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Post by rickcarpenter on Jun 12, 2008 18:13:50 GMT
simply our twenty-fifth anniversary. I tried to cover that on the page with forty-week pregnancy, Rick. But a forty-week pregnancy is a pregnancy that lasts forty weeks. My anniversary did not last twenty-five years, it was an event rather than a duration. (Though my wife might describe being married for twenty-five years as an enduration at times!) Could the difficulty be because one must be married one year or any multiple thereof to have an anniversary (COED: the date on which an event took place in a previous year), whereas pregnancy and week are "independent" of each other? Rick
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jun 12, 2008 18:48:51 GMT
Rick, I think you're confusing the grammar with the semantics. Grammatically there's nothing wrong with a twenty-fifth pregnancy or a forty-week anniversary.
Surely we agree that the possessive requires noun+noun (or a noun-substitute, such as a pronoun or gerund)? Dog+bone? The first takes the possessive form: dog's bone, his kindness, someone's fault.
Neither twenty-fifth nor forty-week are nouns or noun-substitutes, so the question of making them possessive simply doesn't arise. That's what I was trying to explain on the page.
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Post by rickcarpenter on Jun 12, 2008 19:23:00 GMT
Neither twenty-fifth nor forty-week are nouns or noun-substitutes, so the question of making them possessive simply doesn't arise. That's what I was trying to explain on the page. Yes, now I see what you are saying. They are adjectives, whereas two months is a noun + adjective. Gramatically, no; but socially, yes! Rick
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Post by Geoff on Jun 12, 2008 22:56:38 GMT
Not according to a lot of present-day usage. It seems it's possible for a boy and a girl to have a six month anniversary of their meeting, and all sorts of similar usage.
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Post by Dave on Jun 13, 2008 5:30:10 GMT
Not according to a lot of present-day usage. It seems it's possible for a boy and a girl to have a six month anniversary of their meeting, and all sorts of similar usage. That's one of my pet peeves, Geoff: using anniversary for the celebration of an event other than on the same date some year subsequent. I prefer luniversary, a term I thought I made up some time ago until I d it!
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 13, 2008 8:21:07 GMT
Dave: I, too, have used luniversary for decades, but never considered the possibility of its being a "real" word. Whaddyaknow! Perhaps a better spelling, though, might be lunaversary (or lunarversary), lest readers take the luni part as "crazy" rather than Selenic.
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Post by Pete on Jun 13, 2008 9:24:33 GMT
Dave: I, too, have used luniversary for decades, but never considered the possibility of its being a "real" word. Whaddyaknow! Perhaps a better spelling, though, might be lunaversary (or lunarversary), lest readers take the luni part as "crazy" rather than Selenic. So, what about "hebdoversary" for weeks? And "dieversary" for days? ;D
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Post by Dave on Jun 13, 2008 13:32:21 GMT
Dave: I, too, have used luniversary for decades, but never considered the possibility of its being a "real" word. Whaddyaknow! Perhaps a better spelling, though, might be lunaversary (or lunarversary), lest readers take the luni part as "crazy" rather than Selenic. So, what about "hebdoversary" for weeks? And "dieversary" for days? ;D Well, your weekly one didn't show up, but your daily one got one hit!
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Post by Pete on Jun 13, 2008 14:18:37 GMT
So, what about "hebdoversary" for weeks? And "dieversary" for days? ;D Well, your weekly one didn't show up, but your daily one got one hit!Good grief! Still, one neologism isn't bad.
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Post by SusanB on Jun 13, 2008 17:03:34 GMT
I like the thought of miniversary for minutes.
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Post by Vadim on Jun 13, 2008 20:09:39 GMT
I like the thought of miniversary for minutes. I like the idea of nonaversary, for those who wish to take the easier option and plead guilty, accepting 5 years imprisonment instead of a lifetime of misery! ;D
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Post by Pete on Jun 15, 2008 14:09:28 GMT
I like the thought of miniversary for minutes. Or for celebrating having bought a new small car!
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Post by Sue M-V on Jun 17, 2008 11:47:41 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 17, 2008 11:57:55 GMT
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Post by Pete on Jun 17, 2008 12:07:03 GMT
Obviously people have different views on these and I agree most of them are ridiculous and signs of people trying to be just a little bit too clever. But I like "close of play", as it means something quite specific and is easily understood by all concerned.
I'm also reasonably keen on "stakeholders", which is a nice way to describe all interested parties, everyone who has a stake in whatever is being discussed.
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