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#125875 03/22/04 06:26 PM
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wwh Offline OP
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From Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson:
Today we have two demonstrative pronouns, this and that, but in Shakespeare's day there was a third, yon, which denoted a further distance than that. You could talk about this hat, that hat, and yon hat. Today the word survives as a colloquialism, yonder, but our speech is fractionally impoverished for its loss.


#125876 03/23/04 02:58 AM
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old hand
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There's a Spanish equivalent... esta mesa (this table), esa mesa (that table), and aquella mesa (yonder table). "Yonder" is a little rustic for my everyday speech, but that's the way it was described to me when I was learning Spanish...


#125877 03/23/04 12:04 PM
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hither is a good word.



formerly known as etaoin...
#125878 03/23/04 02:02 PM
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veteran
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Words for here (by me), there (by you), and yonder (by him) are pretty common in languages. Some languages distinguish also a forth location, yon but not visible to you or me. Hither, thither, and yon.



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