Re: Digital Negatives & PT/PD / language & Grammar Police
On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Ender100@aol.com wrote: Actually Mark, that isn't true... there are MANY points I am happy to ignore, and I daresay I make a few "bads" myself. It's just that this particular usage strikes a nerve, because (a) it's so awful and (b) it's already so common that even one so literate as yourself can fall into it in "a momentary lapse": That is, the correct form already "sounds" wrong.I would have replied sooner, but apparently not all the posts to the list are reaching me—perhaps this is due to the flood of "Karen Emails". Karen promised that she would be back at her desk by January 8, but here it is January 9 and they are still coming through. I stand corrected regarding my use of the English language. You are correct— I should have said "Dick & me" instead of "Dick & I"—it's not that I don't give a dick, I had a momentary lapse in grammar. Thanks for pointing this out to me. I think perhaps the list should award you the honorary title of Grammar Policeperson. Only constant vigilance can protect us now and maybe not even that. However, by making an issue, a *public hooha,* of the point, I provide an aide memoire; the matter may not quite so easily lapse from memory, for a while, at least. And now a free gift... (a redundancy of course, a gift being by definition free, but ANOTHER example of how bad usage becomes normalized). I will send a free copy of my non-Pulitzer prize winning book, postage paid, to the first person who explains why Sullivan's example from TS Eliot, Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table... is *not* ungrammatical. (If you've already got the book, too bad, I'll send it to your favorite other, or even your senator.) If there is no "winner" by Wednesday midnight, NY time , sorry guys -- I WILL EXPLAIN. Not at all, Mark. You have, rather, contributed to the sum total of human happiness, by way of the general enlightenment.I hope that my error has not caused any sustained state of shock. Judy ========================================================================= Read My T-Shirt for President: A True History of the Political Front _ and Back >www.frontandbackpress.com< ........................................................................ A reader writes: "I'd recommend it for a Pulitzer Prize, except I lack the credentials."
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