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 #2 (permalink) Sun May 11, 2008 16:38 pm "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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'Keep silence' is an unlikely collocation and also unlikely as a command.
'Keep silent' would mean 'Remain/stay quiet'. In other words, someone might be telling you this:"Don't make any noise."
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Yankee
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| #3 (permalink) Sun May 11, 2008 17:17 pm "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| Quote: | | 'Keep silence' is an unlikely collocation... |
Why unlikely? I'm a nonnative speaker and i've come across it a number of times: |
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Molly
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| #4 (permalink) Sun May 11, 2008 17:20 pm "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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Here are a few examples:
The vote was announced just before 5 o'clock. Despite the custom of synod to keep silence at such times, the tension was palpable.
Title Women of the Cloth; Economic Outlook; The Wall
Source PBS_Newshour
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He caught up the bow and case, dived through the gateway into the shadow of the ruined wall, and found himself in a maze of brush and broken walls. His footsteps sounded louder than he liked on patches of exposed paving stones. He tried to keep silence, and now and again glanced back, afraid the creature was laughing all the while and following him. He dared not call out. He feared she might answer, unaware of the danger.
Title The Goblin Mirror
Author C.J. Cherryh
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The audience that came may not have been the same one that would have come to hear a three-hour St. Matthew's Passion or Rachmaninoff's Vespers, but it did fill the sanctuary. We filed in from two sides singing " Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. "
Title John Rutter: The churches' court composer
Author Bendis, Debra
Source Christian Century
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| Quote: | | unlikely as a command. |
These had no effect on his captor other than to provoke yet another blow from the staff and an admonition to " Keep silence, piggy, else I'll not wait for your fattening. I'll smoke your belly and boil your head tomorrow. "
Title Inner Huff
Author Matthew Hughes
Source Fantasy & Science Fiction
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The tone was serious. " For my part, I want a responsible outside observer, to report the truth afterward. Already we're having a crisis with the kzin. Please stay where you are and keep silence while I am transmitting.
Title Pele
Author Poul Anderson
Source Analog Science Fiction & Fact |
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Molly
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| #5 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 5:23 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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Is it your intention to mislead, Molly?
Do you really find your examples to be common in English? 
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Yankee
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| #6 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 6:06 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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Hi Molly,
Some interesting examples but I must confess I haven't come across 'keep silence' before. The expression I'm more familiar with is 'maintain silence' often used in those endless TV and cinema films where conspirators or the good guys tell members of their group to be as quiet as possible as they carry out their covert operation.
Alan
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| #7 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 7:22 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| Yankee wrote: | .
Is it your intention to mislead, Molly?
Do you really find your examples to be common in English?
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Common in which register? At times, amy, both you and Jamie seem to only favour language used in one register. I've noticed that many other Americans do the same. You'll find "keep silence" appears in News, Fiction, Law, and Theological registers. And how common is "called in ill"?
Alan, you maybe need to read wider, or attend church more often: 
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
From: Liturgy of St. James.
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While still a teenager, Patrick Leigh Fermor made his way across Europe, as recounted in his classic memoirs, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. During World War II, he fought with local partisans against the Nazi occupiers of Crete. But in A Time to Keep Silence, Leigh Fermor writes about a more inward journey, describing his several sojourns in some of Europe's oldest and most venerable monasteries.
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U.S. Lawyers Keep Silence on Listening In
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Is the government secretly monitoring communications between plaintiffs and their lawyers in a federal class-action lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top officials? Government lawyers yesterday politely refused a court order that they answer that question, asking instead that the court reconsider the order.
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Molly
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| #8 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 7:30 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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Hi, Molly,
Maybe "keep silence" is a non-native speaker mistake, or it was used by a native speaker with the intent to create a special effect.
In both cases, a English learner would do perfectly well without that phrase, he or she has a hell of a lot of other things to learn.
Just my opinion. |
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Lost_Soul
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| #9 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 7:38 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| lost_soul wrote: | Hi, Molly,
Maybe "keep silence" is a non-native speaker mistake, or it was used by a native speaker with the intent to create a special effect.
In both cases, a English learner would do perfectly well without that phrase, he or she has a hell of a lot of other things to learn.
Just my opinion. |
I don't think there was a question about whether one needs it or not, LS. This was the thread question:
| Quote: | keep silence / keep silent
What do they mean respectively? And what's the difference between them? |
BTW, which expression do you think students would need here?
"he called in sick" or ""he called in ill" |
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Molly
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| #10 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 7:42 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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I would opt of "call in sick", because I heard it a few times on TV and ccome across it in books.
"Call in ill" - I've never heard this expression. |
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Lost_Soul
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| #11 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 7:44 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| lost_soul wrote: | I would opt of "call in sick", because I heard it a few times on TV and ccome across it in books.
"Call in ill" - I've never heard this expression. |
Not many have. |
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Molly
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| #12 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 8:05 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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More items:
| Quote: | | In a fourth, he is quoted as saying his former employers "had the wrong man" if they expected him to keep silence about his dismissal. |
Jury Hears Final Arguments in Analyst's Libel Suit
By JANE GROSS,
Published: May 28, 1993
NY Times.
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| Quote: | | At the U.N. and around the world, countries and officials who deny or keep silence about Saddam's guilt will share his responsibility for the murder of Iraqis, and for the death of any American fighting to prevent the launching of those mobile missiles and the warheads now aboard. |
On My Mind; America's War Goals
By A. M. ROSENTHAL
Published: January 30, 1998
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Molly
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| #13 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 8:50 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| Quote: | BTW, which expression do you think students would need here?
"he called in sick" or ""he called in ill" |
To me, it doesn't really matter whether he called in sick or he called in ill. What matters is he called in even though he was sick/ill 
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Daemon99
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| #14 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 9:53 am "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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| Quote: | | To me, it doesn't really matter whether he called in sick or he called in ill. What matters is he called in even though he was sick/ill. |
But was he? |
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Molly
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| #15 (permalink) Mon May 12, 2008 12:23 pm "keep silence" vs "keep silent" |
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Your last two examples of 'keep silence' look like typos to me, Molly.
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'Call in sick' sounds typical to me, but there are a number of expressions that people use, including 'call off', for example. Of course, if someone simply doesn't show up for work, we often call that a 'no show'.
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Yankee
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| "that" (The winter of New York is much severer than that of Tokyo.) | "will" in conditional type 1 |
