting

Another interesting case is that of data and media.
The singular forms aren’t often required, but the plural quite
often are heard with the singular verb!
by brogine
Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:18 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: AA Meeting
Replies: 16
Views: 1727

Re: AA Meeting

Ya big silly! I was going to come back, anyway. I should have said two lists, the third being of words with plurals only for different types. coffee , wheat , etc. There’s a word for that kind of noun . . . . Now I think of it, aren’t there also words which are plural only in a non-literal sense? Wa...
by brogine
Tue Feb 20, 2024 10:41 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: AA Meeting
Replies: 16
Views: 1727

Re: AA Meeting

I have such a list, in a 1979 print dictionary. Actually, three lists, depending on this or that. But how’s this for an equine of a similar hue? Words for which the singular is the same as the plural . Lemme explain. I’m thinking - not without a degree of irritation - of cases where the singular see...
by brogine
Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:38 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: AA Meeting
Replies: 16
Views: 1727

Re: AA Meeting

Well done. That would be the one,
and probably the only one.
by brogine
Mon Feb 19, 2024 1:23 am
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: AA Meeting
Replies: 16
Views: 1727

AA Meeting

I have come up with over thirty place names (as rendered in English) - and picked up a few more in a gazetteer - beginning and ending with A. You wanna make somethin’ of it? I also know a like number of women’s names with L(s) followed by N(s), with vowels here and there. (Admittedly, some are cultu...
by brogine
Tue Feb 13, 2024 4:20 pm
Forum: Pronunciation
Topic: Another Petty Pet
Replies: 1
Views: 963

Another Petty Pet

Perhaps you’ve heard this. I find it quite annoying. A number of young adults I hear on the radio often end a sentence with a downward intonation and elongation of the stressed syllable of the last word. It adds an interrogative quality, as if they’re saying, “This is a declarative sentence, but ple...
by brogine
Mon Feb 12, 2024 1:41 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Alternative Christmas hymns
Replies: 36
Views: 60907

Re: Alternative Christmas hymns

As long as you’ve added ‘other’ . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QZN5CAvrIs. I’ve been an atheist over sixty years and have been moved by this about that long. Adding . . . I found this text online. All I can tell you about its origin is that Dyer-Bennett says he learned it from his grandmothe...
by brogine
Fri Feb 09, 2024 3:23 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Another Curiosity . . .
Replies: 2
Views: 272

Re: Another Curiosity . . .

Excellent, my friend! But not what I was thinking of. There goes my ‘unique’. And Mom always said I was special . . . . And looking at the OED, it’s not the only aeo- entry. A few for aio- as well. And one -Old English - for oai-. And oei- Oy gevalt! Perhaps we should drop the whole thing. But I’ll ...
by brogine
Fri Feb 09, 2024 1:35 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Another Curiosity . . .
Replies: 2
Views: 272

Another Curiosity . . .

. . . for you to disregard. Discovered during my Brownian movement among the vast fields of knowledge. To wit, a word comprising three vowels followed by a consonant. Possibly unique.
Tune in next week.
by brogine
Wed Feb 07, 2024 7:46 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Vocabulary
Replies: 0
Views: 306

Vocabulary

A recent post about phrases like ‘my homework needs done’
makes me wonder if there’s a word, analogous to ‘elision’,
for excision of a word or words. Why not a Board Index category for ‘Vocabulary’? Not etymology, but usage of the familiar, and discovery of the un-.
by brogine
Sat Feb 03, 2024 4:28 pm
Forum: Good Word Suggestions
Topic: Pessimism/Pessimist
Replies: 2
Views: 895

Re: Pessimism/Pessimist

Etymological cousins, one might say, rather than siblings, of ‘pejorative’ and - go know - ‘pejorate’.
by brogine
Thu Feb 01, 2024 7:26 pm
Forum: Grammar
Topic: Have you ever seen this construction?
Replies: 5
Views: 1387

Re: Have you ever seen this construction?

Well, that’s a good history of the phrase, but it stops at ‘knickerbockers’ qua ‘panties’. There are a few steps leading up to that. Another tortuous history I’ve mentioned is ‘tabby’ for ‘cat’. I do repeat myself, but ideas of this quality are not so common. And by ‘quality’ I refer to their nature...
by brogine
Thu Feb 01, 2024 2:43 pm
Forum: Grammar
Topic: Have you ever seen this construction?
Replies: 5
Views: 1387

Re: Have you ever seen this construction?

Maybe it’s some super-sized nihilism. (If that’s what I mean.) Nothing is real. You seem (if you will) to be among very few here interested in anything but etymology. Yet no one has accepted the brogine challenge: Can you find the route from the erudite quill of Washington Irving to "Don't get ...
by brogine
Thu Feb 01, 2024 1:44 am
Forum: Grammar
Topic: Have you ever seen this construction?
Replies: 5
Views: 1387

Have you ever seen this construction?

Have you ever seen this construction? Just came across this in a novel by Christopher Brookmyre, a Scot: “ . . . at how many people end up needing rescued . . . . “ I’ve only heard this from people from Pittsburgh (“My hair needs washed,” e.g.) and I’ve always thought it was a local idiosyncrasy.
by brogine
Mon Jan 29, 2024 3:31 pm
Forum: Res Diversae
Topic: Why I Read
Replies: 2
Views: 7654

Re: Why I Read

Hi. It was just a pretentious way to add enumeration. Those are all bits that moved me over many years of reading this and that. In other ravings . . . did you notice, in the ‘slough’ business, I changed ‘unsupported by the OED’ to ‘not supported by the OED’? The former struck me as vaguely illogica...

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