of
navi
1-I have eaten of that cake.
2-Have you taken of that money?
3-Have you read of his stories?
4-He did not drink of that wine.
Harrison Hill
> Are these sentences correct:
>
> 1-I have eaten of that cake.
Yes, but this is an old-fashioned way of talking, and reminds us of
The Bible. I think you would "partake of your Last Supper".
> 2-Have you taken of that money?
Nope.
> 3-Have you read of his stories?
This means "Have you read about his stories? They say he writes
terribly well!"
> 4-He did not drink of that wine.
In the Bible, possibly.
Don Phillipson
news:e907c3cd-b02a-4653...@v11g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
These sentences are all grammatically correct, but
archaic and obsolete for most purposes. In Shakespeare's
day "OF" was attached to many verbs, prefixing a direct
object, with no special meaning. In Dr Johnson's day a
distinction emerged between
1. eaten that cake = eaten all that cake,
2. eaten of that cake = eaten some of that cake
but this distinction is in the process of vanishing from
current use. Most contemporary writers write the verb
and its direct object without using OF.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Prai Jei
The archaic use of "of" here is cited in "Teach Yourself Finnish" as an
English parallel to the use of the partitive case to express an
*incomplete* action on an object, either where the action is still going
on, or where only part of the object is affected.
In sentence (1) for example, the appearance of "of" implies that not all the
cake has been eaten.
If the distinction is essential in modern English, "some" or "any" according
to context, would be inserted before "of".
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
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