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Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE:

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Saturday, May 25, 2002, 4:19
John Cowan wrote:


>And Rosta scripsit: > >> 1a. My family were arguing with each other. >> 1b. My family was arguing with each other. >> >> 2a. My family were behaving themselves. >> 2b. My family was behaving themselves. >> 2c. My family was behaving itself. > >All of these make me feel funny, but I have to think about them >further. My knee-jerk reaction is that they are ungrammatical >but acceptable.
For me, the problem is that "family" has two referents: (1) one's entire family, parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who probably live all over the country; (2) immediate family members, probably dwelling under one roof With that in mind, 1a is OK for definition (1), "amongst themselves" sounds better; 1b is * for either def. Of course, I'd prefer not to see that "each other" tacked on; and as someone else suggested, I'd probably rephrase the whole thing. 2a seems questionable for either def.; 2b is * totally; 2c is OK for both. I suspect I contradict myself; but then, that's the language as she is spoke.......:-)