Oh all right Garth, I shall put you out of your misery... Mr Howard
is a Leslie, so "Lez" is the right answer. I went to school with a
few Americans and Canadians (a private school run by Benedictine
monks in Somerset, Downside by name) and they all pronounced names
strangely - Martin and Les come to mind immediately.
What they didn't do then was misuse "lay" and "lie": the former is a
transitive verb which takes a direct object e.g. "lay the picnic out
on the grass" whereas the latter is intransitive and takes no direct
object e.g. "I lie on my bed after a late night out feeling like
death".
The confusion arises because "lie" has the past tense as "lay" (I lay
in my bed for a long time yesterday) and "lay" looks completely
different (I laid the picnic out on the grass in case she wanted to
join me).
Look what you lot have done to our language :>).
Chris
That is a teaser, right? O.K. I will bite. And how is Martin
pronounced "across the pond"?
Language is going to change quickly in a country that has little
respect for education and correct grammar is considered to be some
sort of effete elitism. But I think it probably wrong to think that
the language is preserved in England because it changes there too.
Some years ago a small isolated community in the mountains of
Appalachia was found to be speaking English as it spoken in the
1600s. It did not sound like any modern form of English.
Lets hear it for for President Bush's "noohcular" power. :-)
Winsor
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California
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