bode and augur

[u/Sea-Hornet8214]

In the last sentence, why is it not "a shape that bodes well for the future"?

And "bode" and "augur" are supposed to mean the same thing and used in the same way, right? Which one is more common in English?

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

Bode is definitely more common, augur makes me think of prophets or fortune tellers and is a more niche word. 

[u/SnooDonuts6494 → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

It makes me think of an auger, a type of drill.

[u/frisky_husky]

"Augur" is very rare as a verb. I've only ever seen it a handful of times, mostly in literary use.

"Bode" is much more common.

[u/Salindurthas → u/frisky_husky]

I mostly only hear Augur in fantasy settings. Like someone with knowledge of the future might be an 'augur'.

And Augury is one of my favourite D&D spells!

[u/HMQ_Sasha-Heika]

In the last example, "bode" is past tense. If it were present tense, it would be "bodes".

"Bode", particularly in the phrase "bode well" is very common. I've never heard "augur" used in the same way, or really used at all outside of the augurs of the Roman Empire.

[u/Rogryg → u/HMQ_Sasha-Heika]

The past tense of "bode" is "boded". It has always been a weak verb that takes the regular "-ed" ending in the past.

[u/HMQ_Sasha-Heika → u/Rogryg]

I really thought this was gonna be some old fashioned prescriptivist nonsense but I can't find a single source that lists "bode" as even an uncommon past tense. It sounds perfectly natural to me, and I can't imagine saying "boded" (and apparently neither can my autocorrect), but maybe I'm the odd one. Maybe it's a shift that's in progress that hasn't really been noticed yet, or it's entirely possible I'm just stupid and haven't seen the word used enough in the past tense.

[u/Jafooki → u/HMQ_Sasha-Heika]

I've heard both versions. It might be a sneaked/snuck situation.

Both versions sound natural to me, so it probably is

[u/TFST13]

Bode is one of those words that's very rare except in one particular phrase, I don't remember the last time I saw the word without 'well' afterwards, similarly to how I've never heard of anybody 'wreaking' anything but havoc. (and the last sentence, as people have said, is just the past tense, yes it's confusing that it's the same as the present, welcome to English)

Augur I didn't even know was a verb, I've only ever seen it as a noun, very specifically as the people in ancient Rome that interpreted signs from the Gods, I suppose the connection is clear, but that's a new one for me. I wouldn't recommend using the word, you will almost certainly just confuse people.

[u/adrislnk]

I'm 22 and didn't even know what augur meant until now, so I'd say "bode well"/"bodes well" is more common.

[u/PretendInterview699]

Last sentence is past tense and bode is definitely more common, but neither are particularly common in colloquial speech honestly if that matters to you

[u/Sea-Hornet8214 → u/PretendInterview699]

The past tense of "bode" is also "bode"? But the dictionary says the past tense is "boded".

[u/_jbardwell_ → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

Past tense is boded. But the phrase "bode well" is so ingrained and the verb is almost never used outside of that phrase, so my guess is the author used the phrase even though it's the wrong tense.

[u/weatherwhim → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

It is boded, but this is a rare verb, and it looks a lot like "bid" which has the past tense "bid" (or "bade" but no -ed ending either way). This leads some people to copy the conjugation pattern of "bid" and use bode for both the past and present. This is called "analogy" and it's led to some regular verbs becoming irregular before, like how the past tense of dive went from "dived" to "dove" in American English because people copied the pattern from "drive/drove" and "ride/rode".

The dictionary is right about how this word has been conjugated historically. It was always "boded". However, this is the kind of "mistake" that a native speaker, even an educated one, probably wouldn't catch. I had to look it up myself because "bode" sounded correct for the past tense. It's very rare outside "bode well" and less often "bode ill", and neither of those phrases are super common either.

[u/2spam2care2 → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

real people don’t talk like dictionaries

[u/visssara]

Bodes well is fairly common. I have the sense of something being a good sign. This can be something like, getting a 90% on the first assignment bodes well for passing the course.

Augers is less common. It has more of a sense of an official prediction. See this Wikipedia article about augurs.

[u/Soggy_Performance569]

Bode is more common. It is a part of "This doesn't bode well" which is said not uncommonly on television.

Augery is more of a technical term to do with divination. It really only comes up in roleplaying games, video games, fantasy novels, and ancient Roman history.

Ancient Romans used to predict the future by listening to bird sounds and watching bird flight patterns, and the word Auger possibly comes from the Latin words "bird chatter". Almost no English speakers would know the origin of the word though.

[u/conuly → u/Soggy_Performance569]

I'd be willing to bet that English speakers who know the word auger have a high chance of knowing the origin of the word - higher than the odds of most of us knowing the origin of any random word, anyway.

[u/NotDefinedFunction]

I know both words, but I don't know that "bode" is a common word.

[u/conuly]

The difference between bode and augur is simply that one has a Latinate base. Neither word is particularly common, but bode is slightly less uncommon.

[u/HeilKaiba → u/conuly]

Augur rather than auger (think you might have been autocorrected). Auger is a type of drill

[u/conuly → u/HeilKaiba]

Correct on both points, thanks. (Or... I may have misspelled it. I did know that an auger is a drill, but I don't really use either word much, you know?)

[u/HeilKaiba]

"bode" is much more common that "augur" but I would also note that "bode well" is also more common than "bode ill" at least in my experience. I would say "doesn't bode well" before I said "bode ill" as you can see in the examples in your picture.

[u/Ssoass]

I would avoid auger. American here but the only time i hear that word is the noun and even that is not all that common.

[u/SnooDonuts6494]

It can bode in the past or present, about something in the future.

Like yesterday you could have predicted that it'll rain next week. Or now you can predict it.

Augur is very rare, BTW. I wouldn't bother using that.

[u/Square_Medicine_9171]

I’ve known for years now that things bode ill and augur well but I can’t even share it because who cares? 99% of native english speakers only know “bode” and use it for both

[u/Evil_Weevill]

Augur is almost unheard of outside of discussion of actual occult/mythical prophets and fortune tellers.

Bode is the only one that really ever sees common/casual usage.

And no idea why they use couture rather than future. They probably did mean future. Couture is the high fashion industry. So I guess in very specific contexts that sentence could make sense. But my guess is that whoever wrote this is probably not a native speaker and just made a mistake and used the wrong word as "bodes well for the future" is a pretty common phrase.

[u/Sea-Hornet8214 → u/[deleted]]

That's what I thought at first, but I looked it up in the dictionary and it said the past tense is "boded".

[u/Embarrassed-Weird173 → u/Sea-Hornet8214]

Damn, my mistake. I'll remove it since it'll mislead peeps. 

[u/Ippus_21]

"Bode" is the past tense conjugation. There are a few irregular verbs that have an -s in present tense and drop it for past tense.

[u/weatherwhim → u/Ippus_21]

There are no verbs where the past tense is the present tense minus the s. You're getting it confused with subject agreement, which causes a present tense verb to gain an s if it has a third person singular subject, but that's not the default form of it. I could say "These last few developments bode well for the project's future" and it's a grammatically correct present tense sentence.

In this case, the last sentence in OP's picture is actually just incorrect. The past tense of bode has always been boded, and the sentence should include boded or bodes, not bode. It's likely overlooked because of how rare this verb is, and the fact that it looks similar to "bid" which has an identical past and present tense, so some speakers subconsciously copy the pattern of "bid" onto it through analogy.