Greg WilsonWhy is it "the dude abides" but "the dudes abide"? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was "the dude abide" (no 's' on either) and "the dudes abides" (both)? It makes no sense.
powersoffour@gvwilson the dudes abide is the name of a pretty interesting book by Alex Belth about his experiences working on the movie
mcherm@gvwilson Conservation of S's.
Bill Hooker@gvwilson Grammar is arbitrary and has never been optimized, is my guess. In Esperanto it's almost right:
I remain mi restos
you remain vi restas
she remains li restas
they remain ili restas
but then they get weird about plural nouns and adjectives.
Ken Butler has moved@nxskok @gvwilson A quick refresher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_grammar) indicates that all present tense verbs end in -as, and plural nouns in -oj.
vfig@gvwilson old english strong nouns, masculine gender, had -as suffix in plural, so: sg. *dūd, pl. *dūdas — whence modern english -s, -es plural suffixes.
and strong verb bīdan, third person sg. bīdeð, pl. bīdað — the -ð in singular carried through to modern english -s in third person singular verbs, but the plural form dropped it.
so in old english you get your wish in the plural:
se dūd abīdeð (the dude abides)
þa dūdas abīdað (the dudes abide)
Ron Jeffries@gvwilson
In those days, there was a shortage of s's.
In those days, there was a shortage of s's.
bazzargh@gvwilson the extra s really tied the quote together. At least they didn't p on it.
i.grok@gvwilson I abide, you abide, he/she/it abides, we abide, you abide, they abide
The odd one out is third person singular, not singular vs plural