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#84281 10/22/02 08:35 PM
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Received a Weekly Message from Daily Telegraph..noted the use of some contractions I've not seen before. Such as "We'ld love to hear....." and "...and we'ire". Curious..why and since when????


#84282 10/22/02 11:03 PM
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What happened to we'd?


#84283 10/22/02 11:25 PM
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"...and we'ire"

Report from the cave: I can't begin to imagine what we'ire is a contraction of.


#84284 10/22/02 11:34 PM
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Faldage, we'ire must be a contraction of we + tire. Or mebbe we + sire. I suppose inflection would determine whether the 'we' in question were tiring or siring.


#84285 10/23/02 09:55 AM
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Or "we fire" or "we mire" or...

How silly of me not to...


#84286 10/23/02 11:00 AM
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It has to be a contraction for 'we hire' with a dropped H. It is a Brit newspaper after all.

Welcome claystreet - just be patient with us!


#84287 10/23/02 12:23 PM
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Welcome claystreet,

could you provide us the use in a sentence? Also, I too have never heard of these contractions.

edit: It occurs to me the letters l and i could be the result of some sort of garbling... (there's a pattern here).

#84288 10/23/02 12:43 PM
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I think the copywriter ought to be f'ired...



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#84289 10/23/02 12:57 PM
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...'cause we all sure'r ired...


#84290 10/24/02 03:34 PM
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Went a-googling and so far, most of the instances of we'ire or we ire were on pages written by non-native speakers and were obvious typos for we are.

If we can get TVR up in arms over this we might get it accepted in some dictionary someday.


#84291 10/24/02 10:12 PM
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We'ld love to hear....." and "...and we'ire"

Welcome clay,

If this is the Brit Daily Telegraph then I really can't understand the connection with any totally original constructions such as those you quote. The paper isn't renowned for its sense of adventure or for having a slightly surreal sense of humour.

Are you sure it isn't just a corrupted email (assuming that's what your "Weekly Message" is) or something?


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