XPost: alt.usage.english, rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: robban1@bigpond.com   
      
   On 29/08/11 7:43 PM, Adam Funk wrote:   
   > On 2011-08-28, Mike Lyle wrote:   
   >   
   >> I'm half inclined to think that may catch on eventually. The folks on   
   >> the BBC already say "cannons" as the plural of "cannon". A.U.E. has   
   >> often noted that many little lumps and bumps of our language are being   
   >> smoothed out: "slayed" instead of "slew", a chciken is most often   
   >> "deboned" instead of "boned" -- that kind of thing.   
   >   
   > Well, it is a bit of faff to remember which of those plain verbs refer   
   > to removal (boning chickens, stoning olives).  We need a good Germanic   
   > prefix equivalent to German "ent-" to disambiguate these things.   
      
   Die arme Ente!   
      
      
   --   
   Robert Bannister   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)