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Thread: presumtive heir or....?
- 23-Jul-2007, 00:22 #1
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presumtive heir or....? hi,
Is it: "he's the heir presumptive", or "he's the presumptive heir"?
- 23-Jul-2007, 04:44 #2
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Re: presumtive heir or....? the second one
- 23-Jul-2007, 18:01 #3
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Re: presumtive heir or....? We need context.
Originally Posted by bieasy 
hi,
Is it: "he's the heir presumptive", or "he's the presumptive heir"?
Prince Charles is the Heir Presumptive to the throne.
However, you can say that xxx is the presumptive heir to someone's estate.
- 23-Jul-2007, 21:55 #4
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Threadstarter / Original Poster Re: presumtive heir or....? Is "Heir" in that case an adjective? Originally Posted by Anglika
- 23-Jul-2007, 22:36 #5
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Re: presumtive heir or....? "Heir" is a noun in both cases, "presumptive" an adjective.
- 24-Jul-2007, 00:01 #6
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Teacher Re: presumtive heir or....? Technically speaking, Charles is the Heir Apparent. Only females can be designated "Heir Presumptive" in the British realm. Originally Posted by Anglika
- 24-Jul-2007, 22:14 #7
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Teacher Re: presumtive heir or....? This has already been answered, but I'll say more. Yours was a reasonable assumption - in English, nouns usually come after adjectives. But there are a few phrases that follow French syntax; the most common ones (not common at all Originally Posted by bieasy 
) are usually to do with royalty or law or administration (because these were fields that preserved Anglo-French), such as 'heir apparent/presumptive', 'court martial', 'bend sinister'. For all these phrases, many dictionaries (especially learners' dictionaries) won't be much help I'm afraid (if you look up each individual word).
b
- 25-Jul-2007, 06:23 #8
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Teacher Re: presumtive heir or....? Nice to see that people in the former colonies are better acquainted with the finer points of our royals than we are. Originally Posted by Ouisch 
- 25-Jul-2007, 14:14 #9
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Teacher Re: presumtive heir or....? PS - Link I didn't have time to find last night: http://www.themcs.org/heraldry/BendSinister.gif - used in heraldry to indicate illegitimacy (=when the holder's father isn't married to his mother). If the parents are married, the bar is on the other diagonal - Bend Dexter
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