Lord Muck oGentry |
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| The French for NATO is OTAN. That is because the French have kept their little de and we Anglophones have lost our little of.Many years ago, the mighty Gowers spotted what was going on: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/...abc/nounadj.htmHe went on to quote Lord Dunsany: QUOTE Too many ofs have dropped out of the language, and the dark of the floor is littered with this useful word. and QUOTE Only the other day I was puzzled by a reference in The Times to "valuable type specimens". What, I wondered, are type specimens. But I worked out that it meant specimens of valuable types. . . . Gowers went on to say: QUOTE The use of a noun as an adjective should be avoided where the same word is already an adjective with a different meaning. Do not, for instance, say "material allocation" when you mean "allocation of material", but reserve that expression against the time when you may want to make clear that the allocation you are considering is not a spiritual one. Can't we be a little more French? |
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