Anonymous  +  151488 Tue, 25 Oct 05 09:07 AM Dear helpers, I was reading a book. In the book, there was a sentence - he ate of it. I am wondering what the difference is btw 1. He ate of it. and 2. He ate it. Thank you all of you for your help. ^^     Anonymous

	Mister Micawber  +  151504 Tue, 25 Oct 05 11:11 AM Eat of is archaic-- almost Biblical in its portions. Mister Micawber Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004 Yokohama Veteran Member 30,507 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

	paco2004  +  151539 Tue, 25 Oct 05 01:03 PM Hello Anon Your question is interesting. “Eat of” is an expression new to me. So I looked for the phrase in my dictionaries. OED says it is an archaic expression popular in Middle English (as Mr Micawber said). The ‘of’ is a relic of the Old English’s genitive case of nouns and gives a partitive sense to its object. “I ate the apple” is “I ate the whole of the apple”. 　But “I ate of the apple” could mean “I ate a part of the apple” or “I bit the apple”. paco paco2004 Joined on Wed, Nov 17 2004 Senior Member 4,095 In Japan today even dogs are learning how to bow-wow in English. Nouns, Genitives