I don't think this one has been mentioned here before. (Jackie, note the reference to John McPhee!)
http://www.thediscouragingword.com/
Yes, he is a fine author who uses many words that are new to me, and he's not just rodomontading, either. [dig e]
Here's the quote the site has: As if in a minor earthquake, the truck trembled for minutes after he was gone, its corrosive fluid seiching back and forth.
I notice, though, that at one point the writer (on the site, not Mr. McPhee) says "an 1839", and in another place he has "a 1864". I saw the latter first, and wondered if it was some variant usage.
Yet Another Case of grammar by meaning vs. grammar by form. No one would think of saying twenty percent has.
The discussion of the word "sieche" was interesting, because it was used, in a slightly altered form, by Frank Herbert to describe the cave-dwellings of the Arrakis Fremen in the Dune books. Some sieches had large underground lakes. I wonder if there is a causal relationship?
- Pfranz
>grammar by meaning vs. grammar by form
well yeah; if you're really talking about a sample of five people, I suppose you should say 'one in five has', but if your sample is 100..
-ron o.