Subject: Re: King's English, V-formations, & daytrips
Date: Oct 14 07:55:17 1994
From: Jim Lyles - jrlyles at fs01dwatcm.wr.usgs.gov



Hello,Lisa Smith--

This Friday morning I found some of your musings directed to me:

> To Jim Lyles: When you say modern usage, are you referring to usage
> within the last millennium? To my mind, modern English usage refers to
> the language AS, or "after Shakespeare." Anything else is, of course, BS.
> (I just *couldn't* resist that -- Ooof... ouch! Okay, okay, I'll leave
> punning to the masters, like Mike "Whimbrel" Smith. Uh oh, Dennis,
> there's that nasty habit of making verbs out of nouns, one that I detest
> myself!) It's not surprising that olde English plurals were formed in so
> many different ways, given that the language borrowed (appropriated may be
> more apt) so heavily from other languages. The -er plural, for example,
> is Germanic. By the way, I called myself a purist in jest; others have
> accused me of such, but I think it's a matter of degree.
>
> ****************************************
> Lisa M. Smith <subplot at u.washington.edu>
> inhabitant of the Emerald City
> (insert pithy social commentary here)
>

By "MODERN USAGE," I chiefly meant the period after the Tudors took the
English crown--in other words, the period beginning with the English
Renaissance. My rusty memory tells me that the usual divisions are
OLD ENGLISH (AD 449-1100), MIDDLE ENGLISH (1100-1500), and MODERN ENGLISH
(1500-now). Shakespearean English is early modern English.

Yes, English has borrowed heavily from other languages. But English has
mostly borrowed words, not grammar, and has habitually imported words
into English grammar.

Indeed, the -er plural is Germanic because English and modern German are
both descendants of a common ancestor--West Germanic. The -er plural,
the -en plural, the -as plural, the zero inflected plural, and other such
plurals are native English.

Thank you very much for your musings. They made me rummage for some
half-forgotten items in the dusty back rooms of my memory.

--Jim Lyles
jrlyles at fs01dwatcm.wr.usgs.gov