Discussion Groups / English Usage / December 2003

Are these sentences correct?
Hence did I come thitherto.
Thence did I come hitherto.

Is it really true that in American English it's quite common nowadays
to address girls or to refer to them as "guys"? Is is substandard?
Youth talk etc?
Thanks a lot.

From an mailing list:
 "I went from ground zero, not having so much as written
  a single story, to having several nearly finished pieces
  to submit for publication"

Some insist that gender is a grammatical term and should never be used to
designate sex.
Today's Washington Post (Tuesday, 2 December 2003, page A13) has an article
about some people's difficulty in learning math.  A quotation:

Most English words have European origin: specifically,
from Germanic, French, Latin, Greek, etc.  I'm interested
in finding English words whose origins are elsewhere.
(Examples include chocolate, nadir, kvetch, etc.)

I can't make out the difference between using "was" and "to be" in the
last sentence of the following paragraph, which is taken from Dickens'
Great Expectations:
 He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had

Is Plymouth a county?
Thank you!

I'm looking at the unemplyment benefit chart at
http://www.edd.ca.gov/uirep/de1101bt2.pdf (Too sad that I
have to look this up:-(  I have trouble to understand
"Amount of wages in highest quarter".  What is "quarter"?

 Do you have any books?
 Do you have any book?
  Which is correct?
--

I sung my lung out.
Does this mean that this person sung loudly as if the lung came out of
the mouth?

This is my first posting.  I appologize if what follows has violated
any conventions regarding posting.
I'm wondering what the difference is between these two sentences:
(1) I was (supposed to be) there yesterday.

"I came only because I promised."
My interpretation of this sentence is that " The reason why I came here
is only because I promised." It is implied that I came  because I
promised, but to tell the truth, I didn't want to.   Is  there any other

The word 'complete' is an adjective and is also a verb.  So
when it comes to a structure like this one, I feel puzzled.
"The work is complete/completed."  How to pick?

Donna Richoux wrote (some time ago):

I'm researching a project on real-time written communication (AIM,
ICQ, etc.) and its effects on written language. Being a word lover myself,
I'm chagrined at the possibility that, with everyone on the Internet
learning to write the way they talk (and condensing writing further ...