From: Rick McCallister
Message: 62197
Date: 2008-12-19
> From: Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>I suppose the meaning "attempt" comes from poker, et al., where your bid (as noun) is your stake in the game, so "to make a bid" is "to make a attempt to earn money."
> Subject: Re: [tied] Missing Singulars
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, December 19, 2008, 6:35 PM
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:
> >
> > At 5:17:58 PM on Friday, December 19, 2008, Andrew
> Jarrette
> > wrote:
> >
> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M.
> Scott"
> > > <BMScott@> wrote:
> >
> > >> At 3:34:42 PM on Friday, December 19, 2008,
> Andrew
> > >> Jarrette wrote:
> >
> > >>> --- On Fri, 12/19/08, Brian M. Scott
> <BMScott@>
> > >>> wrote:
> >
> > >>>> It's not exclusively journalistic
> usage. A few minutes
> > >>>> with Google got me the following
> examples, none
> > >>>> journalistic.
> >
> > >> [...]
> >
> > >>> OK, but I think examples like the ones
> you have produced
> > >>> are reflections of a tendency for people
> to imitate
> > >>> journalistic usage.
> >
> > >> I see no reason to believe that there even
> *is* such a
> > >> tendency.
> >
> > > When writing (which is what is found on Google)
> rather
> > > than speaking,
> >
> > In fact several of the examples that I listed were
> written
> > transcriptions of the spoken word.
> >
> > > sometimes people will use journalistic short
> forms to save
> > > time. "Ten cattle" is easier to write
> than "ten head of
> > > cattle", even though in speech they probably
> would say
> > > "ten cows" rather than "ten
> cattle".
> >
> > 'Ten cows' is even easier to write than
> 'ten cattle'.
> >
> > > Just my opinion, you probably don't respect
> it or agree
> > > with it, but I don't think it's possible
> to definitively
> > > prove either my or your opinion about this.
> >
> > Whether I agree or not is beside the point that I was
> > making, which is that so far as I can tell, it's
> an opinion
> > with no evidentiary basis.
> >
> > Brian
> >
>
> Well I must concede that I didn't do a study of all
> English written
> material before I made that statement. It was a
> hypothesis, a guess
> trying to account for your examples, and the only evidence
> I have when
> writing quickly like this is my memory. Google has access
> to such a
> vast reserve of information that one is bound to find
> examples that go
> against what I said. However, I am not yet convinced that
> these
> examples represent the _most_ usual English usage, which is
> what I
> hoped to describe. I based the hypothesis fundamentally on
> an
> observation I have made that "bid" in the meaning
> "attempt" seems to
> be spreading beyond just newspaper headlines, where I
> believe this
> meaning originated. I'll check the OED after I submit
> this to see if
> this meaning of "bid" is more ancient than that.
>
> Andrew