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Mister Micawber
#75689 Tue, 22 Feb 05 06:56 AM
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I had a look through my Quirk, et. al., Paco, and I can find no reference to special uses of either form other than that 'pronouns in -one are regarded as more elegant than those in -body'.
You are right of course, that this set of pronouns is sometimes used to mean 'VIP', but I can, as I said, see no consistent use of one form or the other. Of course, it is possible that the -body's are used more frequently, but I wonder if this might anyway be a case of a 'rule' being laid down too precipitately.
There is a lateral consideration which we have not mentioned: it is the case of 'he is a somebody/nobody-- where I think the -body works better than the -one. I don't know why.
(PS: Thanks for the research effort, Rolebra. My curiousity is satisfied, but I doubt it will enter my vocabulary. I have enough trouble getting any Japanese into it.)
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Joined on
Wed, Aug 4 2004
Yokohama
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'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'
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paco2004
#75695 Tue, 22 Feb 05 07:52 AM
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Hello MrM
The dictionaries I referred are Webster's College Dictionary [Random House 1991], Oxford English Dictionary [CD-ROM version 3.01 2002] and Genius E-J Dictionary.
The Webster College Dictionary, for example, explains as follows:
[anybody]
1 (pronoun) any person
2 (noun) a person of some importance: If you're anybody you'll get an invitation
[anyone]
1 (pronoun) any person at all. 'anybody' is less formal than 'anyone'.
Most handy online dictionaries don't give the second definition to 'anybody'. But dictionary.com and One-Look give it.
As for 'somebody' in the sense of an important person, it seems to have been used sometimes with 'a' and sometimes without 'a'.
(Ex) You must be somebody; then you may do this or that as you will (Emerson 1856)
(Ex) Her dress was expensive, and she was evidently a somebody (Mrs Lynn Linton 1880)
paco
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Joined on
Wed, Nov 17 2004
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In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English.
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Mister Micawber
#75704 Tue, 22 Feb 05 08:36 AM
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Fair enough, Paco; file it all under '-One/-body' in your records.
An interesting thought: why would the less formal version have come to represent the important person?
Also: an experimental google gives me 47,000 'a somebody's, who seem mostly to represent VIPs, and 163,000 'a someone's, who seem more to represent an anonymous person.
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paco2004
#75709 Tue, 22 Feb 05 08:53 AM
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Mr M
Thank you for the google information. I was very surprised at the fact so many people are using 'a someone'. Do you think it is grammatical? The Webster says nothing about the noun-like use of 'someone'. It says only that 'someone' is a pronoun meaning 'some person'.
paco
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Mister Micawber
#75728 Tue, 22 Feb 05 10:52 AM
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As grammatical as 'a somebody' or the even commoner 'a nobody' (190,000 hits).
As Jim mentioned earlier, I do not think dictionary omissions mean non-usages or non-words: there is just so much that one dictionary can fit in-- just so far it can explore the avenues of a word-complex-- and there are an infinite number of potential entries.
In this case we are dealing with a double set of indefinite pronouns that are highly interchangeable, and vary in their commoner uses primarily by register-- so that use is going to vary considerably from speaker to speaker with little change is semantic value.
All these sound reasonably normal to me:
'You really have to be ( a ) someone/ ( a ) somebody to get invited to an Elizabeth Taylor party.'
'He was no one / ( a ) nobody before he invented the Salivary Fuel Cell.'
'Anybody who is anyone / anybody who is anybody / anyone who is anyone / anyone who is anybody will be attending the Grand Duke's coming-out party.'
'George has been transformed from the nobody that he was into the Somebody who is the President of the United States.'
I can't make 'an anybody' sound natural, but maybe someone/somebody else can-- and maybe s/he will disagree with the naturalness of my own creations.
I'm done.
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paco2004
#75753 Tue, 22 Feb 05 12:41 PM
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Mr P
As for 'someone' I was wrong. I found in Dictionary.com an article as follows;
[someone]
1. pronoun. an unspecified or unknown person.
2. noun. a person of importance: He really thinks he's someone.
I still feel oddness in the expression "a someone I look up to".
Google gave the results as follows;
X was/is somebody I looked/look up to. 60
X was/is a somebody I looked/look up to. 0
X was/is someone I looked/look up to. 943
X was/is a someone I looked/look up to. 0
Anyway I think we had better finish this discussion. I learned a lot from you. Thousand thanks.
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