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From: ds@warwick.UUCP (Douglas Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Fourth in a trilogy -- and linguistic question
Message-ID: <346@snow.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Jan-86 06:41:58 EST
Article-I.D.: snow.346
Posted: Mon Jan  6 06:41:58 1986
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Reply-To: ds@warwick.UUCP (Douglas Spencer)
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In article <6734@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes:
>In article <35@cstvax.UUCP> br@cstvax.UUCP (Brian Ritchie) writes:
>>that by-now-rather-tired-and-much-overused phrase.  This was YONKS before
>A couple of little questions:
>1) whats a yonk?
>2) shouldn't it be "these were yonks"?

So far as I know, there is no such thing as a yonk. Use of the term YONKS
implies a long time, ranging from several minutes (I put the kettle on
yonks ago, and it still hasn't boiled) to millenia (dinosaurs have been
extinct for yonks). Compare 'This was AGES before' to 'These were ages'.
The 'This' refers to the event of calling a book a fourth-in-a-trilogy
(singular) rather than 'yonks' (possibly plural -- who knows ?)

It seems to me that I spend my whole life
teaching Americans to speak English. :-)
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| Douglas Spencer         | ..seismo!mcvax!ukc!warwick!ds |
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