In the morning/Of the morning

We shouldn't lose track of the fact that this usage was written by "an amateur/indie writer." Any one can self-publish a book, especially an eBook. Without knowing anything about this author or her/his background, it is hard to say, but perhaps s/he isn't very good with the language. Perhaps s/he was using literary license. Perhaps one of a thousand explanations that only the author can verify, assuming s/he even remembers why that phrase was written. Heck, it could have been the annoying autocorrect feature for all we know!

[Cinisajoy]

Or perhaps it was a Google translation. Someone in the thread said it was a literal translation.

My question to the OP would be have you noticed other strange English in that book?

[wodin]

The one the really gets my dander up (and I don't know why) is when an author insists on using the singular "foot" when the context is obviously plural. As in "Sam is six foot tall." when it should bee "Sam is six feet tall."

I've seen some very successful authors do it, the one that comes to mind is Stephen King.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by wodin

The one the really gets my dander up (and I don't know why) is when an author insists on using the singular "foot" when the context is obviously plural. As in "Sam is six foot tall." when it should bee "Sam is six feet tall."

I've seen some very successful authors do it, the one that comes to mind is Stephen King.

Must be a regional thing, again. "Six foot tall" sounds perfectly fine to me. I mean, I'm five foot three, not five feet three.

[wodin]

There's one that I hear a lot, but rarely see in print is the actor substituting "seen" for "saw".

"I seen the chicken cross the road." vs. "I saw the chicken cross the road."

It seems to happen more often in mid-western context than anywhere else.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Must be a regional thing, again. "Six foot tall" sounds perfectly fine to me. I mean, I'm five foot three, not five feet three.

I found this here.

Yes, when the phrase is used as a whole to describe something (when it functions as an adjective phrase before the noun), you hypenate it and use the singular form of the measurement. Eg.: five-yard-long rope; six-foot-tall man; ten-year-old boy.

If the description comes after the verb you don't use hyphens and you use the plural form of the measurement. Eg: the rope is five yards long; the man is six feet tall; the boy is ten years old.

So you would be a five-foot-three woman, or a woman who is five feet three inches tall.

[Cinisajoy]

I am 68 inches tall. There problem fixed. I have a male cousin that is roughly 2 meters tall. He may be a little over that.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Must be a regional thing, again. "Six foot tall" sounds perfectly fine to me. I mean, I'm five foot three, not five feet three.

I agree. I hear it a lot, mostly from the same ranchers who say "of a morning." They might be tracking someone of a morning who, they can tell from the sign (not signs) is six foot.-)

[Purple Lady]

The only way to use of the morning that I've ever heard would be "my first coffee of the morning".

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by wodin

There's one that I hear a lot, but rarely see in print is the actor substituting "seen" for "saw".

"I seen the chicken cross the road." vs. "I saw the chicken cross the road."

It seems to happen more often in mid-western context than anywhere else.

Unrelated, but this makes me think of a jarring difference between UK English and USA English. From this forum, and from my UK cousins, I gather that "I was sat on the bus waiting for my stop" is perfectly fine. In the USA, that's a jarring in-correctness. One always says "I was sitting on the bus" but never "I was sat".

[pdurrant]

"I was sat on the bus waiting for my stop" isn't good standard UK English, but it may be used in some UK dialects.

[badgoodDeb]

Whew. Good to know it isn't considered "good" standard English. I've run across it quite a number of times recently, so a lot of your compatriots use it. Even well educated ones.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

My question to the OP would be have you noticed other strange English in that book?

Nothing quite as jarring, no. No homophone errors, no glaring punctuation errors. Like so many modern era writers, he avoids using - or doesn't know how to use - the Past Perfect tense except in idiomatic phrases. And he's unaware of the difference between rise/raise and lie/lay. But that's hardly uncommon these days.

He does have an unfortunate tendency to drop prepositions and other short words, and he doesn't know how to properly build conditional sentences (e.g. using "If I would have known, I would have done it differently." instead of the correct "If I had known, I would have done it differently."). And those two are the only other things I've noticed that I encounter more frequently in his writing than is "normal".

[badgoodDeb]

"If I had known, I would have done it differently." is perfectly correct, as far as I know. "If I would have known" sounds more awkward to me, as a USA English speaker. We prefer the version you didn't like it! UK people, is this a difference in styles? OP is from Germany, so he may have learned a more formal UK version of English?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

"If I had known, I would have done it differently." is perfectly correct, as far as I know. "If I would have known" sounds more awkward to me, as a USA English speaker. We prefer the version you didn't like it! UK people, is this a difference in styles? OP is from Germany, so he may have learned a more formal UK version of English?

Cough. Read the post more carefully, especially the two words "instead of".