Job Discussion Forums

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:01 pm Post subject:

Aha! You were referring to another statement rather than the one you used the quote feature for! I think there were three 3rd person singular verbs there, not two. But wouldn't it labour the point to consistently use the archaic forms, three times? Opps, just split an infinitive too. I'll just have get my dungarees and bury myself in the garden. With no hope of an afterlife to boot....

This is a drag.... Crying or Very sad

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject:

Dear oh dear, I can see that things are getting you down a lot. Can things be so bad that we lose the power of basic numeracy? I counted three 3rd person singular verbs: profiteth, loses, and gains. Maybe you meant something else. I wouldn't know, as I didn't study Old English. But I think I'm labouring the point once more, and all I want to do is go off and have an existentialist bawl...

BTW, check out this Cambridge dictionary. No BE-labours there. Razz

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CALD&key=44293

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

The use of the word seems to have declined in American English. The Time Magazine Corpus gives only one example from the last two decades, from a height of over twenty a decade in the forties and fifities.

It's hardly moribund though; the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) gives 125 examples from 1990 to now, and the British National Corpus has proportionately much more, 72 from the 1990s.

I think one reason for the decline of the work is the decline of the piece of clothing itself. We have seen a massive decline in blue collar jobs, both in the UK and the US.

Apparently the word comes from Hindi.

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:49 pm Post subject:

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

The difference between 'belabour/belabor' and 'labour/labor' the point appears to be a BrE v AmE one. The latter has no hits in the COCA, but wins in the BNC by 6 to 2.

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:55 pm Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 8:58 pm Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:01 pm Post subject:

BTW, were nouns like '18 year olds' hyphenated in Old English? I'm piqued again....

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject:

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:10 pm Post subject:

I thought you wrote that Old English was your speciality? No?

In any case, would an average 18-year-old from the States know the word 'chit'? Just curious as I had an Amercian colleague who thought I was swearing at her when I used this.

Deicide · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:17 pm Post subject: