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Our 'Memberlist' #1 (permalink) Fri Jan 19, 2007 20:14 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Hi

Isn't it possible that we make our "Memberlist" alphabetically? It is almost impossible to find a member who joined the forum a couple months ago.

Tom
Tom
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Joined: 30 May 2006
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Our 'Memberlist' #2 (permalink) Fri Jan 19, 2007 21:08 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Tom wrote:
a couple months ago.


Have you gone all American on us, Tom? Smile
Conchita
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Our 'Memberlist' #3 (permalink) Fri Jan 19, 2007 23:45 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Conchita, somehow I find it hard to believe that Tom's phrase never rolls off the lips of anyone in the UK. Laughing

Tom, it is already possible to alphabetize the member list. But, trying to find a name that begins with a letter in the middle of the alphabet can be pretty unwieldy. (Is that what you meant?) Confused

Amy
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Our 'Memberlist' #4 (permalink) Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:11 am   Our 'Memberlist'
 

I think I'd slip in a quick schwa twixt 'couple' and 'months' - that way the 'roll' would be more acceptable!

A
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Alan
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Alan Townend

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Our 'Memberlist' #5 (permalink) Sun Jan 21, 2007 13:50 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

More acceptable to whom? Yes, that nice little schwa sound sometimes rolls off my lips there, too. Sometimes the schwa even sounds like a full-fledged 'of'. Very Happy That additional sound/word always shows up before a pronoun, but sometimes disappears entirely before a noun -- even in writing. I don't believe that this is strictly an American phenomenon.

Here are some examples of the "schwa-less" (without 'of') usage from UK websites:
a couple centuries ago

a couple years ago

a couple things

a couple jokes

A Google search of just UK websites gets almost a million results just for "a couple * ago".

Amy
Yankee
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Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 8265
Location: USA

Our 'Memberlist' #6 (permalink) Sun Jan 21, 2007 14:52 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Using the phrase 'a couple' without the preposition 'of' sounds really colloquial to me (apart from American -- 'go figure!'). Since this isn't usually Tom's style, I was surprised to see him use it like that.
Conchita
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Our 'Memberlist' #7 (permalink) Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:28 am   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Interesting how everyone flies to Google for verification, justification and clarification. What does it signify? Just for a laugh I put in: Gawd help us! and clocked up close on 80,000. So what? It's all too Gadarene swine-like for me.

Incidentally many of the 'hits' on Mother Google are repeated time and time again and so you don't get a true picture anyhow if, that is, you get a picture at all.

A
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Alan
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Our 'Memberlist' #8 (permalink) Mon Jan 22, 2007 14:50 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

Just come across the following in some instructions for using an electric toothbrush:

After 3 minutes your Phaser timer will of ended ...

Well, did you ever?

A
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Alan
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Our 'Memberlist' #9 (permalink) Mon Jan 22, 2007 17:31 pm   Our 'Memberlist'
 

I was quite surprised when I came across 'a couple months' in Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' and the phrase didn't appear in a dialogue but a description. So it seems that is used in standard American English now.
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