Re: (In)transitive verbs

[Attrib lost]
>> >Looks like nobody agrees about what is regular or
>> >irregular in english verbs, ant the same about he
>> >number of syllables in an english word.
Well, mainly because we dont have a controlling body of English standards,
people hafta make things up as they go along, with the end result that "it
is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some
other Englishman hate or despise him."

As for the concept of syllables, such is practically useless to English,
with its regularly fuzzy syllable boundaries.  Even hyphenation isn't
congruent to syllabicity.

E fésto Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>:
> Are speakers of languages other than English that much more likely to
> agree than English speakers? I'd always got the impression that the
> standard dialects of English differed by far less than the dialects of
> Dutch or German or French, especially given the many millions of us there
> are.
Well, the many millions of English speakers all come from dialects that
have only had a couple hundred years or so to diverge--most of the really
variant ones, the ones comparable to the dialects of Dutch or German or
French, are squirrelled away into random parts of England, and aren't
heard of much outside of there.

>> I've only seen naive with a trema over the <i> once or twice. Which is
>> correct? (Or is it like 'mosquitos vs. mosquitoes'?)
>
> In French, it demands the diaerisis. In English, it doesn't care; English
> is not known for its accent-happiness. If you would say that facade, cafe
> or El Nino are wrong, then you would say that naive is wrong. If you
> would
> say that façade, café or El Niño are pedantic, you would say that naïve
> is
> pedantic.
Nono.  Naive is technologically impaired, Naïve is standard, and Naïf is
pedantic.  ;)

E fésto Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>:
> Oh, yes.  And that sometimes happens enough to cause a formerly-regular
> verb to become irregular, such as dive/dived/dived -> dive/dove/dived et
> sim.  But that's a conscious process, applied either because one isn't
> familiar with the word in question but has a feeling it should be
> irregular, or completely consciously out of a sense of whimsy (as is
> usually the case with "thunk").
Hmm.  "Thunk" is an irregular replacing an irregular (thought), which does
so consistently--more commonly than "thinked" anyway, and "brung" for
"brought" does similar (dont think I've ever heard *bringed).

Perhaps there's a rule helping irregular verbs remain irregular (similar
to how "mans" doesnt get produced because "men" exists blocking it,
"brung" gets produced because "bringed" is specifically proscribed?)

	*Muke!
--
http://frath.net/                  E jer savne zarjé mas ne
http://kohath.livejournal.com/     Se imné koone'f metha
http://kohath.deviantart.com/      Brissve mé kolé adâ.