Usually there are 3 forms of a verb, such as:
swim, swam, swum
sing, sang, sung
So when I came across something I wrote, "He swung at..." and tried to change "swung" to "swang," I discovered there is no word "swang." I was correct the way I wrote it.
English is a strange language.
Apparently not as strange as Polish, with seven cases and more grammar exceptions than rules ...
Not so strange when you thank about its history. Started out as Brit,added some Celtic, a little Gaelic, some Druidic, then the Romans stuck a lot of Latin and Greek in, add some Gauls, then the Danes, Angles, and Saxons all added a bunch, then the Norman invasion with their version of French and Latin, and modern English imports words from other languages instead of making up a new one. It's a real bastard language.
Started out as Brit,added some Celtic, a little Gaelic, some Druidic
The first three of those are redundant and "Druidic" isn't a language, it's a religion.
The Druids were more a way of life than a religion, as such, and they did also have a whole bunch of words that were peculiar to them.
From the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2007:
swang /swaΕ/ verbΒΉ intrans. obsolete exc. dial. LME.
[ORIGIN App. from Germanic base of swing verb.]
Sway or swing to and fro.
and
swang verbΒ² pa. t.: see swing verb.
Got to admit it's not something you see every day, but still in use, apparently.
I regard 'swang' as part of normal vocabulary. If I saw it in a story, I wouldn't have to stop and think.
Eg he swang from the yard-arm.
Divided by a common language!
AJ
Divided by a common language!
Yeah,
Down here a Pick-up is the person of the other gender you met in the pub last night for a fun time, while in the US it's a truck. Personally, I think our pick-ups are more fun.
US pickups last longer, sometimes longer than most marriages. And no wonder, they do what you want, they take you where you want to go and don't complain about being overloaded.
And no wonder, they do what you want, they take you where you want to go and don't complain about being overloaded.
That's why we call them things utes, short for utility vehicle.
Ute people /ΛjuΛt/ are Native Americans of the Ute tribe and culture. They are now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. The Utes are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People. There are three Ute tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah (3,500 members); Southern Ute in Colorado (1,500 members); and Ute Mountain which primarily lies in Colorado, but extends to Utah and New Mexico (2,000 members). It is believed that the majority of Utes currently live on one of these reservations. The State of Utah is named after these people.
Of course they are Utes with a capital U. Also sports teams at the University of Utah are called Utes.
Ute is also a girl's name in Europe - Germany, I believe. So Aussies who marry appropriately can sport a dual-purpose bumper sticker saying 'I love my Ute.'
AJ
Down here a Pick-up is the person of the other gender you met in the pub last night for a fun time, while in the US it's a truck. Personally, I think our pick-ups are more fun.
Believe me, we have the same definition for "pick-up", but like most English words, it has multiple definitions. Only, our "pick-up" includes more than just "opposite sex" couplings, as the gays use it quite a bit too.
By the way, if I'm not mistaken, "Pickup" (for a flatbed truck) is more a marketing term invented purely to sell the product rather than a 'natural use' English word.
"Pickup" (for a flatbed truck) is more a marketing term invented purely to sell the product rather than a 'natural use' English word.
A pickup is not a flat bed, it's an open box. You do occasionally see a pickup with a proper flatbed, but those are aftermarket custom mods, not stock trucks.
Down here a Pick-up is the person of the other gender you met in the pub last night for a fun time, while in the US it's a truck.
There's no hyphen for the truck, it's a pickup, not a pick-up.
There's no hyphen for the truck, it's a pickup, not a pick-up.
I can't say this with certainty, but it may be similar to makeup/make-up. It started with a hyphen and over the years the hyphen became optional.
I can't say this with certainty, but it may be similar to makeup/make-up. It started with a hyphen and over the years the hyphen became optional.
According to the Wikipedia article on pickups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_truck
Pickup (no hyphen) was used by Studebaker in 1913. Pick-up came into favor in the 1930s. No info on when pick-up fell out of favor, but certainly none of the manufactures selling them are using the hyphenated form today.
Pickup (no hyphen) was used by Studebaker in 1913. Pick-up came into favor in the 1930s. No info on when pick-up fell out of favor, but certainly none of the manufactures selling them are using the hyphenated form today.
Which reinforces my original claim that "Pickup" is a marketing term, rather than a 'naturally derived' English language term.
@DS
I use "flatbed" loosely, as it's rare that any truck truly has a flat bed (except logging trucks) as everything slides off.
it's rare that any truck truly has a flat bed (except logging trucks)
Breakdown recovery trucks? (the sort that drag the car up onto them where it's tied down, rather than the towtruck sort)
Also at least sometimes the shallow box type have side walls that can be removed or folded down, leaving a flat bed.
- and, IIRC, logging trucks have a rail frame with side stakes rather than a bed - both remembered from my youth, when I'd walk to school past a furniture factory which at that time took in logs as raw material, and more recently passing logging operations in North Yorkshire. Thinking more, at least sometimes the 'bed' of the truck was the logs themselves - just a trailing dolly, effectively.
I use "flatbed" loosely, as it's rare that any truck truly has a flat bed (except logging trucks) as everything slides off.
I see plenty of semis with flat bed trailers in my neck of the woods. They tend to be used a lot for transporting oversized loads as the load won't fit in / on anything else.
