suffice(d) (it) to say

[Wilson Gray]

Likewise.

Way back in the day, I overheard a conversation amongst the parental
elderly on this very topic. I likely would have forgotten about this
long ago, except that the conversation segued into a discussion of
"sacrifice."

We all know and agree that the verb is ['s&krI,fajs]. But, what about
the noun? Shouldn't that be ['s&krIfIs]?

As a practicing member of The One True Faith, in those days, I was
exceeding familiar with the phrase, "Holy Sacri[fajs] of the Mass," I
found the segue laughable.

Later in life, I tried to introduce "atrophy" ['&tr@,faj] as the verb
of "atrophy" [&tr at fi]. I failed. "Atrophy" is a word that, for all
practical purposes, is non-occurrent in casual conversation.

-Wilson
–––
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.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: suffice(d) (it) to say
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I've always understood this as I've always heard and seen it, "suffice
> it to say", subjunctive, = 'let it suffice  to say ...'.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
> <GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
>> I know the idiom as "suffice it to say" and I've heard "suffice to say" =
>> but I saw "sufficed to say" in a blog today which was a new one for me. =
>> It's not quite an eggcorn but something maybe. It's not in Brians's list =
>> of errors. Interestingly when I googled on "sufficed to say" the first =
>> result I came up with was a query about which is the right form with =
>> some nice reasoning:
>>
>> http://soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=3D10587
>>
>> Quote:=20
>>
>> "sufficed to say"
>> "suffice to say"
>> "suffice it to say"
>>
>> i've seen all three. are any improper usages? if not, do they all mean =
>> exactly the same thing?
>>
>> i know that 'sufficed' is an actual word, so i just assumed that the =
>> first phrase was correct and the other two were created through knowing =
>> the phrase but putting it to paper improperly. but then i saw the third =
>> one in an advertisement on the el, so i guess that one's correct too?
>>
>> fucking english language
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org