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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > Agree to , Agree, or Agree on?...
Agree to , Agree, or Agree on?...

douglas
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Agree to , Agree, or Agree on?...
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Hi all,
I have once again come across something that has made me unsure on something. In my experience, we US English speakers say that parties agreed to terms, agreed on terms or came to an agreement on terms.
I often see in news sources simply "agree terms". I sthis a BE vs AE thing?
example from BBC:
YouTube will remove music videos by artists such as Adele, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, because the independent labels to which they belong have refused to agree terms with the site.
and:
The three major labels - Universal, Sony and Warner - have all agreed terms with the site, but smaller independents are holding out.
What �s "right" here?
cheers,
Douglas |
17 Jun 2014
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manonski (f)
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I �ve never seen "agree terms" or "agreed terms" but I guess it is legal lingo and also, I never read the fine print. 
Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don �t. ~Pete Seeger
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17 Jun 2014
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ueslteacher
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I guess it �s like "agree a price" so totally legit.
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17 Jun 2014
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yanogator
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I agree, Douglas, that we don �t say it here. Bruce |
17 Jun 2014
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anaram
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I �m not a native speaker but you do find "agree terms" in the BNC (British National Corpus) and not in the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), so I guess it is BE vs AE.
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17 Jun 2014
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Jayho
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Hi Douglas
Agreed terms is ok, if agreed is being used as an adjective. This is common but I usually see it written or spoken as all have agreed terms rather than have all agreed terms. Also, they have agreed terms, look at the agreed terms etc
agree terms is incorrect. It could be changed to agreement terms (terms of agreement) or agree to terms.
You �d have to check with a BE speaker because down here at the bottom of the globe we use a mish mash of BE and US English.
Cheers
Jayho |
17 Jun 2014
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douglas
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Thanks all.
Still not really clear on when to correct what, but it �s good to know that this is a bit unclear overall. |
19 Jun 2014
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