Lexigame Community
General Category => Words => Topic started by: mkenuk on May 11, 2021, 05:18:53 PM
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re the smother 7-by-many game.
Would somebody please explain to me the grammar of the word smoothes, common in yesterday's game?
It would seem that Chi does not recognize the verb infinitive smoothe. I find this rather strange. It is in COD as an alternative to smooth.
Notwithstanding, why should the verb smooth have a third-person singular '-es' inflexion?.
Verbs ending in 'ss', 'sh', 'tch' etc have an 'es' inflexion of course, because such words have an extra syllable in the third person singular.
This is not the case with 'smoothes'? It has one syllable only - it is not pronounced 'smooth-es'.
Adding 'es' to a verb ending in 'th' is new to me.
Are there any other verbs in English that follow the pattern of 'long vowel + th + es' ? I can't, offhand, think of any.
Most verbs that end with a voiced 'th' sound following a long vowel are spelled with a final 'e' - seethe, loathe, writhe, bathe etc.
The verb smooth spelled without a final 'e' seems to me to be something of an exception.
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I would love to answer your question if I could understand it! I'm still trying to work out why OTHERS isn't a word (even though you've patiently tried to explain it to me).
I was tripped up with SMOOTHES a while ago.
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Enough to set yer toothes on edge …
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It’s disheartening to believe that any wordsmiths would be deprived of the delights of the smoothie (rejected by Chi).
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It’s disheartening to believe that any wordsmiths would be deprived of the delights of the smoothie (rejected by Chi).
Maybe you mistyped, lilys field. Smoothie is accepted.
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Phew. So glad to know. Smoothies are just too good to be banned from Chi
And,yes, my typing is beyond atrocious. Many years ago I worked for The City University of New York, which is often referred to as CUNY. It was mortifying to repeatedly hit the T instead of the Y.
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I once worked in newspapers. We had a full page ad for a PUBLIC AUCTION. We missed the L.
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Very funny, Lilys Field and Jacki. Been there, done that! Still doing it in fact.
There was also the clothing shop that had a full page ad in the papers for a BIG SHIRT SALE. I'll give you one guess.....!
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One of the courses I did as part of my higher degree at a prestigious US institution was 'Analytical Techniques'. Unfortunately, in my official transcript the first word was abbreviated to its first four letters, somewhat undermining the 'prestige' of the document. Not sure I appreciate the A+ shown beside it in the transcript.
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Unfortunately mkenuk has vanished from the forum, and he is possibly the only person who would be very interested in the unraveling of this issue. However, he did draw attention to a quirk that ought to be sorted out.
To summarize, smoothe is not accepted in Chi, but smoothes is accepted - it's not regarded as a "plural" (i.e. an inflection made by adding S) and, what's more, it's classed as a common word. This is consistent with one dictionary at least, the American Heritage. This dictionary has the verb smooth written without an e, and with no alternate spelling, but the verb inflections are given as smoothed, smoothing, smoothes.
However, other dictionaries have different ideas. As Mike pointed out, some of the Oxford dictionaries give smoothe as an option for the spelling of the verb. Others make no mention of smoothe or smoothes. Merriam-Webster spells the base form of the verb as smooth, with no alternatives, but allows smoothes as an alternative to smooths. Garner's Modern English Usage describes smoothe as a misspelling.
In contemporary usage, some people do write smoothes, but smooths appears much more often. A few people also write smoothe, but this is often when the word is used as an adjective, so it's a moot point whether it is a spelling variant or a mistake.
Some examples: From the British paper the Express, in January this year:
That tech enables something called Action Mode, which smoothes out your video footage as you jog or sprint...
And from Scottish paper the Herald in August last year:
The fund could be underwritten by the Government, or a willing financial institution, and repaid over a 10 to 15-year period to smoothe out the costs.
I think the best I can do is add smoothe as a rare word, and tag smoothes as a plural.
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Sorry are both rare?
And I was just thinking about Mike this morning - sorely missed.
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Yes, both are rare, but of course you won't be able to play smoothes except in puzzles that allow plurals.