4 Apr
2013
4 Apr
'13
1:40 p.m.
English has inconsistent [spelling] rules, and
freely breaks them.
Indeed. In my more cynical moments I sometimes feel it has more rules
than it does words. Consider `laughter'. Now prepend an `s'. Or "I
disconnected the speaker on all of the computers in the lab." does
not imply that they share a speaker.
Strictly speaking, the grammatical construct does imply that; in the
case of that particular sentence that implication is overridden by the
semantic unlikelihood of having all the lab's computers sharing a
single speaker.
Should I have said that I disconnected the
"speakerS"? or maybe "the
speaker on EACH computer"?
Either one would fix it, yes.