<p>^^^^Yes. It means handsome. In past generations, it was a term used in America to mean boyfriend. My Little House on the Prairie books and* Betsy, Tacy, and Tibb* books all referred to boyfriends as “beaus,” so I knew the term long before I ever studied French.</p>
<p>I guess “dreamboat” has taken over so much over the original term that it’s now considered legit. When you think about it, “dreamboat” doesn’t really make much sense. “Dream beau” does.</p>
<p>I thought it was dream boat too!</p>
<p>If you enjoy language, its proper use and how it changes, then a fun read is Bill Bryson’s “the mother tongue: english and how it got that way.” His main point is that language evolves, it is always changing and what is wrong today may be correct tomorrow, and vice-versa. </p>
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<p>We have all of Bryson’s books in our house. They are full of laugh out loud passages.</p>
<p>Lafalum-</p>
<p>That sounds like a great read!</p>
<p>“Dreamboat” used to be a common term, esp. among teens, and I have seen it so in print.</p>
<p>So I have to take exception with that one. Never heard of dream beau or seen it written.</p>
<p>Edit: just googled dream beau and the 1st hit was from a reprinted comic book of 1952. I guess teens of the 50s turned it into the dream boat that I know.</p>
<p>One thing I must ask here, now that this thread exists. Is it “get my goat” or “get my goad”? I’ve always heard it said the first way but then my boyfriend tried to correct me. On a basic level the second one makes more sense, but, I don’t know.</p>
<p>gloworm,</p>
<p>Which are your favorite Bryson books? I have an Amazon gift card, and all his books look intriguing, but I want to start with just a couple.</p>
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<p>Good question!</p>
<p>I’m a huge Bill Bryson fan.</p>
<p>I LOVE “A Walk in the Woods.” Laugh-out-loud funny, about his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail. Also “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” which was written as columns for a British newspaper after he had returned to the USA after living in England for 20 years. “In a Sunburned Country,” is a very funny book written about his travels in Australia. We also have “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” which is a light-hearted look at science and our understanding of how we humans and the cosmos in general came to be the way they are.</p>
<p>I picked up “the mother tongue” in the airport to read on the plane to/from to Europe. I figured it was appropriate to read about my language when I was traveling to a place where people spoke other languages.</p>
<p>^^^^Oh goody! I was hoping you’d say A Short History of Nearly Everything. Thanks!</p>
<p>Love this thread. It prompts me to wonder:</p>
<p>Do Betsy, Tacy,and Tibb have a Facebook yet? I’d like to know how their lives turned out.</p>
<p>Does my S know the truth about “versus?” --Yes, he does. I just asked and he was offended that I thought he might not! BTW, he is headed for a second tier, not a top tier school. There is hope for the future of grammar. </p>
<p>And…is sook really an acceptable past tense for seek? I always thought the past tense was sought, but lately, it seems not to be. I think that “sook” is from forsook–the past tense of forsake.
I did not research any of this, but am relying on memory and instinct–often a dubious combination.</p>
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<p>Education is not the problem there. My guess is that the person is middle-aged and has the syndrome of the brain just substituting any old word for the right word (e.g. there for their). This happens to me all the time and it has nothing to do with not knowing the right word. And sometimes now when I speak, I find I can’t get the word I want and another word just sails right out of my mouth in its place.</p>
<p>And if the spellchecker doesn’t catch a mistake, I often don’t either… we depend on technology too much.</p>
<p>I see people write “blindsighted.” Isn’t it blindsided? I’m not sure what kind of sense blindsighted makes.</p>
<p>It’s blindsided.</p>
<p>And I should have made it clear the email from the educated person in the throws of something was actually an attached letter, not a hastily written email. </p>
<p>I make mistakes all the time in emails but always hope to catch them because I can’t stand to make such mistakes if I know better. But it’s understandable to make errors in an email that’s just tossed off.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4,</p>
<p>You got some from Lafalum, but here are others.</p>
<p>The Lost Continent-Travels in Small Town America</p>
<p>The Mother Tongue-English and How It Got That Way.</p>
<p>Neither Here Nor There-Travels in Europe</p>
<p>So, you have more than enough to get started. Beware not to read too many of them one right after another or your sides may hurt.</p>
<p>I didn’t like The Lost Continent - only one of Bryson’s books I didn’t like. He’s very cynical and sometimes nasty in it. His later work is a gentler more self-deprecating sense of humor.</p>
<p>hyperJulie, I have only heard, “Get my goat.” However, I do live in a rural area. ;)</p>
<p>How nice to see some fellow “Betsy, Tacy and Tibb” fans here. I loved those books.</p>
<p>I’m a European. Before my S could study in the US he had to go through the whole ‘visa’ rigmarole. I was astonished to learn that in the US the word ‘visa’ is both a single and a plural noun. To this day, even at the US embassy, I’m calling it a ‘visum’ when asking for one. It is like the word museum. Musea is not used as a single noun.</p>
<p>TaiTai–fascinating. You don’t say what country you are from, but the British Embassy web site refers to “visa” and “visas,” so I would surmise that’s what indeed it is in English, and not just “Amurrican.” ;)</p>