Evening/Night (was Re: The "Mother" Problem)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Gordon Barlow" <barlow@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, David Watson wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, I am talking specifically about so called
> > correct English usage, and not just that of the U.S.
> > It's been many years since I attended English class
> > in high school, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't
> > considered correct to write "I work nights'".
>
> Hmmm. I'll just write a few words here and then I'll go home.
> Does that sound right? But if it's "correct" to say "I'll go
> home" and not "I'll go *to* home", then it is equally correct
> to say "I work nights" and not "... *at* nights". It is simply
> a matter of idiom: "...at nights" in Britain, "... nights" in
> USA. There is no correct or incorrect about it. In British
> English it is quite customary to say "I'll phone you", but not
> "I'll write you". One would be hard put to find a grammatical
> distinction in there anywhere.

You missed my apostrophe at the end of "I work nights'".
I'm not saying that it's incorrect to write or to say
"I work nights", only that it's incorrect to write "I
work nights'", with an apostrophe after the 's'. That's
a matter of whether native speakers of English regard
'nights' in such cases as a gentive plural or not, not
one of prescriptivism.

See what I mean now? :^)

David