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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: Janice Shell who wrote (425)1/4/1998 12:23:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke   of 4711
 
Janice, Tommaso,

The ethical (emotional or expressive)dative, or as Fowler prefers, the ethic dative, is a nearly archaic dative used to bring in the speaker more or less parenthetically. I know that's confusing. Fowler's example: He that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast.... The word "me" amounts to "just fancy" or some other parenthetical expression, according to Fowler.

But I don't see why it isn't just plain dative, i.e., "for me". Like, "Buy me a beer."

So I guess in answer to Tommaso's question, no, I can't explain it.

Jack
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