Timeline for What is the logic behind "I am X years old"?
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10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 17, 2022 at 12:55 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @PrimeMover Yes, having the right of it works too. It’s just the plain ‘have right’ that, for whatever reason, has fallen out of favour. | |
| Jul 17, 2022 at 12:51 | comment | added | Prime Mover | @JanusBahsJacquet Maybe not common usage, but you do occasionally see in literary works where the author wishes to sound récherché a construction such as "You have the right of it", perhaps in the context of a judge determining which of two plaintiffs to favour. I have a vague and maybe inaccurate memory of seeing it in Tolkien. | |
| Jul 16, 2022 at 9:16 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Davislor We also still have it right, though syntactically, that’s a different construction. It’s rather odd, actually, that we no longer ‘have right’, since English really is the odd one out there, with surrounding languages mostly ‘having’ instead: Germanic languages ‘have right’ (German Du hast Recht, etc.), Romance languages ‘have reason’ (French tu as raison, etc.), and even some of the Celtic languages ‘have right’ (Irish tá an ceart agat). Only Welsh (ti’n iawn) and Scottish Gaelic (tha thu ceart) ‘are right’, and I don’t know if they got it from English… | |
| Jul 15, 2022 at 9:26 | comment | added | Davislor | Wemight no longer have right, but (as you know) we do still have a right, and indeed, have rights. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 23:07 | comment | added | Davislor | @Laurel Thank you for the correction. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 22:07 | comment | added | Laurel♦ | @Davislor It is "yet" but from an era before "yet" was always written with a "y". The MED has "Thou hast not ʒit fifty ʒeer". See Biblehub. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 19:54 | history | edited | Laurel♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 14, 2022 at 19:37 | history | edited | Laurel♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 14, 2022 at 17:46 | comment | added | Lambie | Well, arbitrary up to a certain point, then verb is favored over the other, as your short historical tour shows. And have right can be entitled. :) Historical linguistics is not the only avenue in play here. | |
| Jul 14, 2022 at 16:34 | history | answered | Laurel♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |