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!
Search found 232 matches
- Wed Feb 21, 2024 5:01 pm
- Forum: Res Diversae
- Topic: AA Meeting
- Replies: 16
- Views: 1727
- 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...
- 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...
- 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.
and probably the only one.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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.
Tune in next week.
- 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-.
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-.
- 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’.
- 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...
- 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 ...
- 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.
- 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...