h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

= feet
single = foot

= shoop

I'm the black shoop of the family

Alji

'Calfs' to me means backs of the legs, whereas 'calves' are baby beeves. Why would anybody but a cattleman need the plural of beef? and even then wouldn't it be 'cattle'? (which used to mean animals in general)
In Cameroon, beef means any animal. A 'small beef' is probably a cane rat, whereas for me 'a small beef' is a minor rant.
"It's a game of two halfs/halves"??
When you teach English pronunciation, you find that the difference in the plurals sheep/ships may be the only clue you get to the meaning. I have just listened to a student explaining about annealing spacemen when he meant specimens. The -s for the plural is often missing in Hong Kong. Us listeners need all the help we can get

I was reading Love and Mr. Lewisham on the train this morning in which it describes how the young Mr. Lewisham gets up in the morning with the aid of a cheap American alarum clock. Alarum? Where did the u go and why?

Hmm, guess that goes back to the old Stage instructions for plays that was something like 'Divers Alarums' which always had me in mind of someone in a wet suit charging around the place yelling their head off.

Sorry if the above is not exact, its a while since I did English Lit GCSE!

On the subject of plurals above, I just did a quick poll in the office and most people seem to pronounce rooves but spell roofs. Odd.

Alarum was certainly an alternative spelling (influenced by pronunciation, probably) as far back as the 14th century. As more and more of us learnt to read we pronounced it as the more common spelling - alarm. People now using 'alarum' are trying to be funny

as the saying goes, 'that'll be a definition of funny that I haven't come across then'

I know everyone is talking plurals and spelling and so on, but I have another easy question for you. (I do seem to specialise in asking daft easy questions Hopefully I'll accumulate enough knowledge here to start posting answers one day!)

Why does 'has had' make sense? Surely both words derive from have, one being a present-something-or-other and the other being the past-something-or-other. So theoretically we are linking the present and the past, which doesn't make sense. And yet phrases with has had (as in 'he has had a haircut') make perfect sense?

Don't understand!

Aljiis, nice move - starting with the plural and working back to the singular. Perhaps the original singular was lost in antiquity. Other than 'shoop', what else might a lost singular of 'sheep' have been?

On the same track:

= fish

= fish

but in this case I'm sure 'fishes' is allowed too.

Nina
Pinta
Santa Maria

"The more a cow calves the more calfs she has."
Is that right?

Hi Ictoan,

In the sentence 'John has had a bath.' the tense is called the present perfect, describing an action that took place in the past without specifying when. In this example 'has' is a modal use of the verb 'to have' used to indicate the present perfect tense when it precedes the past participle of a verb (the past participle of 'to have' is 'had').

The confusion arises when you want to express the prestent perfect of the verb 'to have'.

Compare these sets of 3 examples:

I have a bath. (present tense of 'to have')

I had a bath at six o'clock. (simple past tense of 'to have')

I have had a bath. (present perfect tense of 'to have')

Vs:

I run a marathon. (present tense of 'to run')

I ran a marathon last year. (simple past tense of 'to run')

I have run a marathon. (present perfect tense of 'to run')


Hope this helps to clear up the confusion.

BTW, do you know the old chestnut that goes - How many 'hads' can you place consecutively a sentence while remaining grammatically correct and making sense?

Spiff

One slight problem is that 'bath' means both the process of having a bath, and the receptacle one has the bath in, meaning that in general usage, the phrase 'I have a bath' (taken in isolation) will be usually understood as 'I own a bath'. To imply the action, you'd be better saying 'I am having a bath'.

Even the text fragment 'I run a marathon' seems strange on its own.
Though technically it may be the present tense, it only really seems to fit when related to other multiple times 'I run a marathon every month'.

I'm uncertain of the precise definitions of tenses, since I don't think I ever really studied the details grammar - all the subjunctive, pluperfect, continuous stuff is a little hazy to me, though I do know what sounds right.

hi

Can these examples help to clarify the quetion?

NB - These are not sentences, these are verb forms.

They will come in the following order:

- present tense (ie I am)

- simple past tense (ie I was)

- present perfect tense (ie I have been) ('been' is the past participle of the verb 'to be')

__________________


- I walk

- I walked

- I have walked (walked is the past participle of the verb 'to walk')

Vs

- I have

- I had

- I have had ('had' is the past participle of the verb 'to have')

So 'she has had' is the present perfect form of the verb 'to have' in the third person singular.

In some verbs, usually known as irregular verbs, the past participle is different to the simple past form.

A good example is:

I sing, I sang, I have sung




Has this made things clearer?

Spiff

...Potholer,

I do understand that the examples I chose in post 3130 were ill-judged.

As you pointed out both 'I run a marathon' and 'I have a bath' seem meaningless without some qualification.

I hope the alternative explanation works better.

Spiff

Hmmm.

With 'I am', or 'I have', the present tense can be used directly,'I am ill', 'I have a house' but in the case of 'I walk', we're back to the apparent use of the present tense form in cases which don't actually refer to the present, and seem to be restricted to multiple occurences 'I walk to work every day'.
I'm not sure of the grammatical definition of the latter tense, but it doesn't seem like the present when actuially appearing in English.

Also, 'I am' and 'I have' are rather special cases, since *both* are used as modifications to change the tense of other verbs 'I am having a bath', 'I have had a bath'. Are there ordinary verbs where the present is actually used unmodified.
(There may well be, but I'm up late and sleepy again, and my mind is only half here at the moment, so I can't think of any)

See - I *said* I was sleepy. Bad click of the pen on the submit butto there.

Actually, is the apparent oddness with the present tense linked to use of the first (or second) person - if testing an aircraft, I can imagine someone saying 'Look - it flies!', and it would sound as correct as 'Look - it's flying', but if I or someone else was trying out hang-gliding, 'I'm flying' or 'He's flying' would sound much better than 'I fly', or 'He flies'

Fred, where Joe had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" had had the examiners' approval.

Emergency Exeunt Only
Alarum Will Sound

...swifter than arrow from Tartar's bow.

Top-hole Potholer,

I quite agree about the problem with 'walk', and that most verbs work this way in spoken language.

'I fly' could be used in a dialogue such as:

A - "How do you get to Paris?"

B - "I fly."

Quite true that this indicates that A knows perfectly well that B regularly travels to Paris. The question is, *how* B gets there!

There are some verbs that are used in the unqualified present tense, though, without implying a regularly repeated action.

If it is an act such as promising, for instance.

"Will you do this for me?" - "Yes, I promise."

or a politician's request to the public - "I ask you to vote for me!"
"I pray that the peoples of the world will learn to live together in peace."

or that simple but much-appreciated little phrase, "I love you."

"I am loving you." would be quite unsuitable in this context.

A - "What are you doing?"

B - "I am loving my wife." !

The present tense causes learners of English as a foreign language all kinds of problems. This is certainly one of the reasons.



Spiff

For the unqualified present tense, both 'love' and 'promise' also carry some implication of future consistency, though in the case of love, I suppose it's a description of a (hopefully) long-term state of mind, whereas a promise is a single act linked to future intended behaviour.
Come to think of it, 'ask' has something in common with 'promise' in that regard, and similar desire-related verbs (beg, beseech, plead, want), seem to behave similarly with regards to the present tense.

Are there any unqualified present tenses that don't seem to be linked to future action or persistent state of mind?