Bored and exhausted

[Bassim]

Would you please correct my grammar and punctuation in the following sentences?

Bored and exhausted, Peter quitted his post as a teacher and took a trip all over the world. When he returned a year later, he was homeless and destitute, but he told people he regretted nothing. That was the best he ever experienced in his life.

 

[emsr2d2]

The simple past of "quit" is "quit".
Use "a trip around the world" or "a round-the-world trip".
Say "That was the best experience of his life".

 

[Bassim]

I just want to say that Oxford dictionary beside the past "quit" mentions also "quitted" as the past. It says that "quitted" is BrE.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've never heard it in BrE.

 

[bhaisahab]

My Oxford dictionary says no such thing.

 

[Bassim]

I believe you, emsr2d2, but both "Longman" and "Oxford Advanced English" mention "quitted as BrE.

 

[emsr2d2]

Well, as you can see above, bhaisahab's Oxford English Dictionary does not give the same information. I'm really not sure about the examples on the Longman website HERE. Example 4 given on that page says it's formal British English. I've never heard anyone use "to be quit of sth" in BrE. In fact, most BrE speakers think of "quit" as an AmE import.

 

[GoesStation]

That's funny, "to be quit of something" sounds like a BrE import to my AmE ears!

 

[emsr2d2]

Interesting. Who can we blame next? ;-)

 

[GoesStation]

It's usually safe to blame Canada.

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER


Hello, Bassim:

I have found some information in a book published in 1931.

A great scholar writes that "quitted" is "the ordinary form in England. American English preserves the older form quit. In the meaning cease [stop] this word ["quit"] is very common in America but in this sense is not used at all in England: 'He has quit smoking.' This meaning is a survival of older British usage. It survives also in Scotch and Irish English, which may have strengthened the American tendency."

I suggest that you follow the moderators' advice.



Source: George Oliver Curme, A Grammar of the English Language (1931), Vol. I, page 286.

 

[bhaisahab]

"Scots English", Parser, not "Scotch English". Scotch is whisky.

 

[bhaisahab]

Interesting. Who can we blame next? ;-)

I blame the government. (for everything) ;-)

 

[GoesStation]

Curme might be a good resource for someone writing dialog in a period drama like Downton Abbey. I would not recommend an eighty-five-year-old reference book for someone studying modern English.

Four relatives immigrated from Russia to Los Angeles in the mid Seventies. Only one of them, my great-aunt by marriage, spoke English. Her profound deafness impeded conversation, but we persevered.

A further impediment to communication was her rather eccentric vocabulary. One day, having forgotten a word, she asked "What is the beast that draws the chariot?" My brother, at the time a linguistics major at Yale, quickly answered: "a horse." I have a feeling most Americans would have been utterly flummoxed by the question, though Curme might have applauded it.

 

[TheParser]

"Scots English", Parser, not "Scotch English". Scotch is whisky.

NOT A TEACHER

Thank you, Mr. Moderator, for your note.

I was quoting the great scholar. My dictionary tells me that "Scotch" is now dated when referring to the language in Scotland.

When the scholar wrote that sentence, however, it was apparently still current.

Thank you for alerting me and learners to the change.

 

[bhaisahab]

To the best of my knowledge "Scotch", when used to refer to the people or the language, has always been considered wrong by Scottish people.