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Tuesday 1 October 2013

Thing To Do Today: scat.

No, no, come back! I don't really want you to scat!

Well, not unless it's this sort of scat:



 
 
Everybody should do that. Well, it would make the world so very much happier, wouldn't it.

As for both that scat and the other scat (by which I mean the one that means to run away) these are interesting verbs because they have bits missing.

Think about it: we can say: scat! as an order to someone, but can we say: I scatted down the road? Can we say: Did he scit? Or: He was scatting so hard he lost his hat, his dignity, and three of his bananas?

Perhaps if we did say such things then people would copy us, and then we'd have filled in a couple of small holes in the English language.

I don't know, though. I quite like the eccentric gaps, myself.

Thing To Do Today: scat. The singing word is probably an imitation of the sound, and the running-away word may be a short hiss followed by the word cat.









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