Words for the Day; please share (page 8)

compound complex

One bro kept mispronouncing organism -- he left out the "ni"!

Lots of blushes and giggling in the audience.

LoveUniHateExams

I'm very fond of the word overseas.

E.g. he stayed in the UK all his life - he never travelled overseas.

At first glance, that 's' on the end of the word suggests a plural.

(The vast majority of nouns form the plural by adding -s or -es at the end, e.g. cat > cats, wolf > wolves)

But is it really a plural form?

If somebody travelled over just one body of saltwater, overseas can still be used, e.g. the British man travelled overseas to France (despite only one body of water - the English Channel - being travelled over).

So, if the 's' on the end of overseas isn't plural, what is it?

It is, I think, a relic of the genitive case. This grammatical case has largely been lost but remains in modern English as the 'apostrophe + s' ending, e.g. the man's money, the woman's perfume, etc.

hooberus

Quick question???

perhaps I have an old browser , but how do I operate the quote function ?

Thanks

snowbird

Highlight text you want to quote.

Copy.

Paste.

Place cursor at pasted text and select Quote AFTER you have replied, else your entire post will be a quote!

Hope this helps.

Sylvia

Xanthippe

One bro kept mispronouncing organism -- he left out the "ni"!
Lots of blushes and giggling in the audience. -CoCo

Oh that reminds me of a guy giving a public talk. I can see him now, very straight back, ex-army, little moustache. It must have been a wonder of creation talk because he kept going on about the wonderful spermatozoons. He pronounced it to rhyme with goons. All these little spermatozoons racing towards the egg, swimming furiously.