Teacher Discussion Forums

I was also initially attracted by "to broach" meaning "to cause to break" because of how close "broach" is to "broke". But it seems that "to broach" and "to broke" (as in "broker") are both connected with banging a sharp point( as in "brooch") into a barrel. As soon as you wrote that, I thought abo...

ring (n.) O.E. hring "circular band," from P.Gmc. *khrengaz (cf. O.N. hringr, O.Fris. hring, Ger. Ring), lit. "something curved," from PIE base *(s)ker- "to turn, bend" (cf. L. curvus "bent, curved," crispus "curly;" O.C.S. kragu "circle," and perhaps Gk. kirkos "ring," koronos "curved"). Meaning "p...

Andrew How about "hang" and "hung" ("The painting hangs in the Louvre" and "They hung the painting in the Louvre")? And maybe "rang" and "rung"? "Hung" is just a past tense. We can say "to fall" or "to fell"; we can say "to hang" but we can't say "to hung"; however we can say both "to ring" and "to...

Thanks for the link, Toby, I can use that. No, actually, I mean the type of film I described in the empty thread I started called "Post-war social guidance movies" (see that thread for more details.) Things like "Are you popular?" "Boys beware" "Girls beware" "Cindy goes to a party", etc. They are f...

Do you use social guidance movies, Toby?
If you did, how would you use them?

I love them but I'm not sure how I'd use them.

OK, lets try another direction of attack on these verbs.

Which show a purpose, which don't?

Could anyone classify these verbs according to this scheme into Achievements, Accomplishments, Semelfactives and Activities, thanks. http://www.geocities.com/endipatterson/Aktionsart.html Agree, aim, appear, arrange, aspire, attempt, call, call in, choose, conspire, decide, drop by, drop in, fail, h...

I would like to come to Stephen's defence here and up the ante. Everything about Sara's first post suggests to me that this is in fact a troll. It would appear to have had the required effect.

Please do not feed the trolls.

At this point, it might be worth summarising what we've got:
bite -> bait
drink -> drench
fall -> fell
lie -> lay
rise -> rear/raise
sit -> seat/set
wind -> wend

Keep them coming.

Actually, they made more and I deleted some. I was trying to not let my personal prejudices get in the way, and I was under the impression that it was free. Is this not the case? Depends how you mean. Much of the site is free but there is a section marked "storefront" and another "donate". If someo...

Did a bit more research at etymology.com. It seems "rear" meaning what the Lone ranger's horse does as he shouts, "Hi ho Silver," is another causative of "rise". There's also "bait"="cause to bite" (perhaps the meaning has changed a bit) and "wend"="cause to wind" (And that only exists in the expres...

"drench" means "to cover with drink/force to drink/ soak etc" Originally at least, but the current meaning has now diverged somewhat from its original meaning: drench from O.E. drencan "cause to drink," causative of drincan "to drink," from P.Gmc. *drankijan. In M.E., it meant "to drown;" sense of ...

When I went to Poland in 1990, there were some foreign churches (LDS and a Bible-Belt Protestant group in Warsaw) offering free English lessons as a way to attract potential new members. But why would you need a special Christian ESL site? Unless it's to teach clergy from non-English speaking count...

You mean as in, "to fell a tree"? Yes, I do. It seems that the vowel change can often result in an infinitive or present tense verb that is also the past tense of the original verb. That's why I wrote "to fall" and "to fell" to make it clear in the modal agony post. Sorry, I shuld have made that cl...

In olden times the idea of "cause to" was shown by a vowel change. A few of these still survive, thus:
Fall -> Fell = cause to fall.

Others include sit -> set and rise -> raise.

I would like a fuller list if anyone can think of any, thanks.