Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Apruh Poe of nothing

If you like words, I recommend the following:

Wordstruck by Robert MacNeil

A Word A Day

Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

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As people have pointed out in the past, there are a number of words/phrases in English that are always (or nearly) followed by other words/phrases.
Examples:
1. very few things are wreaked. or wrought. vengeance and havoc, mostly, i think.

2. does "every man jack of you" ever do anything but walk the plank?

Anybody have any other examples?

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And speaking of wreaking: did you know that the most frequently used verbs (eg, be, make, do, go) are the most likely to be irregularly conjugated? I guess using them all the time is what allows them to stay irregular -- verbs tend to "regularize", especially as they fall out of use. Example: the past tense of slay was slew, now tends to be slayed; Loan/Leant/Loaned; etc.

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And now speaking of "loaned": I can't remember where I read it, but there's a conversation in a novel that goes:
Boy 1: Where'd you get that [item]?
Boy 2: Loaned it off a guy...

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[interesting part goes here]

3 Comments:

At Wed May 10, 08:46:00 AM PDT, Blogger jay are said...

"Loaned it off a guy"...that is great.
And are anything ever akimbo except for arms?

 
At Wed May 10, 08:47:00 AM PDT, Blogger jay are said...

And speaking of words, I guess that would be "IS anything" ever akimbo. I looked at that for awhile and couldn't decide. Hmm well. IS seems to be the winner.

 
At Wed May 10, 10:42:00 AM PDT, Blogger unca said...

Actually, I've heard, "every man jack of you" in lots of other ways. Sorry.

 

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