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Is this wrong?

(38 Posts)
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Nelliemoser Mon 12-Sept-16 22:56:36

I have just been to choir and one carol we were practising had the line.

"lullaby sweet Jesus sleeps among ?? the hay.
Somehow among sounds wrong to me,but I can't see how?

I feel amidst would be better. I don't know why this annoys me so much.
Any thoughts?

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Tegan Wed 14-Sept-16 17:48:07

I didn't know that about Alnwick. I'll impress the S.O. with that in a couple of weeks when I'm oop there.

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acanthus Wed 14-Sept-16 19:22:11

'Among' and 'amongst' are prepositions which have no plural forms.
They are interchangeable; 'among' is the earlier version (Old English) and 'amongst' came later (Middle English). I think it all depends on the following noun as to which sounds better, e.g. among the crowd, but amongst all the people, in other words whether there is a vowel or consonant following. 'Among' seems to be more widely used in the US with 'amongst' more popular in the UK.

After all that, I still agree that 'among the hay' sounds wrong!

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Elrel Wed 14-Sept-16 19:51:23

Lllyflower - impressive! Wondering what he grew up to be!

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Elrel Wed 14-Sept-16 19:52:58

Elegan - I love that song, not sure I ever knew what it was all about though!

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jinglbellsfrocks Wed 14-Sept-16 20:01:26

'In the hay'. But it wouldn't scan. #poeticallicence

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Battersea1971 Wed 14-Sept-16 20:35:36

Maybe you don't have enough to think about Bellanonna!

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Bellanonna Thu 15-Sept-16 08:35:34

Au contrarie, my friend.

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Bellanonna Thu 15-Sept-16 08:36:05

Thanks iPad. Contraire

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PRINTMISS Thu 15-Sept-16 08:41:58

Why not just sing the words, enjoy the music, and the story which is being told? Not everything has to be perfect.

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Legs55 Thu 15-Sept-16 18:05:31

Violette - I am from Yorkshire so the words af the child sound perfectly ok to me !! grin

many carols/hymns were written in the 19th Century - they are meant to be sung joyfully not analysed by our grammer/language standards hmm

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NanaRayna Wed 21-Sept-16 01:08:09

I'm with Nelliemoser on this because when a lyric grates on the ear it spoils the message being sung.
Mind you, I'm so pedantic that I get annoyed every time I see the '10 items or less' sign at the checkouts. "10 items or FEWER", I rage to myself!

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Witzend Sat 15-Oct-16 16:04:44

Upon the hay?
Would still scan and be unarguable, too.

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