| Title: | The Joy of Lex |
| Notice: | A Notes File even your grammar could love |
| Moderator: | THEBAY::SYSTEM |
| Created: | Fri Feb 28 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Jun 02 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1192 |
| Total number of notes: | 42769 |
The "look up it" discussion in 102 reminds me of another English situation where something ought sound right and doesn't. An advertisement by Denver, Col.'s Chamber of Commerce (or its equivalent auspice) as you approach the city reads Welcome to Denver, a nice place to live ! This sounds o.k. But what if it said the following instead: Welcome to Denver, a nice city to live ! Personally, I'm begging to edit the latter to "a nice city to live IN". How shall we explain this one to the English student ? Similarly, consider: Boston, a great place to be ! That's o.k., but what about Boston, a great city to be ! Kind of makes me wonder what it would feel like to "be" the city of Boston. /Eric
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 103.1 | ERIE::CANTOR | Sat Oct 12 1985 15:38 | 9 | ||
I'm not sure of this, as it's been years and years since I've last thought of it, but isn't the noun 'place' in "a great place to be" in what in Latin is called the LOCATIVE case? It doesn't require a preposition, apparently. How about "I'm going home"? Maybe only certain nouns can be used this way. You wouldn't say "I'm going store" or "I'm going work." In the case of 'home,' the noun is used as an adverb. How weird! Dave C. i'm going bye-bye | |||||
| 103.2 | BEORN::BENCE | Mon Oct 21 1985 13:16 | 6 | ||
Growing up on the South Shore (Braintree), the common phrase for
for "I'm going to visit Boston" was
"I'm going in town."
{clb}
| |||||
| 103.3 | NUHAVN::CANTOR | Mon Oct 21 1985 17:25 | 4 | ||
In Everett, we also said "I'm going in town," meaning the same as it did in Braintree. Dave C. | |||||
| 103.4 | INDY::BRYAN | Fri Nov 22 1985 13:06 | 10 | ||
... loosely related to the above, how about a local New England favorite: 'down cellar' as I'm going down cellar. Back where I come from (as in Kansas), we call cellars 'basements', pocketbooks 'purses', carriages 'shopping carts', bags 'sacks', etc. But to go 'down [in the] cellar' really shocks me. -Dorothy & Toto- | |||||