Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Idioms

1 view
Skip to first unread message

Elisabetta

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 1:59:58 PM4/13/04
to
Hello group!

Could someone help with the following doubt I have?

The context: a toast at a wedding.
The toast starts "From your family and friends"

I thought "familY and friends" made it sound as if the toast was coming from
one of the couple's families rather than both families as I think the
intention was.

For that I was had a go at by someone saying that "family and friends" is an
idiom that already means plurality (i.e: the members of the family, not just
a person in the family).

I tried to argue that if anything, family was a collective or group name
meaning the plurality of the members in that one family, but it still sounds
to me as it should be familIES if the intention is for the toast to come
from both the groom's and the bride's families (and their friends).

Am I completely wrong? Does the idiom "family and friends" mean any number
of families connected to the persons it relates to?

E


mUs1Ka

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 3:44:28 PM4/13/04
to
When they got married they became one family.

m.


Mike Stevens

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 4:51:49 PM4/13/04
to
"Elisabetta" <betta.vR...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:c5h9qu$enn$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...

Two thoughts :

1. "Family and friends" probably comes into the category of phrases
that are too well known and need an occasional variant, so "families and
friends" might be better.

2. [PEDANT] Assuming that the toast is at the reception, which is after
the ceremony, then what has just happened has made the two families one
(by marriage!), so "family and friends" would still technically be
correct. If it were me making the speech, I might even make that point.
[/PEDANT]


--
Mike Stevens, narrowboat Felis Catus II
Web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.


Elisabetta

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 5:42:36 PM4/13/04
to
> When they got married they became one family.

And:

> 2. [PEDANT] Assuming that the toast is at the reception, which is after
> the ceremony, then what has just happened has made the two families one
> (by marriage!), so "family and friends" would still technically be
> correct. If it were me making the speech, I might even make that point.
> [/PEDANT]

Jeeeeezz... It must be that I was brought up in an environment that made the
Montagues and Capulets look like amateurs, but I would never think of a
wedding making one family of two!
My family and my husband's (not that I have one - could that be why???)
would be connected by our marriage, but they'd still be two different
entities.

Thanks for your answers :)

E


mUs1Ka

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 5:58:09 PM4/13/04
to
We are talking extended family here. Just like your cousins etc. are in
separate families, they are part of your extended family.

m.


Elisabetta

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 6:18:47 PM4/13/04
to
> We are talking extended family here. Just like your cousins etc. are in
> separate families, they are part of your extended family.

Well, yes, but with my cousins there is a blood line. For my children my
family of origin and their father's family of origin would count as one as
there are blood lines both ways, but that is not the case between me and my
husband's family of origin and viceversa.

Anyway, this is now going too OT, happy to continue in private if you like.

E


Adrian Bailey

unread,
Apr 13, 2004, 10:03:08 PM4/13/04
to
"Elisabetta" <betta.vR...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:c5h9qu$enn$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...
> Hello group!
>
> Could someone help with the following doubt I have?
>
> The context: a toast at a wedding.
> The toast starts "From your family and friends"

Is this a trick question? Toasts start "To..." not "From..."

Adrian


Paul Vivash

unread,
Apr 14, 2004, 3:03:26 AM4/14/04
to

"Elisabetta" <betta.vR...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:c5h9qu$enn$1...@sparta.btinternet.com...
This seems to be an unnecessarily complicated query. Firstly, a toast:
"From your family and friends" is nonsense. When you propose a toast, the
correct preposition is "To". Secondly what is included in the proposer's
notion of the family is entirely an individual concept and would depend on
the composition of the assembly. If they were all of the same family, he
would use the singular; if they were not, he ought to use the plural.

Paul


Peter Duncanson

unread,
Apr 14, 2004, 6:15:35 AM4/14/04
to

Proposing a toast tends to involve two stages. First, introductory words by
the proposer - which might easily start "From...", second, the actual words
to be repeated by the guests which will indeed be "To...".

I may have been mistaken, but I assumed that "From family and friends" was
the start of the proposal, rather than that of the toast itself.

>Secondly what is included in the proposer's
>notion of the family is entirely an individual concept and would depend on
>the composition of the assembly. If they were all of the same family, he
>would use the singular; if they were not, he ought to use the plural.
>


--
Peter Duncanson
UK
(posting from u.c.l.e)

Elisabetta

unread,
Apr 14, 2004, 11:09:33 AM4/14/04
to
> > The context: a toast at a wedding.
> > The toast starts "From your family and friends"
>
> Is this a trick question? Toasts start "To..." not "From..."

Lol, I don't know, the full "toast" was:

From your family and friends,
Love, health and happiness
For all your days.

E


Adrian Bailey

unread,
Apr 15, 2004, 5:50:52 AM4/15/04
to
"Elisabetta" <betta.vR...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:c5jk7d$rts$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...

"Family" here is a group noun (like "money" or "milk"), and shouldn't be
pluralised. Also, at a wedding the two families make one big happy family.
:-)

Adrian


0 new messages