Monday, May 4, 2009

The Yarnarian Waxes Linguistical.

Or poetical, or semantical or whatever you want to call it.

Susan just emailed me and she used the word "fie", which is a wonderful word. Does anyone use fie any more? Fie upon them if they don't. Ah, an interesting case of bizarre grammar: "Does anyone" is singular. Next sentence has me using "them if they don't". One of the odd points of the language. Everyone assumes that anyone, even though it is used as a singular here, can also mean plural. Should I say "Fie upon him/her if he/she doesn't. Oh, fie upon it!

How about hither and thither? Do we hither and thither anymore? Do we curse anyone with a pox upon thee? When was the last time you said zounds?

And hark, anon, yea verily and forsooth? Prithee? Dost thou? When was the last time that you used fourscore?

Enough of this folderol; I needs must get back to ye olde dyepots.

Adieu.

sockmadMary - Gadzooks to you too. or to thee. Hark anon, I hear the yarn calling to me.

Ria - A true language fanatic!

3 comments:

sockmadmary said...

Gadzooks,Ruth - have you been eating those strange mushrooms again?
Prithee get back to thy dyepots!
Mary ( an out and out fan of the Bard!)

Ria said...

I do admit to using hither and dither - mostly when bitching about the overnight stocking crew not staying put in my department.

I used whilst, over the weekend.

And I do on a regular basis spit out words not heard for decades. (because I was mostly raised by my great-grandfather who was born in 1884

Anonymous said...

I recall a paper written by a fellow grad student (this was a LONG time ago, so it must have been a great one to stay in mind), entitled: "Whither Wheat?" about the genetics and distribution of wheat types. Come to think of it, it must have been the title that stayed in mind, because I have no idea about the rest. Ha.

Thanks for the pointer, Ruth!

S.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails