nom. for acc. (again)

[Wilson Gray]

"Till death do we part" is also the last, long-leaping line of a
'Fifties R&B love song. (The textbook that we used for Homeric Greek
in high school described

Hos hoi g'amphiepon taphon Hektoros hippodomoio
"Thus they carried out the burial of horse-taming Hector"

as "the last, long-leaping line of The Iliad.")

-Wilson

On 8/27/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: nom. for acc. (again)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 27, 2007, at 11:36 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
> > I saw this hypercorrection switcheroo today in a syndicated newspaper
> > article on a released prisoner:  The ex-prisoner said his wife had
> > stuck
> > with him because they had sworn "Till death do we part."  Amusing, if
> > impossible.
> >
> > Then again, maybe it's not the usual hypercorrection.  Since the
> > subjunctive mood of the frozen phrase is probably no longer
> > understood, the
> > speaker (many, perhaps?) may have thought 'we' and 'do' must agree
> > since
> > 'death' and 'do' couldn't.  I use a couple of such frozen phrases
> > in class
> > to illustrate syntactic change, and students often can't explain the
> > structures even though they know the phrases "by heart":
> > So be it
> > Be that as it may
> > Albeit
> > Would that it were so
> > And more word order inversion:
> > With this ring I thee wed
> > etc.
>
> surely the right analysis.  speakers are making the verb agreement
> "look right", even though it doesn't really make sense -- but then
> it's a fixed expression, and they don't *have to* make sense.
>
> tens of thousands of webhits for "do we part", taking in "till/til'/
> til/until death ..."  a CSI:Miami episode "Til Death Do We
> Part" (2005), a Murphy Brown episode "Till Death or Next Wednesday Do
> We Part" (1992), a Tales From the Crypt episode "Till Death Do We
> Part" (1993), a Tonya Dee song "Death Do We Part" (1961), a book "Til
> What Do We Part: A Wedding Planner for the Etiquette Impaired", a San
> Francisco Family Law Blog "'Til Prenup Do We Part", a blog entry
> "Until [Johnny] Depp Do We Part", a Milwaukee television news story
> "Til Debt Do We Part", and much, much more.
>
> arnold
>
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>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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