A forum for examining the language of speech and writing
That poor masseuseThe mispronunciation of the French word masseuse is commonplace. I have heard 'masweez', 'maswoze', and many other variations. Worst of all, the ladies themselves most time mispronounce the word. One of the ways in which French forms the agentive (the doer of the verb) is by adding 'eur' (masculine), and 'euse' (feminine) to the root of the verb. So you have danseur/danseuse; chanteur/chanteuse, and masseur/masseuse (although modern French now uses constructs like 'la femme docteur'). Subject/verb agreement ... againWe will never tire of this one, as the errors are committed daily. "The underachievement of the high school students are ..." was heard coming from a prominent broadcast journalist recently. The noun 'underachievement' is the subject which governs the verb 'to be', which is represented as 'is'; ( remember - I am, you are, he/she/it is). Because we are talking about the performance of a number of students, we are tricked into believing we need the plural form of the verb 'are'. The sentence should correctly read "the underachievement of the high school students is"
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