More better grammer and speeling please.

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PDQ Mobile
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Jdsk wrote:The English language has a plural for sheep. It's sheep. It's not that there's no plural, it's that the plural has the same form as the singular.

Jonathan

Indeed, but differentiation has its uses,
As a simple example.
Imagine a couple of sheep pens!?

A single sheep in one and lots of sheeps in the other

"Go fetch the sheep" has no need of more detail!
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Jdsk wrote:The English language has a plural for sheep. It's sheep. It's not that there's no plural, it's that the plural has the same form as the singular.

Jonathan


And in order to make English consistent I shall draw a parallel with the humble mouse and say there are many hice on my street.

English is a right hodgepodge of a language, beautiful and disordered - which is one of its strengths. Without the order that comes from a prescriptivist linguistic system it can adapt to basically any need.

The English I use here is different from the way I talk at home, both are different from that which I would use on a job application.


You might have two flocks of sheep, which conveys that the two groups are different, but you might have them as one flock most of the years, so is it a mixed flock, rather than multiple sheep(s)?

If you have 50 black and fifty white sheep, then you end up being long winded and descriptive, or you use what I called a “super plural” to suggest that you have multiple groups of things.

That last sentence reveals the true answer though - the “group”img word is what gets the additional plural.



For our next topic, could English do with having explicit clusivity?
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Jdsk
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Jdsk »

[XAP]Bob wrote:The English I use here is different from the way I talk at home, both are different from that which I would use on a job application.

This simple observation can remove a fair bit of the rubbish that is talked about what's right and what's wrong. (From which this thread still hasn't suffered too much.)

[XAP]Bob wrote:For our next topic, could English do with having explicit clusivity?

We could discuss that... ; - )

Jonathan
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Jdsk wrote:
[XAP]Bob wrote:For our next topic, could English do with having explicit clusivity?

We could discuss that... ; - )

Jonathan


I can take a hint ;)
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
kwackers
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by kwackers »

I've often thought "sheep" as a singular is wrong.
"Look at that sheep" just sound wrong whereas "look at those sheep" sounds fine.

I propose a singular for sheep.
Perhaps a 'shoop' or a 'shep', they both sound right for a single sheep.
(I suspect they're probably pronounced 'shep' in some part of the country anyway.)

I don't have such problems with "fish" or "deer", they work singular or plural.
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by PDQ Mobile »

kwackers wrote:I've often thought "sheep" as a singular is wrong.
"Look at that sheep" just sound wrong whereas "look at those sheep" sounds fine.

I propose a singular for sheep.
Perhaps a 'shoop' or a 'shep', they both sound right for a single sheep.
(I suspect they're probably pronounced 'shep' in some part of the country anyway.)

I don't have such problems with "fish" or "deer", they work singular or plural.

Perhaps it's your deep and forgotten Celtic origins rising up through mysterious layers of ancient DNA and the unconscious?
Personally I like the simple device of adding an "s"! :shock:
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by simonineaston »

...just a thought, but it could be that singular sheep are already catered for, as in 'look at that lamb / tup / ewe / ram' and so on....
S
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Jdsk
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Jdsk »

IIRC that group of words with an uninflected plural (sheep, deer, fish) come from Germanic neuter nouns. And the included animals live in herds and are herded or hunted.

But there are others, eg aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plurals

Jonathan
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Jdsk wrote:IIRC that group of words with an uninflected plural (sheep, deer, fish) come from Germanic neuter nouns.

But there are others, eg aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plurals

Jonathan

Fisch is masculine?
And the all German examples have plurals, I think.
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Jdsk »

Modern English isn't a descendant of modern German.

I suggest checking the plural form of the nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns in the Germanic language of Old English and in other dialects.

Jonathan
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Jdsk wrote:Modern English isn't a descendant of modern German.

I suggest checking the plural form of the nominative and accusative cases of neuter nouns in the Germanic language of Old English and in other dialects.

Jonathan

Now that you say it!! :roll:
Never my strong point, German genders.
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Vorpal »

The s plural comes form Old English, where it comes from proto-germanic and/or proto indo-european languages. Many of the short/simple words in English come from either Old Norse, Old English, or Old Low German. Some of them took their plurals with and some did not. Many of those that had plural which do not agree with other English words had their plurals changed or dropped. Some kind of follow the rules of the previous language, rather like datum / data from Latin. (ed. ox => oxen is a good example)

It all comes from having English as a hodge-podge language, and the tendency of languages to simplify over time.
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Jdsk
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Jdsk »

Vorpal wrote:The s plural comes form Old English, where it comes from proto-germanic and/or proto indo-european languages. Many of the short/simple words in English come from either Old Norse, Old English, or Old Low German. Some of them took their plurals with and some did not. Many of those that had plural which do not agree with other English words had their plurals changed or dropped. Some kind of follow the rules of the previous language, rather like datum / data from Latin. (ed. ox => oxen is a good example)

But the invariant plural of neuter nouns was also there for some other words but hasn't made it into modern English. There is something about the sheep/deer/fish group that made a difference: it could be the herd element.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Jdsk »

Vorpal wrote:It all comes from having English as a hodge-podge language, and the tendency of languages to simplify over time.

As above English isn't a mishmash or hodge-podge language...it's the vocabulary that has so many origins and influences (and all the richer for it).

Vorpal wrote:... and the tendency of languages to simplify over time.

This is fascinating and has recently become much better understood. I recommend Deutscher:
https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/deutscher-on-the-unfolding-of-language

Jonathan

PS: I'd always thought that mishmash came from Yiddish. Just looked it up...
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Re: More better grammer and speeling please.

Post by Vorpal »

Jdsk wrote:
Vorpal wrote:The s plural comes form Old English, where it comes from proto-germanic and/or proto indo-european languages. Many of the short/simple words in English come from either Old Norse, Old English, or Old Low German. Some of them took their plurals with and some did not. Many of those that had plural which do not agree with other English words had their plurals changed or dropped. Some kind of follow the rules of the previous language, rather like datum / data from Latin. (ed. ox => oxen is a good example)

But the invariant plural of neuter nouns was also there for some other words but hasn't made it into modern English. There is something about the sheep/deer/fish group that made a difference: it could be the herd element.

Jonathan

Yes, it could. And the languages on the germanic part of the language tree tend to treat uncountable nouns the same way, and have similar uncountable nouns. Fish is a funny one, though because it is sometimes okay to use 'fishes', for example, when referring to multiple species in a discussion about fish keeping or science.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
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