Taamarbuta – “A group of us were sitting in first class, we had just passed Rabat, when all of a sudden the train grinded to a halt.”

Liosliath Says:
June 25th, 2007 at 4:43 am

Did you just write “grinded to a halt?”

taamarbuuta Says:
June 25th, 2007 at 1:38 pm

@ Liosliath – Ground to a halt? Is that correct? God, I’m embarrassed, I don’t even know and I’m an English teacher.

Liosliath Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 1:03 am

Apparently “grinded” is somewhat obsolete, but still usable! (Though it still makes me laugh…)

Even though I was just teasing Taamarbuta over at Morocco Report, it reminded me of how many times I’ve forgotten how to say something in English. The more languages I speak, and the more I practice them, the more frequent my goofball mistakes in English become. I’m blaming it on the combination of:

Speaking Darija and Tamazight at home with Hamou
Watching French, MSA, and Darija TV
Reading French blogs/news
Hamou speaking Spanish more often because of the guys he works with (I understand that language, too)
Me studying MSA on Rosetta Stone every night
All the German words that we commonly use in English that make Hamou bust out with a stream of incomprehensible German (gesundheit, kaput, macht nicht, etc….)

Anyway, someone (usually Hamou) will ask, “How do you say X in English?” He’s asking me in darija, and the answer is right on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite remember. I’ll often remember how to say it in yet another language, so we make do.

So, about this “grinded” thing – it’s exactly the kind of question that Hamou likes to spring on me. I looked it up, and “ground” is correct, but “grinded” is some kind of obsolete form that’s sort of ok. It has a similar structure to “to mind,” which is what throws people – obviously, it’s “minded” not “mound.” It just struck me as funny, but I didn’t have any proof – and you know, you probably shouldn’t depend on me for correct verb forms now that I’m deep into MSA style. “Ya+” “Ta+” and all that.