A body → abody
Reading Cooper’s The Pioneers lately, I was struck by the frequent use of the phrase “a body” to indicate a speaker’s generalization of person. Witness:
“Dr. Todd is a comely man to look on, and dispu’t pretty. How well he seems in spectacles! I declare, they give a grand look to a body’s face.”
“… Och! Sargeant, sure it’s a great privilege to go to a mateing where a body can sit asy, widout joomping up and down so often, as this Mr. Grant is doing the same.”
“… Not that a body cares much for’t, as there’s more houses than one to live in.”
And so on. You can find plenty of other instances using the demon-magic of Google Books to pluck them out. Why is it, though, that our language has incorporated “somebody,” “nobody,” “anybody,” and “everybody,” but not “abody”? It would be such a useful replacement for the ostentatious “one”! Witness again:
Watching Obama’s inauguration reminds one that myth and symbol are not so far from reality.
… becomes …
Watching Obama’s inauguration reminds abody that myth and symbol are not so far from reality.
Consider this post first, final, and formal notification that I will be evangelizing the use of “abody” as a commonplace, and plan to use it in my own writing without any further explanation.
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The room is, as yet, filled with smoke and apprehension.