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Author Topic: Dear Expert  (Read 165529 times)

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Online Jonathon

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #325 on: November 05, 2011, 11:01:08 PM »
Stay goes both ways, staid and stayed.  So I guess it could be a participle thing. 

Only when it's a participial adjective. But participial adjectives are often weird.
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Offline pooka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #326 on: November 05, 2011, 11:15:55 PM »
Quote
Lay turns into laid, pay turns into paid, say, turns into said
This was the original set, don't these all work as participial adjectives, even though they can also be used as perfect indicative verbs?
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #327 on: November 06, 2011, 09:03:48 AM »
All past participles can potentially function as adjectives, but sometimes those participles split off and become solely adjectives, especially when they're irregularly formed or spelled. So we get adjectival forms like freshly mown grass and clean shaven, but most people would probably not say, "I have mown the lawn" or "I have shaven my face."
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Offline rivka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #328 on: November 06, 2011, 09:05:29 AM »
The last few posts went mostly over my head, and I don't know what the relationship is between stay and staid, but staid is definitely not a past-tense verb of stay. It's an adjective, meaning boring.
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #329 on: November 06, 2011, 09:14:13 AM »
Staid comes from the past participle of stay. But as its meaning drifted, it lost its connection to stay and ended up with a different standardized spelling. All participles can work as adjectives (in fact, I believe this was their original function; they only became used in verb phrases later on), and sometimes the strictly adjectival forms and senses split off from the paradigm and resist regularization.
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Offline BlackBlade

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #330 on: November 08, 2011, 05:12:05 PM »
Unbeknownst.

Why do we pronounce it (un-bek-nownst) when it should be (un-be-knownst)? The latter makes complete sense when you break down the words, and we certainly don't pronounce the k when we say "known".
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #331 on: November 08, 2011, 05:20:44 PM »
I'm not sure I understand the question. The k in unbeknownst is silent.
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Offline BlackBlade

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #332 on: November 08, 2011, 05:37:37 PM »
I'm not sure I understand the question. The k in unbeknownst is silent.
See I've never heard it said that way. I must have been hearing it wrong all my life.
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #333 on: November 08, 2011, 05:59:48 PM »
That blows my mind. I've always heard it with a silent k and cannot imagine hearing anyone pronounce it.
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Offline rivka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #334 on: November 08, 2011, 06:02:11 PM »
That blows my mind. I've always heard it with a silent k and cannot imagine hearing anyone pronounce it.
Ditto.
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Offline Marianne Dashwood

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #335 on: November 08, 2011, 06:03:10 PM »
That blows my mind. I've always heard it with a silent k and cannot imagine hearing anyone pronounce it.
Ditto.

This. Who the heck says the K?

(are your friends and family maybe Russian spies, BB?)
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Offline BlackBlade

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #336 on: November 08, 2011, 06:37:13 PM »
That blows my mind. I've always heard it with a silent k and cannot imagine hearing anyone pronounce it.
It's more the -be- in unbeknownst was said beh not bee, and when said fluidly it sounds like there's a k hiding in there somewhere.

Anyway, I'm glad to have fixed that quirk.

Annie: If they were do you think I'd own up to that?
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #337 on: November 08, 2011, 06:39:41 PM »
I'll have to ask you to say it next time I see you, because I don't get how a k could be hiding in a fluid pronunciation.
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Offline Marianne Dashwood

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #338 on: November 08, 2011, 06:54:10 PM »
I've heard it with the e as a schwa, if that's what you're talking about …
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Offline BlackBlade

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #339 on: November 08, 2011, 07:06:00 PM »
I'll have to ask you to say it next time I see you, because I don't get how a k could be hiding in a fluid pronunciation.
I'm coming over right now, for science!
Kyrgyzstan, is the homeland of the Kyrgyzs, a people best known for cheating at Scrabble. -Tante Shvester

What, you expected us to be badly injured or dead, and flying blind to boot? You're the one who told us all to be Awesome. -Brinestone

Offline Porter

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #340 on: November 08, 2011, 07:30:29 PM »
This I've got to hear.
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Offline pooka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #341 on: November 09, 2011, 09:46:56 AM »
Maybe he's referring to a glottal stop. 
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Offline Marianne Dashwood

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #342 on: November 16, 2011, 08:32:50 AM »
Here's a question: what's the deal with discrete and discreet? Are they etymologically related?
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #343 on: November 16, 2011, 08:54:34 AM »
I laughed the other day on Futurama when Bender was running his dating service.  The sign said "discreet and discrete". :)
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #344 on: November 16, 2011, 11:42:30 AM »
Here's a question: what's the deal with discrete and discreet? Are they etymologically related?

Indeed they are. Discrete was borrowed from Latin in the sense of "separate" or "distinct", while discreet came from French in the sense of "discerning" or "prudent". The latter was also spelled discrete but eventually settled on the double e. So it's essentially different senses of the same word borrowed at different times and more or less arbitrarily assigned different spellings. See also compliment and complement.
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Offline pooka

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #345 on: November 16, 2011, 02:23:56 PM »
Stationery and Stationary?  
It appears that stationery was sold at a stationary place, as opposed to by peddlers.
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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #346 on: November 16, 2011, 02:52:18 PM »
Basically, yes. Stationery is stationer + y, meaning "goods sold by a stationer". Apparently a stationer was someone who sold books or writing materials. It originally meant someone who had a fixed station or shop rather than a travelling vendor. Stationary is from station + ary, meaning "having to do with a station" (i.e., being fixed or unmoving). But these both go back to the Latin statiōnārius. And stationery was frequently spelled stationary in the 1600s and 1700s. So both words come from the same root borrowed at different times in different forms.

For a good native English example, there's then and than and off and of. These pairs were originally the same words, and they differentiated in spelling and and meaning based on stress. In certain functions, the words tended to be unstressed, leading to reduced vowels and the voiced f in of. In other functions they retained their stressed forms (though than is frequently unstressed too, leading to homophony with then).
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Offline Tante Shvester

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #347 on: November 17, 2011, 07:20:37 AM »
Why is there malign and malignant but not benign and benignant?  I want benignant.


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Offline Porter

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #348 on: November 17, 2011, 07:49:50 AM »
Quote
I want benignant.
You can have that when you learn how to benign.
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Offline Marianne Dashwood

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Re: Dear Expert
« Reply #349 on: November 17, 2011, 08:38:30 AM »
I just want a beignet.
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