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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (15)	12/21/1997 3:26:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4710

jbe: I can't resist making a few more comments. Perhaps in a revision to your opening description of the thread, at some future date, you can present the idea that we really have two languages, a written or formal one, and a spoken version, and that we must be well versed in each. Also, even those of us who are "purists" must accept that our language is changing, and that what is proper today may not have been correct when I was in high school. Even Fowler's has broken down and accepted some things it did not approve of before. (I don't have the new Fowler's but read a review of the new one.) For example, in a conversation, not many of us, if asked, "Was that you I saw yesterday?" would answer, "Yes, that was I." We use, in effect, the equivalent of the French disjunctive "moi" when we say, "That was me." Certainly no Frenchman would say, "C'est je." We have to accept that the Latin and Greek rules of inflection cannot be inflexibly applied to our spoken language, and that some of these "rules" were made up by classical grammarians and were never used in the spoken language of educated people. We must also consider the sensibilities of those whom we seek to correct, realizing that we will all make errors from time to time. For example, there is an anti-idle page visi.com which is very useful if you do long downloads and get cut off by your provider for "inactivity". But if you read the page, you find it filled with nightmarish grammatical and spelling errors. I have wanted to e-mail him with a correction, but I am afraid he would be hurt or angry. He seems like a nice person, and I don't want to produce either of these effects. Any ideas or comments from others on the thread? Jack