Say

[DKleinecke]

Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
languages."?

The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a
discussion of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an
adverb. In other words - I haven't found anything useful.

In some respects it resembles "respectively" (also called an adverb)
which was discussed heavily at one point in linguistic history. The
way they are pronounced sets them off the normal flow of a sentence.
I, and the only description I found, describe "say" as set off by
"comma" type pauses - meaning the pause in, say, "Tom, Dick and
Harry". Whether all these pauses are really the same (in a kind of
phonemic way of speaking) cannot, I think, be solved without, say,
spectrograms.

In any case I think "adverb" is an inadequate categorization.

[Nathan Sanders]

In article
<57538753-26a8-400a...@hc4g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>,

As a professor of mine was fond of saying, if someone calls something
an adverb, you better check your wallet.

As best as I can tell, the most common classification for it is
"discourse marker":

"Even imperative utterances, which are clearly in themselves initially
intersubjective, may be subjectified. Examples include the development
of hortative _let's_ (as in _Let's go, shall we?_) from _(you) let us
X_, (as in _Let us go, will you?_) (Traugott and Dasher 2002:
176-178), and of discourse marker _say_ in many of its meanings
('assume, about, for example, tell me'). _Say_ derives from an
intersubjective, imperative use, but is subjectified over time, e.g.
the 'about' use is a type of topicalizer, and the 'tell me' use
expresses speaker's impatience" (p.20-21)
<http://www.stanford.edu/~traugott/resources/TraugottDavidseIntersbfn.p
df>

Here's a paper on it:

<http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/2027/1/workingpapers_v2_133.p
df>

Nathan

--
Department of Linguistics
Swarthmore College
http://sanders.phonologist.org/

[Dr Nick]

Would you want to attach a "part of speech" label to "(to select a
representative example or two)"? Because if so it's the same as that.

[Eric Walker]

On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:

> Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
> sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
> languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
> languages."?
>
> The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
> it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
> of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
> other words - I haven't found anything useful.

Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"? (Meaning, "let us
presume" or "for example".) Whatever you think the phrases "let us say"
or "for example" would be grammatically if substituted for simple "say",
then that is what bare "say" is in such contexts.


--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

[Nathan Sanders]

In article <kn26qa$53p$1...@dont-email.me>,

Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
> > sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
> > languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
> > languages."?
> >
> > The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
> > it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
> > of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
> > other words - I haven't found anything useful.
>
> Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?

Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".

[António Marques]

On May 16, 2:48 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <kn26qa$53...@dont-email.me>,

>  Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > > Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
> > > sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
> > > languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
> > > languages."?
>
> > > The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
> > > it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
> > > of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
> > > other words - I haven't found anything useful.
>
> > Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
>
> Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".

Not the subjunctive-used-as-imperative?

[Nathan Sanders]

In article
<394ff819-4503-43c0...@w13g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,

I can't find any evidence of that.

[António Marques]

On May 16, 4:34 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <394ff819-4503-43c0-8c49-420b96a9a...@w13g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,

>  Ant nio Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 16, 2:48 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > In article <kn26qa$53...@dont-email.me>,
> > > Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > > > > Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
> > > > > sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
> > > > > languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
> > > > > languages."?
>
> > > > > The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
> > > > > it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
> > > > > of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
> > > > > other words - I haven't found anything useful.
>
> > > > Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
>
> > > Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".
>
> > Not the subjunctive-used-as-imperative?
>
> I can't find any evidence of that.

But was it then originally 2nd person? I've always parsed it as 1st
person plural.

[Nathan Sanders]

In article
<73cee3d0-82ff-4884...@j20g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,

Ant�nio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't believe it's first-person plural in "say, what is that?",
which derives from the same source.

Besides which, synchronic parsing and diachronic history are two
different things.

[Jerry Friedman]

The OED says

"10. On the analogy of expressions like ‘let us say’, ‘shall we say?’,
etc. (referable to senses 1 – 3), where the verb has contextually the
sense of ‘suppose’, ‘assume’, the imperative _say_ is idiomatically
used:

"a. to introduce a clause, with the sense ‘supposing’, ‘on the
assumption that’.

"b. parenthetically, to indicate that a preceding sentence expresses
a supposition or a selected instance.

"c. prefixed to a designation of number, quantity, date, etc. to mark
it as an approximate guess or as representing a hypothetical case.

"d. immediately following a word or phrase to show that it represents
a supposition, an instance, an approximation, or the like."

In d, "following" should be "following or preceding", as their
citations show.

It doesn't give the evidence that this is "the imperative _say_" (that
is, second person, not "let's say"). I can understand why you and
others associate it with "let's say", but I've always understood it as
a second-person imperative, for what that's worth.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Anton Shepelev]

Antonio Marques:

> > > On May 16, 2:48 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > > > In article <kn26qa$53...@dont-email.me>,
> > > > Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > > On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
> >
> > > > > > Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
> > > > > > sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
> > > > > > languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
> > > > > > languages."?
> >
> > > > > > The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
> > > > > > it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
> > > > > > of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
> > > > > > other words - I haven't found anything useful.
> >
> > > > > Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
> >
> > > > Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".
> >
> > > Not the subjunctive-used-as-imperative?
> >
> > I can't find any evidence of that.
>
> But was it then originally 2nd person? I've always parsed it as 1st
> person plural.

I have always seen it as 2nd person, a short form of

you may say (and be correct)

But that's just my intuition.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 12:45:22 -0400, Nathan Sanders
<san...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in
<news:sanders-9F2801...@news.eternal-september.org>
in sci.lang,alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english:

[...]

> I don't believe it's first-person plural in "say, what is
> that?", which derives from the same source.

In principle it could be first person *singular*, though, as
in older 'I say, what is that?!' Any idea whether that's a
distinct usage or a historically incorrect expansion
comparable to 'let us say' for the 'supposing, for instance,
etc.' usage?

[...]

Brian

[Nathan Sanders]

In article <76ke4savlvi5.k...@40tude.net>,

I don't know; "I say" is a possible source. I'm having trouble
finding much literature on this at all.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Is that 1910 OED or 2010 OED?

[Jerry Friedman]

On line.

"This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1910)."

--
Jerry Friedman

[DKleinecke]

On May 15, 9:13 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article

> <57538753-26a8-400a-8bce-3e616f455...@hc4g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>,

Thank you very much for the link. It did justify my impression that
this was not very much discussed matter.

You have shown me where to look for the recent literature on discourse
matters - sociolinguistics, I was aware of the discussions about
discourse of thirty and forty years ago but missed any new
literature. I didn't recognize "discourse marker" as a technical term
and so missed the fact I should follow up on it. I see it is about
twentieth in a google search for <say "discourse marker"> (which is, I
assume, how you found it). I am going to have to spend some time on
recent discourse literature.

[DKleinecke]

On May 16, 2:08 pm, Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> In article <76ke4savlvi5.k45zwi5y3udy....@40tude.net>,

>  "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 16 May 2013 12:45:22 -0400, Nathan Sanders

> > <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in

> > <news:sanders-9F2801...@news.eternal-september.org>
> > in sci.lang,alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english:
>
> > [...]
>
> > > I don't believe it's first-person plural in "say, what is
> > > that?", which derives from the same source.
>
> > In principle it could be first person *singular*, though, as
> > in older 'I say, what is that?!'  Any idea whether that's a
> > distinct usage or a historically incorrect expansion
> > comparable to 'let us say' for the 'supposing, for instance,
> > etc.' usage?
>
> I don't know; "I say" is a possible source.  I'm having trouble
> finding much literature on this at all.
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> Department of Linguistics
> Swarthmore Collegehttp://sanders.phonologist.org/

I observe that nobody seems to notice the syntactic problem that
arises here. Ellipsis, of course, explains nothing. Nor does a
(near-)synonym like "for example" if the same pauses occur (I think
"for example" is more common without the pauses).

[Nathan Sanders]

In article
<7a5de718-1e5f-4b2c...@g5g2000pbp.googlegroups.com>,

> Thank you very much for the link. It did justify my impression that
> this was not very much discussed matter.
>
> You have shown me where to look for the recent literature on discourse
> matters - sociolinguistics, I was aware of the discussions about
> discourse of thirty and forty years ago but missed any new
> literature.

Don't forget the semantics and pragmatics literature.

> I didn't recognize "discourse marker" as a technical term
> and so missed the fact I should follow up on it. I see it is about
> twentieth in a google search for <say "discourse marker"> (which is, I
> assume, how you found it). I am going to have to spend some time on
> recent discourse literature.

I decided not to even bother searching for bare "say" in any search
string, so I went with {"discourse marker say"} (quoted). I'm sure
there's more literature out there, but finding anything about (rather
than using) the word "say" is going to be very difficult.

[benl...@ihug.co.nz]

Just to expand on that -- the "Publication History" pop-up note says:

"Revision of the OED is a long-term project. Entries which have not
been updated since the first edition (1884-1928) may incorporate:
 • corrections and revisions to definitions, pronunciation,
   etymology, forms, date or style of citation, or quotation text
 • new senses or phrases which have been added in
    ◦ the Supplements to the OED (1933, 1972-86)
    ◦ the OED Additions Series (1993, 1997)
    ◦ subsequent online updates."

In other words, "not yet...fully updated" by no means implies
"unaltered since 1910".
And section 10, which you quoted, has citations running up to 1977.
(Tracing whether senses have been added or revised is more work than I
care to do.)

[Peter T. Daniels]

On May 16, 10:18 pm, "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz>
wrote:

Wow. That was some guess!

> Just to expand on that -- the "Publication History" pop-up note says:
>
> "Revision of the OED is a long-term project. Entries which have not
> been updated since the first edition (1884-1928) may incorporate:
>  • corrections and revisions to definitions, pronunciation,
>    etymology, forms, date or style of citation, or quotation text
>  • new senses or phrases which have been added in
>     ◦ the Supplements to the OED (1933, 1972-86)
>     ◦ the OED Additions Series (1993, 1997)
>     ◦ subsequent online updates."

Is that likely to become comprehensible if one looks up "revise" and
"update" and discovers they are making some distinction without a
difference?

[Robert Bannister]

On 16/05/13 9:48 PM, Nathan Sanders wrote:
> In article <kn26qa$53p$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
>>
>>> Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
>>> sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
>>> languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
>>> languages."?
>>>
>>> The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not mention
>>> it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a discussion
>>> of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
>>> other words - I haven't found anything useful.
>>
>> Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
>
> Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".

Is that really the same "say"?
I can see an imperative in "Say you are going down the freeway at 160kph
and..." - my mind tells me it's really "Let us say", but I can see it
could be exhorting "you" to make a leap of imagination.

Mostly, however, it seems to replace "for example" in places where only
"let's say" makes sense - I might use "on dirait" in French.Can you
explain the historical justification for calling it an imperative, please?
--
Robert Bannister

[Robert Bannister]

On the other hand, "Say, can you see...?" does seem to be addressing a
second person or persons.

--
Robert Bannister

[Nathan Sanders]

In article <avlm0t...@mid.individual.net>,

I finally found a more solid reference.

Brinton (2005:290) cites lots of examples from Middle and Early Modern
English to come to a three-way categorization of six uses of _say_.
She says: "The first category is _say_ in the senses 'suppose, assume,
about, for example', including _say_1, _say_2, and _say_3. All three
originate as second-person imperative verbs taking clausal
complements, but then follow somewhat different courses of
development. [...] The expression _let's say_, rather than serving as
the origin of these forms, appears to be a later development of the
original _say_ with the hortative _let's_ (cf. Traugott 1995b:36)."

She offers the semantic development 'speak' > 'suppose' > 'for
example' > 'about' for this category.

The second category includes only _say_4, which occurs in
constructions like "say, John, where are you going?". She says this
is also derived from the second-person imperative (originally "say to
me").

The third category, _say_5 and _say_6, which are emotives/emphatics,
as in "(I) say, John, this is marvelous", are derived from dropping
the subject in the declarative _I say_.

REFERENCES

Brinton, Laurel J. 2005. Processes underlying the development of
pragmatic markers: The case of (I) say. In Janne Skaffari et al., eds.
_Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past_. 279-299.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1995b. Subjectification in
grammaticalization. In D. Stein and S. Wright, eds. _Subjectivity and
Subjectivisation: Linguistic Perspectives_. 31-54.

[benl...@ihug.co.nz]

It seems clear enough to me. Various aspects of the entry _may_ have
been added or modified during the intervening century in a piecemeal
fashion, but it has not yet been subjected to "full updating" -- a
slow process which AFAIK has not covered even half the dictionary yet.

Now that OED Online displays this information quite prominently, it is
easy to look at the general pattern. A very quick random survey
suggests that the current updating operation began with "L" and is
currently to the end of "R", but not into "S" -- very roughly one
third of the dictionary.

[CDB]

On 16/05/2013 12:45 PM, Nathan Sanders wrote:
> Ant�nio Marques <ent...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>> Antonio Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

>>>>> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:>>>>>> DKleinecke wrote:

>>>>>>> Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
>>>>>>> sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
>>>>>>> languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
>>>>>>> languages."?

>>>>>>> The Wikipedia articles clustered around "interjection" do not
>>>>>>> mention
>>>>>>> it. I tried a number of other ways to get at and found (1) a
>>>>>>> discussion
>>>>>>> of how to punctuate it (2) a dictionary that calls it an adverb. In
>>>>>>> other words - I haven't found anything useful.

>>>>>> Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?

>>>>> Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".

>>>> Not the subjunctive-used-as-imperative?

>>> I can't find any evidence of that.

>> But was it then originally 2nd person? I've always parsed it as 1st
>> person plural.

> I don't believe it's first-person plural in "say, what is that?",
> which derives from the same source.

> Besides which, synchronic parsing and diachronic history are two
> different things.

But indicative (non-gram.), no? Like the fact that "Say, what is that?"
in French would have "Dites", a 2pl imperative, and the OP "say" would
be "disons", a 1pl. The Spanish would be "Diga" and "digamos", I think.
Perhaps it's the same in Portuguese, which would account for its
subjunctive feel to Antonio.

[wugi]

Op 17/05/2013 5:20, Robert Bannister schreef:

> On 16/05/13 9:48 PM, Nathan Sanders wrote:
>> In article <kn26qa$53p$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:38 -0700, DKleinecke wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anybody know of a full discussion of the "say" as used in the
>>>> sentence (from the wild) "Our schools still peg the programming
>>>> languages as a lower priority than, say, the Spanish or German
>>>> languages."?

>>> Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
>>
>> Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".
>
> Is that really the same "say"?
> I can see an imperative in "Say you are going down the freeway at 160kph
> and..." - my mind tells me it's really "Let us say", but I can see it
> could be exhorting "you" to make a leap of imagination.

Precisely. Say you're doing this. Imagine you're doing that.

> Mostly, however, it seems to replace "for example" in places where only
> "let's say" makes sense - I might use "on dirait" in French.Can you

You'd mean "disons":
... moins de priorit� que, disons, l'espagnol ou l'allemand.
Even that is possible in English:
... a lower priority than, let's say, Spanish or German.
Let's say you're doing sth...
But that should be a latter occurrence, as someone already suggested.

> explain the historical justification for calling it an imperative, please?

If language comparison were permitted: in Dutch (and German etc I guess)
we have similar 2nd p. imperative constructs.

... een lagere prioriteit dan, zeg maar, de Spaanse of Duitse taal.
But it has to be "de-stressed" (relativised) in this case with "maar",
but, only.

Compare with,
Zeg, je komt toch morgen? Say, you will be here to-morrow, won't you?
Zeg, mijn ouders gaan met vakantie. (Say), my parents are going on holiday.

Compare similarly with other verbs,
Hoor, de fanfare komt eraan. "Hear", the fanfare is approaching.
Kijk, ze hebben ons gezien. Look, they've seen us.

"Zeg" and others have even been weakened to kinda (non-stressed) enclytics,
We hebben je wel herkend hoor! We did recognise you, "hear"!
Dat was schrikken zeg! That was a fright, "say"!
Dat is vriendelijk zie! That's kind (of you), see!

guido google-wugi

[António Marques]

Thread drift, not lack of observational skills.

[António Marques]

Indeed (diga/digamos).

But what do Dutch and Norwegian do? That might be more relevant for
the English case.

> which would account for its
> subjunctive feel to Antonio.

I'm not sure what it feels to me. If anything, I don't think it feels
like a verbal form at all, just an opaque marker. Portuguese does have
'digamos' in that place, though, which is 1st person plural
subjunctive filling the role of an imperative (suppletively, as the
imperative has only 2nd person), and thus semantically equivalent to
'let us say'. So I guess I'm with the folks who - iiuc - introduced
_let's_.

When 'Say' simply means 'Tell me/us', then I see it as a common or
garden imperative, and do not associate it at all with the 'for
example' marker.

I find it curious that there are so many instances of a given English
construct being parsed/felt differently (yet with compatible outcomes)
by different speakers (I'm not counting myself, obviously). That
happens in every language, but English seems to exaggerate.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 21:57:12 -0700 (PDT),
"benl...@ihug.co.nz" <benl...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in
<news:deddd780-3b15-47ad...@ul7g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang,alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english:

[...]

> Now that OED Online displays this information quite
> prominently, it is easy to look at the general pattern. A
> very quick random survey suggests that the current
> updating operation began with "L" and is currently to the
> end of "R", but not into "S" -- very roughly one third of
> the dictionary.

I seem to remember reading quite a while ago that they
actually began with M.

[...]

Brian

[Jerry Friedman]

On May 17, 11:04 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 May 2013 21:57:12 -0700 (PDT),

> "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in

> <news:deddd780-3b15-47ad...@ul7g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>
> in sci.lang,alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english:
>
> [...]
>
> > Now that OED Online displays this information quite
> > prominently, it is easy to look at the general pattern. A
> > very quick random survey suggests that the current
> > updating operation began with "L" and is currently to the
> > end of "R", but not into "S" -- very roughly one third of
> > the dictionary.
>
> I seem to remember reading quite a while ago that they
> actually began with M.

I seem to remember the same thing.

They recently finished working on a relatively few words each under B,
C, F, G, H, S, T, and V.


http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/march-2013-update/volcanos-and-bluestockings-in-the-oed/

--
Jerry Friedman

[benl...@ihug.co.nz]

On May 18, 7:15 am, Jerry Friedman <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 17, 11:04 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Thu, 16 May 2013 21:57:12 -0700 (PDT),
> > "benli...@ihug.co.nz" <benli...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in
> > <news:deddd780-3b15-47ad...@ul7g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>
> > in sci.lang,alt.english.usage,alt.usage.english:
>
> > [...]
>
> > > Now that OED Online displays this information quite
> > > prominently, it is easy to look at the general pattern. A
> > > very quick random survey suggests that the current
> > > updating operation began with "L" and is currently to the
> > > end of "R", but not into "S" -- very roughly one third of
> > > the dictionary.
>
> > I seem to remember reading quite a while ago that they
> > actually began with M.
>
> I seem to remember the same thing.

And so do I, and it appears to be true. I was thrown off by the fact
that "love" (n and v) was fully revised in 2008, and happened to be
one of the words in my very small initial test probe. But a little
closer searching shows that "L" generally is not updated. Solid
updating begins with "M".

>
> They recently finished working on a relatively few words each under B,
> C, F, G, H, S, T, and V.
>

> http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/march-2...
>
> --
> Jerry Friedman

[Robert Bannister]

Thank you.

--
Robert Bannister

[wugi]

Op 17/05/2013 18:28, Ant�nio Marques schreef:

> On May 17, 3:25 pm, CDB <bellemar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 16/05/2013 12:45 PM, Nathan Sanders wrote:

>>> Ant nio Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>>>> Antonio Marques <ento...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Nathan Sanders <sand...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote:>>>>>> DKleinecke wrote:

>>>>>>>> Surely it is simply elliptical for "let us say"?
>>>>>>> Historically, it derives from the imperative "say".
>>>>>> Not the subjunctive-used-as-imperative?
>>>>> I can't find any evidence of that.
>>>> But was it then originally 2nd person? I've always parsed it as 1st
>>>> person plural.
>>> I don't believe it's first-person plural in "say, what is that?",
>>> which derives from the same source.
>>> Besides which, synchronic parsing and diachronic history are two
>>> different things.
>>
>> But indicative (non-gram.), no? Like the fact that "Say, what is that?"
>> in French would have "Dites", a 2pl imperative, and the OP "say" would
>> be "disons", a 1pl. The Spanish would be "Diga" and "digamos", I think.
>> Perhaps it's the same in Portuguese,
>
> Indeed (diga/digamos).
>
> But what do Dutch and Norwegian do? That might be more relevant for
> the English case.

If you saw my other reply you know that D. also uses simple imperative,
but that this mood has evaporated in the semantics of the expressions.
I think now of one fossilised expression where a subjunctive is used:
"zegge en schrijve", in saying and writing, diga y escribase...
meaning barely, hardly, only. Ex.:
Er waren zegge en schrijve vijf man.
Hardly five men turned up.

>> which would account for its
>> subjunctive feel to Antonio.
>
> I'm not sure what it feels to me. If anything, I don't think it feels
> like a verbal form at all, just an opaque marker. Portuguese does have
> 'digamos' in that place, though, which is 1st person plural
> subjunctive filling the role of an imperative (suppletively, as the
> imperative has only 2nd person), and thus semantically equivalent to
> 'let us say'. So I guess I'm with the folks who - iiuc - introduced
> _let's_.

"Let's say" by itself is a pure imperative, no subjunctive connotation.
And the "let" is a pure imperative.
The subjunctive forms (Long live they) have been replaced with "May we
live", may I say.
In Dutch too, save that we may switch between two forms:
Laat ons zeggen... = Let us say
Laten we zeggen = Let we say, Laten = subj.

> When 'Say' simply means 'Tell me/us', then I see it as a common or
> garden imperative, and do not associate it at all with the 'for
> example' marker.
>
> I find it curious that there are so many instances of a given English
> construct being parsed/felt differently (yet with compatible outcomes)
> by different speakers (I'm not counting myself, obviously). That
> happens in every language, but English seems to exaggerate.

Well, as there are +/- no conjugation markers left...

guido google-wugi