Frequently, it is the person who has studied the language formally who understands it better than the native speaker!
Regarding the plural of "lace", I have wondered about that for a long time. I actually did a slide show entitled The Lace of the Robber Barons. But noting that the book Antique Laces of the American Collectors, written in the 1920s, which I used in the research seemed to think that the plural of lace was laces, I sometimes called my slide show The Laces of the Robber Barons. But, The Lace of the Robber Barons sounded better to my ear. I know that there is a bit of an escape clause in Strunk and White's Elements of Style that claims that if it sounds wrong, don't do it, so I relied heavily on that. But, that seems overly liberal. If I were to refer to the many different kinds of lace in France, I would say "the laces of France" as in "The laces of France are many and exquisite". If I were to buy an auction lot of different pieces of lace, I would say I bought a box of lace. Thoughts? Devon In a message dated 5/20/2014 7:59:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ilske.l.thom...@t-online.de writes: Devon, in German we are lucky to have the hyphen. We can write Klöppel-Spitzen and so on. In English I wrote till today lace maker/s, lace making, needle lace, bobbin lace, crochet lace, knitted lace, lace is in my opinion singular and plural but if I am speaking of different techniques of lace I am writing laces. But I am not born with an "English tongue" so I am not competent to say wich is right. For me in that way it sounds understandable. Perhaps there are English teachers on the list who could explain this after the rules of English/american language. That would have be a wonderful question for Aurelia. Ilske - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/ - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
