Verbing

[Aaron Drews]

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:

}At 11:19 AM 7/2/99 Aaron Drews <aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
}>On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote:
}>}Speaking of verbs on the move, I saw a quote yesterday about the UK royal
}>}family's shrinking budget. A royal household official, Sir Micheal Peat, was
}>}quoted as saying, "Costs continue to reduce." [...] Is this a common UK usage,
}>}but not common in the US?
}>
}>    One does not hear it at all, even on the BBC news.  One suspects
}>it was idiolectal... either of Sir Michael or of the speech-writer.
}>        --Aaron
}>
}
}Uh oh, so this is more "unqueenly" English from the royal household's stable
}of scribes! Off with their heads! Maybe this is what comes from the
}cost-cutting measures the royals and the British govt have recently
}introduced.... Perhaps they have 25-y.o.'s writing their material now --
}like late-night comedy shows in the US!

Who knows?  It might even be more "queenly" since the Queen's English and
the English of most of the Queen's subjects hardly is the same.

--Aaron



 =======================================================================
Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
+44 (0)131 650-3485                      Departments of English Language
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron                          and Linguistics

"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
        --Death