When did the plural form of verbs become obsolete?

[Jethro_uk]

You may be interested in a US perspective on British Engish

As I age, I notice some oddities creeping into "English" that are I suspect imports. Two examples:

1) are bands plural or singular ? I've always used the plural : "The Beatles *were* an English pop band" as opposed to *was* an English pop band. (Wikipedia is especially annoying for this). 2) in England, things are named *after* someone. Not "for" someone - that's Yankee all the way (as the NOOB blog notes).

If nothing else, the NOOB blog is fun when the Yanks get a Briticism wrong.

[Jethro_uk]

One of the hidden gems in "Mock the Week" is hearing the "h" in "Wheel" when Dara says it ...

[Andy Burns]

It's better than saying "cool hwhip".

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]

"So" has supplanted "Well" at the start of a sentence.

[The Natural Philosopher]

This is the point. Unless a collective noun has all its members acting in total unison, it's plural. The police is not looking for a man in his

30s, some of the police *are* looking, not all of them.

The default these days is the singular form of the verb. It's significant that you are the *only* poster who even knew to what I was referring...

[RH Draney]

With a brief side trip to "Basically"....r

[Jethro_uk]

:)

For a techie my English is stellar. As is my spelling and handwriting.

But then I did Latin at (comp) school, and there's rarely a day when it isn't useful. (I would have been able to understand the Popes resignation as it was read too). As a tooklit for picking other European languages apart, it's indispensable.

For a while I had my homepage at work set to the French MSN site.

(I've also picked up some Hindi).

[jon]

There was a law that came out in the sixties called 'insulting behaviour' because in those days the police were classed as (non persons) and were supposed to be impervious to insults, but the lawmakers got fed up with Teddy Boys giving them a mouthful.

[Pamela]

Those are not examples of what I mean. I mean "so" when used by some tv and radio interviewees as the first word of their reply to a question.

For example an interviewer may ask, "Why has the economy slumped?"

The reply is, "So, there's been a lot of inflation ..."

[Richard]

[Farmer Giles]

A sideboard could be a number of different things, like a dresser or a chest of draws, but it was not generally a radiogram.

[charles]

Now a great many years ago, I was in the hotel bar on one of the Western Isles, talking to the Parish Priest. As somebody new came into thenbar he acalled our 2 Hamish - why do we only ever meet in this bar?" This presumably meant "why aren't you in church on Sundays?"

[S Viemeister]

I've been reading quite a bit during lockdown, and it seems that even book editors don't know the language. I've seen references to laundry 'shoots', door 'jams', 'discrete' being used where 'discreet' is meant, site, cite, sight, being misused. Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming book editors. They probably are an endangered species, with writers depending on spell-check, which can result in correct spelling - of the wrong word.

[S Viemeister]

To which the response is 'Absolutely!'...

[S Viemeister]

My mother would have threatened me with a damp dish towel if I'd mispronounced that word - or wheel, or whip, or when, or what, or where.

[charles]

^^^^^ or even: drawers

[Scott]

I still remember Brian Clough - 'We-e-e-ll, D-a-a-a-a-vid'.

[Scott]

Or as the late Brian Walden said,' Bicycle-lly'.

[Tim Streater]

Were the draws in a drawer?

[AnthonyL]

alt.usage.english