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

To: Rambi who wrote (687)	1/10/1998 1:50:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke	Respond to of 4711

Penni, I hadn't thought of the major difference between "few" and "a few". Quite profound thinking on the part of your 14 year old. It is indeed wonderful to see them develop. Nothing enriches our lives so much as our children. Jack

To: Rambi who wrote (687)	1/12/1998 1:43:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Respond to of 4711

When I was adolescent I grappled with similar niceties. I've come to the conclusion that this is what divides the lingually just competent from the real masters: an understanding of the colloquial conventions which give our rather linear tongue depth. These two phrases, different by an indefinite article, are an admonition and an assurance in turn. It takes experience to know and distinguish these. Literacy is, if nothing else, the product of having paid attention while gaining exposure to a large sample of style and syntax. When I was a kid, my momma asked me if I liked a certain classmate. My reply, intended as a capsular reassurance of a balanced perspective, was "Yes, but not too much". After all, liking someone too much can be unhealthy, no? Naturally, this is not the way the remark was taken. I spent the day trying to understand the scolding I called upon my head. I guess the whole incident would have been less trouble if I hadn't said this in front of the schoolmate's mother.