Major Andrew Ellicot

Major Andrew Ellicot A commissioned officer in the Maryland militia, Major Andrew Ellicott was a highly accomplished surveyor who, along with Pennsylvania's David Rittenhouse, extended the Mason-Dixon line westward to its originally intended terminus at the southwest corner of Pennsylvania in 1784. English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had been forced to halt their work at the 244-mile point in 1767 due to the threat of hostile Native Americans. The following year, Ellicott was hired to revisit this survey in order to establish and mark 100 miles of the western boundary of Pennsylvania, a line that came to be known as "Ellicott's Line".In 1789, Virginia and Maryland had joined together in donating territory to establish a new federal capital city on the banks of the Potomac River. At the suggestion of President George Washington, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson asked Ellicott to perform the first survey of the District of Columbia.EnfantsEllicott and his assistant, Benjamin Banneker, beg an work in the spring of 1791. The following year Washington asked Ellicott to finish Pierre Charles l'Enfant's plan for the city. L'Enfant was a military engineer appointed by President George Washington to plan the new nation's capital city in March 1791. He had been dismissed from the project because his perfectionism made him difficult to work with, however, his dedication to perfection shaped a plan that has stood the test of time. Ellicott found it necessary to make some changes to L'Enfant's plan. He changed the alignment of Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short radial avenues, added two short radial avenues southeast and southwest of the Capitol, and named the city streets. In less than one month Ellicott had a plan ready for the engravers. A few months later Ellicott, like l'Enfant, found himself at odds with the Commissioners and resigned from the project.

Verbs with Thou and Thee

Verbs with Thou and Thee Verbs with Thou and Thee Verbs with Thou and Thee By Maeve Maddox The pronouns thou and thee were replaced by you in standard English a very long time ago, but the old forms still hold interest for modern speakers. A DWT reader wrote to me recently about a pastor who encourages his parishioners to use the â€Å"thou† forms in prayer. Many Bible readers still prefer the King James translation with its thous and thees to more modern ones. Apart from a religious context, the old forms crop up in advertising and entertainment, often with the wrong verb forms, possibly for intended comic effect. For example, an insurance ad on television features an agent dressed in paper armor made from insurance policies. He exchanges a few words with another agent. Here are some of their attempts at what the ad writer characterizes as â€Å"broken Old English.† It’s not Old English, but it is very broken. I doth declare that thou have brought overmany discounts to thine customers! Thou cometh and we thy saveth! We doth offer so many discounts, we have some to spare. The second person singular forms fell out of standard use as Middle English passed into Early Modern English. Without going into too much detail, or trying to account for every variation, I’ll illustrate some of the uses of the forms thou, thee, thy, and thine. Thou art my friend. (subject) I love thee. (object) Is this thy dog? (possessive adjective) No, I thought it was thine. (possessive pronoun) Thine was also used as a possessive adjective in front of a noun beginning with a vowel: Is he thine enemy? Verbs used with the subject form thou usually ended in -st. For example, What dost thou still in bed, thou lazy lout Can I go out with my friends, Mother? No, thou canst not. The -th ending doesn’t go with thou or, as in the insurance ad, with we or any other pronoun. The -th ending signals third person: What doth he still in bed? He doth what he liketh best; he sleepeth. The use of thou still exist in some English dialects, although in altered forms, such as tha. The use of a second person singular in the â€Å"plain speech† of the Society of Friends (Quakers) continued into modern times. Among some Quakers, the archaic verb endings dropped away and the subject form thou was superseded by the object form thee, much as the object form you replaced the subject form ye in standard English. If you ever decide you want to use archaic pronouns and verb endings in an ad or a historical novel, you might want to review the forms. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:30 Synonyms for â€Å"Meeting†Comma Before ButShow, Don't Tell