>>>>So many years since I ever heard that album I can't remember much about it other than the hillarious newspaper cover :-)
>>>>
>>>>BTY, talking of scots accents, do you recall "Several species of small fury animals, gatherd together in a cave and grooving with a pict" on "Umagumma" by Pink Floyd? I can't find anyone who actually knows of the album's existence, never mind the tracts!
>>>
>>>I have that one somewhere... didn't pull it up for quite a while. May really need to reorganize my shelves.
>>
>>Smacky wrist for speaking American: "haven't pulled it up for ..."
>>
>>What you're saying in English is "During quite some time I continued to fail to pull it up" :-)
>
>Which is actually (or accidentally) the correct meaning :).

No, it suggests you tried but failed several times, or went to pull it out but decided against it. As in "I went to the tobacconist's every day for a week, but didn't buy any cigarettes" cf "I haven't bought any cigarettes for a week".

Trust me.

BTW I've been reading a book about Latin recently, "Amo, ams, amat and all that" and came across a subject of ours from a few weeks ago: those English verbs that, when "ing" is added to, become like a noun, e.g. "Hear" - "Hearing". They're the neares we have in Eng. to the Latin gerund - that's the expression I was ytrying to get out. :-)