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From: HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Somewhere came from Somewheres ? ---- unawares, amongst, betwixt
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2024 17:10:25 -0700
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On 9/3/2024 2:45 PM, Ross Clark wrote:
> On 4/09/2024 9:22 a.m., HenHanna wrote:
>>
>>  >>>    > Does the dropping of the final S go back to Greek or Hebrew?
>>
>> Crossposted to sci.lang, where people might know the answer.
>>                Is there a natural tendency for languages to lose final 
>> syllables or final consonants?  <<<
>>
>>
>>
>> -----------  Why is this thread  named   [Somewheres]  ?
>>
>>            is there a suggestion that ...
>>                 Somewhere  came from Somewheres ? --- (Dropped S)
>>
>>                                        i think Not !
>>
>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/somewheres
>>
>>
>> i thnk the  -s in  Somewheres    is  old, and the same as in
>>
>> Forwards
>> Backwards
>>
>> Outwards
>> Inwards
>> Upwards
>> Downwards
>> Homewards
>>
>> Sideways
>>
>> Besides ?
>>
>> Unawares ?
>>
>>
>> ‎forward + ‎-s → ‎forwards
>> ‎downward + ‎-s → ‎downwards
>> ‎alway + ‎-s → ‎always
>> ‎sometime + ‎-s → ‎sometimes
>> ‎betime + ‎-s → ‎betimes
>> ‎while + ‎-s → ‎whiles
>> ‎betide + ‎-s → ‎betides
>> ‎toward + ‎-s → ‎towards
>> ‎beside + ‎-s → ‎besides
>> ‎evening + ‎-s → ‎evenings
>> ‎unaware + ‎-s → ‎unawares
>>
>>
>> ‎among + ‎-st → ‎amongst
>> ‎mid + ‎-st → ‎midst
>> ‎while + ‎-st → ‎whilst
>>
>> betwixt
>>
>> against
>> alongst
>> amongst
>> beknownst
>> midst
>> unbeknownst
>> whilst
>> whomst
>>
> 
> You (whoever "you" are) are right.
> I pointed this out a couple of days ago, referring to what I call 
> "floating adverbial -s". You may have missed it as a result of your 
> incessant cross-posting. (Thunderbird won't let me cross-post.)
> All the words above are (I think) examples of it. (Sometimes with extra 
> -t.)
> 
> IIRC, Peter Moylan originally asked about the form "besides", which was 
> new to him. Some time later, he mentioned that in choral singing, the 
> sound of [s] is disliked, and singers are instructed to mute or even 
> suppress it. This led to general discussion of loss or weakening of [s] 
> and other sounds in languages. But I don't think anyone actually claimed 
> that "somewheres" became "somewhere" in this way. If they did, they were 
> wrong.



in English choruses,  the final S is never dropped.
              ----------- all S's  are  emphasized, enunciated... iirc.


_____________________

             whenabouts?
             thenabouts?

              nearabouts
             roundabouts

              hereabouts
             thereabouts
             whereabouts  ---  in Each,  -S  is  adverbial



i was trying to remember... there was a thread about
the adverbial -S  suffix in AUE and i think i found it.


_______________________________Subj:  Whereabouts


benl...@ihug.co.nz   ------- Aug 24, 2011  ----  to AUE

On Aug 24, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote: 
..........


The strange thing is that the -s isn't historically a plural at all.
It's the "adverbial -s", originally from an OE genitive singular. Yet
"whereabouts" is certainly treated as plural for purposes of
agreement, and I think may even be felt by some speakers as
semantically plural, something like "the particulars of his location",
or maybe as suggesting that he moves around (has more than one location)?