On Feb 19, 2006, at 17:01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Vicki) wrote:
A while back someone was "collecting" British-isms which were
generally not
used in the US and/or Canada.
Wasn't me; I "collect" grammatical horrors :) Came accross another one
today, in New York Times, Op-Ed section. There was an article on
Lincoln (today was the Presidents' Day -- no mail etc) and his wife
and, in it, the following "raisin" (or "plum" <g>):
"In the lecture he gave shortly after the president's death, Herndon
said that Lincoln had never loved his wife because his heart belonged
to Ann Rutledge, a neighbor who died at the age of 22 and whom some
historians believe was courted by Lincoln".
[...] WHOM some historians believe WAS COURTED [...]????
The author -- Samuel A. Schreiner Jr -- is, obviously, as enamoured of
long and convoluted sentences as I am :) But that's no excuse for
letting the tail end of a sentence go out of grammatical control...
This blooper is less common than the one I was foaming-at-the-mouth
about recently, but I do see versions of it from time to time. And it's
another argument for Martha's theory that, in a language which has very
few case endings, those which do exist are likely to be misunderstood
through lack of practice.
The guy wrote a book, too (at least... I think it might be a book. Only
the title was given: "The Trials of Mrs Lincoln", and no publisher)...
Anyone know how we came to use "bangs" in the US?
Don't *know*, but my guess would be it comes from the -- adverbial --
"bang": "with sudden impact, abruptly". Which is how the hair stops on
the forehead when it's cut in a "fringe".
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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