Verbs

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Actually, Esperanto was my inspiration. Silly young thing that I was, I wanted to see if I could do it too.

I've seen absent used in a slightly different way: "Absent credible evidence, we'll have to acquit him." Not used very often in common speech--I've only read it this way. We don't run around the office speaking that way, for example, even if we absent ourselves from meetings. ;-)

Y'all know about Esperanto? One of the few made-up languages that actually caught on and is used around the world.

I did the same thing - try to devise a new language. It gave me an appreciation for the structure & incredible variety of English.

So does this use mean "to leave a meeting while it's in progress," or "to never go to the meeting?" I would assume that absent refers to never having arrived in the first place.

I've heard it quite a few times and used it myself once or twice, e.g. "I'll absent myself from this meeting since I have another meeting in ten minutes." I hear it used along the lines of "recuse oneself."

Well, absent is in most of the online dictionaries as a transitive verb. Dictionary.com even uses the example of absenting oneself from a meeting. It’s pretty formal. I’ve heard it only a few times in real life, usually coming from an English teacher. :)

I've never heard anyone use "absent yourself". I think they would say "be absent from a meeting".

You can absent yourself from a meeting, etc. The fact that it's not usually used in that sense is what makes that one so neat. :)

Can absent be a verb?

I got as far as making a list of verbs that I needed to work on. :) I realized that no matter what system I used, it would still be based on either English or French. After that, the whole thing seem phony. I just love A verbs for the memories.

jennarenn, how far did you get in your new language? Would love to see some of *those* words! :-)