Word for the wise ©
We're rapidly running out of letters in our Word for the wise © A-Z odyssey. Instead of ending in "y", however, our word this week begins with the penultimate letter of the alphabet. Yes, that's right, we've arrived at Y:
yes can have the plural form of "yeses" or "yesses" and you'll find either, depending on who's doing the reporting, in sentences like this: "The yeses have 65 per cent and the noes 35 per cent, so the motion is carried." The word "yes" is contained within the title of James Joyce's novel Ulysses and the great work ends with the most evocative use of the "assent indicator", as the grammarians call it, in English-language literature. So, take it away, Molly Bloom:"yes and all the little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibralter as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
Next week, we're at "Z".
