Indeed. English is a creole, a blended language. I blame the French.
Andrew Fildes
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On 06/01/2014, at 4:31 AM, philippe.amard wrote:
> That's the main difference between a dead language such a latin, where
> grammar can be normative and prescriptive as the corpus is finite,
> and English, still alive for all I know and where you can only
> describe what its users actually do with it and its trends.
>
> Closed system v. open system.
>
> Compare"as I said" and "like i said".
> Which one wins in the current stats? ;-)
>
> Amities
> Philippe
>
>
> Le 5 janv. 14 à 17:47, Jez Cunningham a écrit :
>
>> Couldn't agree more. Although I fear it's >30 years - I went to a
>> public
>> school (between '64 and '70) and only learnt grammar through Latin
>> lessons.
>> Jez
>>
>>
>> On 5 January 2014 16:40, Chris Barker <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> I’m sure, Jez, that that is the reason for the mistake, now
>>> widespread.
>>> It’s also probably rooted in the fear (of radio producers) that
>>> someone
>>> will start listening to such a report halfway through the sentence
>>> and draw
>>> that conclusion. But it’s still wrong, and if we had taught our
>>> language
>>> properly in schools over the last 30 years we would not be in this
>>> fix.
>>> And it is a fix: our teachers apparently cannot teach English
>>> grammar,
>>> partly because they know little themselves, partly because common
>>> usage has
>>> drifted from Standard English and now makes rules hard to learn,
>>> let alone
>>> teach.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On 5 Jan 2014, at 16:03, Jez Cunningham <jez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 'Trouble is, when you write "The Prime Minister reported that he
>>>> was
>>> keen
>>>> to preserve the State Pension." it's all too easy to infer that
>>>> now he is
>>>> no longer keen so to do.
>>>> Innit?
>>>
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>
> One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible
> to the eye. Antoine de Saint Exupéry in Le Petit Prince.
> NO ARCHIVE
>
>
>
>
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