Arto Wikla wrote: > Dear David, > > On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, LGS-Europe wrote: > >> ..joyful looks excells. >> Tears kills the heart... >> >> What's with the s-es after the verbs? 'Looks' and 'tears' (noun, for sure in >> the contaxt) are plural, so I would expect 'excell' and 'kill'. > > Just an uneducated guess and speculation: somewhere in my mind there are > verb forms "excelles", "killes", etc. I guess I've read those words > in our beloved facsimilies, prefaces especially. This could be some form > of germanc languages' influence, plural of the verb? Perhaps? But I am > sure we'll hear the true explanation soon... :-) >
Singular verbs with plural nouns were acceptable in Elizabethan English. See for example Macbeth, 1.7.68: Their drenched natures lies as in a death, Cf. Abbott, "A Shakespearean Grammar", 3rd edition, 1870, section 333. By the way, this is the same Abbott who wrote "Flatland" :) Rainer adS To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
