Discussion Groups / British English / December 2004

I just made this up:
Who'd heed 'hood HUD head had hoed, hawed, & hid his
hod?
(Did I miss any verbs?)

(The sentense seems better with "his" in it)
The vowels I missed were Schwa, Barred i, and [a:] the
vowel in father&calm.
I don't think there's a word that's pronounced [ha:d]

Do you know the origin of this idiom ? I am almost sure I have heard in
a movie from the 50's, but I can't remember which one.
Any idea ?
Gilbert

I see we have some Old English cognoscenti in this forum so I wondered if
someone could confirm or otherwise, the assertion that the possesive use of
the apostrophe (the man's hat) is actually just another example of the
apostrophe being used to denote a missing letter.

I am trying to write an application as Game Master at Blizzard. I don't  
have any experience in writing formal british english (I am german), so I  
want to ask if somebody would be so kind and check for grammar or maybe  
give some suggestions?

I would like to know if these sentences (from a poem translated into
English) are syntactically and grammatically right (if not, it may be
deliberate) or a little bit odd:
1- Life's years do not last a century

Does anyone know the origin of this quote (or equiv)?
"When you look back on your life, you'll regret the
things you didn't do more than the ones you did."
It must be much older than H. Jackson Brown, Jr.'s

I would like to know if these sentences (from a poem translated into
English) are syntactically and grammatically right (if not, it may be
deliberate) or a little bit odd:
1- Life's years do not last a century

Last night in our English class, a doubt arised:
Which is the difference in saying "arms" or saying "weapons".
Thanks in advance,
--

I happen to be one of those that still support the old [fine] distinction
between the usage of "less" and "fewer", with the former being limited to
uncountable entities (e.g. less hassle, less effort), and "fewer" being
the only correct word when the entities are countable (fewer ...