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Rule by whim: Sometimes usage edicts are just…arbitrary. Linguistics student Gabe Doyle was surprised by what he found on the list of "English words with disputed usage" at Wikipedia. Most of the entries were familiar - comprise, nauseous, unique - but one, says Doyle in a post at Motivated Grammar, was novel: "Some prescriptivists argue not should not conclude a sentence," it said.
Nice piece. I had a Greek teacher in college who said Plato sometimes used "ou" meaning "not" at the end of a sentence and to brilliant effect. He'd spin out a long, long, long sentence, with all those Greek participles and subordinate clauses, and then at the very end, tack on an "ou," totally messing with the listener's mind because then you had to recast the whole sentence. I never did track down one of those sentences, but I'd like to.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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