Herb,What an interesting discussion. It seems to me that the deletion of the preposition in "couple of" may stem from a further deletion of the schwa in the spoken "couple a." I don't have a problem with "couple" being used as both singular and plural, as other posters have pointed out. Isn' t "went missing" common in British English? Thanks for the link to the Toyota paper. It brings to mind the "I need you to move to the back of the bus." that I frequently hear from (African-American) bus drivers. David BrownEFL/ESL teacher Long Beach, CA --- On Mon 09/25, Stahlke, Herbert F.W. < [log in to unmask] > wrote:From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W. [mailto: [log in to unmask]]To: [log in to unmask]: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:16:09 -0400Subject: Re: Two QuestionsChristine. I suspect the "a couple people" expression arose in speech through the loss of schwa after the syllabic /l/ of "couple". The schwa resulted from the reduction of "of", a very common phenomenon. "Couple
of", as a partitive is plural, just as "a pair of" is, but "couple", like "pair", behaves also as a singular noun.I don't have a problem with "went missing". I think it's on the model of "went flat", "went sour", etc., just using the present participle as an adjective. There are, however, other patterns of verb plus present participle, like "needs fixing". There's a paper in the latest Lund University Working Papers in Linguistics, by Junichi Toyota, that deals with the latter variety and touches briefly on other such constructions. You can find it at http://www.englund.lu.se/images/stories/pdf-files/workingspapers/vol06/Toyota_06.pdfHerb-----Original Message-----From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Christine GraySent: Mon 9/25/2006 8:06 PMTo: [log in to unmask]: FW: Two QuestionsCan anyone help me with these two questions from one of my students. I replied that "couple" can be either singular or plural depending on thecontext and then
gave her some examples. But the "couple of" I don't knowabout.Also, I told her that "went missing" has always sounded awkward to me. ButI hear it so frequently-is it correct?See her questions below.Thank you,Christine Gray Should we say, "a couple of people" or "a couple people?" I'm never surewhether or not to put in the "of."And, couple is plural, right? "There are a couple of days when I can't helpyou." Or is "a couple" singular? "There is a couple standing on the corner." Secondly,I hear newscasters say "went missing." Is that correct? For example,Natalie Holloway in Aruba: news people say, "She went missing last summer."I'm making up that example, but I heard it again on TV a few days ago.Thanks!Diane To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.htmland select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
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