LL-L "Grammar" 2007.09.05 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  05 September 2007 - Volume 02
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: "KarlRein at aol.com" <KarlRein at aol.com>
Subject: Stair(s). pant(s) etc.

It may not be worth mentioning, but it occurs to me that I would say "a
trouser leg", but am ambivalent about the "s" in "a pant(s) leg," and would
probably use the plural form.  Maybe it is just me?

Groetjes.

Karl Reinhardt

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2007.09.05 (01) [E]

English certainly has a long history of confused plurals.  A well-known one
is "children", with the earlier plural of "child" being "childer".  This got
double-pluralised to "childer-en".

The reverse is seen in the vegetable "pea".  This was earlier "pease",
plural "peasen", but English uses the "s" plural as standard, so by
back-formation singular is deduced to be "pea".

Once you get to animals, many have no special plural (sheep and deer being
obvious cases), and in "big game" speech this seems to extend to many
animals - "a herd of buffalo" for example.  And trying to explain the
English umlaut plurals (mouse-mice, goose-geese) to a non-native speaker is
as complicated as German (why not "house-hice" and "moose-meese"?).

I was recently informed that whereas several small rodents are "mice",
several desk-top computer control devices are "mouses".  Not sure about that
one!

As to what you call several little snake-hunting viverids, that's anybody's
guess.  "A mongoose, and some others" has been suggested.

Paul Finlow-Bates
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From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong <Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2007.09.05 (01) [E]

Hi Ron and all other Lowlanders. The heavens be thanked. My computer has
finally been fixed and I am now plowing slowly through some 250 e-mails.
Somebody ought to do some research on the correlation of computer failure
and very long weekends. Anyhow it is not Murphy's fault, rather I think we
should put the onus on Mrs. Murphy – the mother who "birthed" him.

Re: the Singular/Plural phenomenon. In Dutch the word for staircase is
"trap", but the fact that the steps are called "treden" makes it easy for us
to think of the whole contraption as a singular unit.  The English staircase
is singular and consists of umpteen "stairs" (but you also could use steps).
Jacqueline

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

Thanks for the silence-breaking responses!

Paul, double plurals occur in other Lowlands languages also.  For instance,
Dutch has singular kind 'child' and plural kinderen (kind-er-en), and many
Low Saxon dialects have the equivalent Kind vs Kinners (Kind-er-s), much
like Afrikaans kind vs kinders ~ kinners (kind-er-s).
At least the Northern Low Saxon dialects have some homophone singular and
plural forms for some "mass" (i.e., edible) animals, such as Swien (pig) vs
Swien (pigs, hence swine), Schaap vs Schaap (sheep), and Fisch vs
Fisch(fish).  However, I'm not sure if this doesn't only
seem this way.  These words all take the plural suffix -e in German (Schwein
e, Schafe, Fische), and this -e, occurring more rarely, has been dropped in
most Northern Low Saxon dialects. (I believe it's the same in Mennonite Low
Saxon: Schwien vs Schwien, Schop vs Schop, Fesch vs Fesch).

Jacqueline, welcome to the world of the wired! What you said about stairs in
Dutch applies to Low Saxon and German also:

Low Saxon: a Trepp ~ Trapp ~ Tröpp consists of Trääd' (~ Treed ~ Trää ~
Tree, singular Tridd ~ Tredd).

German: a Treppe consists of Stufen (singular Stufe).

I think that English "stair" is ambiguous these days in that it can denote
either of these, though I have a hunch that it started off as "flight of
stairs" and "ladder," considering that (stǣƽer / stæ^ger) "stair" literally
meant '"climber" (Low Saxon *"Stieger", German *"Steiger") ; e.g. (OED):

1000: he feoll of anre stæƽre (flight of stairs)
1387: þrewe hym doun of a staire (flight of stairs)
1400: on ilka staffe of a staire stike wald a cluster (ladder)

The sense of "step" or "rung" seems to have come in no earlier than in the
14th century:

Wymmen vnwytte þat ... bitwene þe stele and þe stayƺre disserne not cunen.

The OED supplies a note about Scots (and Scottish English?):

Still the ordinary use in Scotland, where 'up the stair', 'down the stair'
are the usual equivalents for upstairs, downstairs, and '(to go up) six
stairs' means what in England would be expressed by 'six flights of stairs'.
(The whole series of steps between two successive floors counts, however, as
a single 'stair', even when it consists of two or more 'flights' or portions
separated by a landing.) In England the sing. in this sense is now very
rare, exc. in phr. on the stair, which is itself slightly archaic.

And here's another topic triggered by an example sentence I supplied in my
previous posting:

"Let's do a loose jean with that outfit,"

Obviously, "do" is the default and replacement verb in English. Apart from
replacing (usually sexual) taboo verbs, its use as a replacement verb in
jargons seems to be on the increase. The example above is from the world of
fashion, where "do" usually denotes "use as a part of an ensemble."  In
culinary jargon, "do" simply means "prepare" (e.g., "We'll first do a simple
field greens salad and then seared salmon on arugula."), perhaps because it
frees the speaker from having to decide on a specific verb, especially in
the case of combinations of ingredients that are fried, steamed, boiled,
baked, stewed, raw, etc.

That "do" is the default" is seen in its use in tag questions; e.g., "You
cook a lot, don't you?", "You don't like this, do you?"

As an aside, "do" can also serve as a noun, such as in "the do('s) and
don't('s) of investing," and as an abbreviation of "hairdo" (e.g., "Good
morning, sleepy head! Nice do! Not!").

Furthermore, there's the jocular use of "do," which I suspect is based on
its jargon use as in "Let's do lunch sometime!" (instead of ordinary "Let's
have lunch together sometime!").  So you can hear exchanges like the
following:

A: Just text me if you need more info.
B: Sorry. I don't do computers

A: Why not invite the whole family over to your cottage for the long
weekend?
B: Nah! We don't do kids for more than an hour or two.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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