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"Anybody who can't keep their mouth shut, raise his hand." - John Sandford, Mortal Prey 
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ROTFL!  That's gotta be on purpose, no?
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"Anybody who can't keep their mouth shut, raise his hand." - John Sandford, Mortal Prey It is funny as well. Yes, it has to be on purpuse. I'm still lost in the morass of Grimm's Law. Etymology: Morass \Mo*rass"\, noun. [from Old English expression marras, mareis (perh. through Dutch moeras), from French marais, probably from Latin mare sea, in LL., any body of water; but perhaps influenced by some German word. ( the decline and fall of all  )
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"Anybody who can't keep their mouth shut, raise his hand." - John Sandford, Mortal Prey And what would you suggest instead of the pronoun you perceive to be wrong? This is not a rhetorical question; I'm really interested in y'all's answers.
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the character in question, a Minneapolis cop, was rhetorically addressing a tableful of unknown, off-duty or retired, St. Louis cops, in a bar, all men.
"[Would] Anybody who can't keep his mouth shut, raise his hand[?]"
-joe (context, context, context) friday
edit: or maybe even "your hand", but that's probly a hypercorrection, for the context.
Last edited by tsuwm; 05/02/07 02:09 PM.
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That would be my suggestion as well, tsuwm, even if they weren't all men. I've read John Sandford and I don't think Lucas Davenport and his cop friends would be too fussy in any case. At least about language.
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>At least about language.
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If there's one specific person in the group it's actually applies to, I think it works as a "and you know who you are" type comment. For politeness, I'm pretending to correct everyone, but you know I'm only talking to you.
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Pooh-Bah
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tsu, Fal: The usage is recognized as singular in the late editions of some dictionaries
The prescriptivists warn us that by 2082 any word in the language can be used to mean anything the speaker wishes
Even today, a drive drive drive drive is the flight of a ball in a baseball game, the outcome of which results in an automobile trip by the all-time home-run champion to a venue in which culturally-acquired concern for the proliferation of a keychain semiconductor memory is sponsored through the profits of a lumber mill whose continued existencce depends upon the legalization of dredging a shallow river intended to convey logs downstream for further processing
dalehileman
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If there's one specific person in the group it's actually applies to, I think it works as a "and you know who you are" type comment. For politeness, I'm pretending to correct everyone, but you know I'm only talking to you. but, as I went on to point out, that ain't the context, in this case.
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