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possibly=possible
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 3:00 pm
by fluffyhamster
Have you noticed people using -ble for -bly? (I have. (Hey, I mean noticed, not used!
)). What's going on? Are they idiots possible?
Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 11:10 am
by woodcutter
That is another member of the "bound to happen sometimes" class, to my mind. The language is full of mistakes that happen a lot, and now and again they take off and move on a road to becoming legit. I don't think this one is on that road, or I haven't heard it at least.
For example I wrote "I have being learning piano for 7 months" on the board the other day, and my intuitive radar just would not seem to bleep "wrong". I later looked it up and there are over 400 hits for such constructions.
Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 4:48 pm
by fluffyhamster
Hiya Woody! Sorry for the delay in responding.
I'm not so sure that it's quite as care-less a mistake as, say, "it's for its", but then it would help if the last example that I can recall of "-ble for -bly" hadn't appeared alongside (and thus compounded!) "it's for its" on a webpage advertising ELT cert courses (INTESOL's, to be precise!).
Anyway, my theory is that people are reading the -e of -ble as acute (a la French)!
