the butt patrol

[Wilson Gray]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 12:11 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> (with ADS-L references)
>
> http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/a-pain-in-the-grammatical-butt/
>

And then there's that pronunciation, "buh-tox" [b^.taks].

I use a pair of / some / these / those scissors and never _a_
scissors, etc. and I regard _a pant_, etc. as the specialized jargon
of a particular field of endeavor, hence, none of my business.
Different strokes, etc. But, almost since childhood, I've wondred, if
you took a pair of scissors apart, would you then have two scissors?
The two halves of a pair of scissors? the two blades / pieces / parts
of a pair of scissors? A two-membered set for which there is no name?
Two random, unnameable objects that, when properly joined together,
_become_ "a pair of scissors"?

The mind is boggled!

And why is _ss_ pronounced as [z], anyroad?

--
-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

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