Re: (In)transitive verbs

I think we have something close to that case in
French, namely the distinction between 'cense' (last
letter = e acute) and 'sense' (the same).

The pronunciation is exactly the same in both cases.
But the first one means 'supposed to', and the secund
one, 'judicious':
Il est cense faire ce travail = He is supposed to do
that job
C'est un homme sense = This man has all his wits

Nearly nobody knows the orthographic difference any
more (I've seen the confusion in all main French
newspapers, even in Le Monde), so I think that the two
words will fusionate into a single one, the meaning of
it being a mix of both. The general tendency is to
write both of them 'sense' (e acute).

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 04:06:23PM -0800, Costentin
> Cornomorus wrote:
> > > lie vs. lay
> >
> > Another confusing verb! I personally try to avoid
> > that pair whenever I can, because I confuse them.
>
> That is a sign that the distinction is probably
> disappearing, and will no
> doubt be gone in a few generations.  But for what
> it's worth:
>
> to tell an untruth: lie, lied, have lied
> to recline (intransitive): lie, lay, have lain
> to cause to recline (transitive): lay, laid, have
> laid
>
> The fact that "lay" is also a form of "lie" is the
> source of much of the
> confusion.
>
> -Mark

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html