[Ads-l] Heard: "Hey, is this one of ?_ours's_/?_ourses'_ birthdays?"
James A. Landau
JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM
Tue May 24 13:36:20 UTC 2016
On Mon, 23 May 2016 21:55:57 zone-0400 Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>Asked of his buddies by a local middle-schooler.
>
>Oh, well. Language-change in progress.
The superfluous "es" is well-established in humorous verse, e.g.
Under the spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy snoozes
No horse since nineteen thirty-three
Has come to him for shoeses
(Note that the composer of this quatrain was under the impression that "smithy" was a variant form of "smith")
and in humorous dialog, e.g.
I hate these meeses to pieces
Off-topic: the second quote reminds me of a crash blossom from the Reagan administration: Nation's Hungry Attack Meese
- James A. Landau
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