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

To: Anaxagoras who wrote (2506)	5/21/1999 4:56:00 PM
From: jbe	Respond to of 4711

Anaxagoras, you are on to something there, I think. What you say reminds me somewhat of Pinker's discussion of "variables", in his defense of the "singular their". (I don't care for the usage myself -- but fair is fair.) See: <https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=9619595> Just to clarify. When I speak of the occasional interchangeability of "both" and "each", I have in mind sentences like the following: I have willed my house to both my children. I have willed a share in my house to each of my two children. The meaning of the two sentences is the same, although the simplicity of the first is preferable. Or: I spanked both of them. I spanked each of them. Does anyone seriously think that the first sentence somehow implies that I spanked them at one and the same time, with the same hairbrush?? The meaning of both sentences is essentially the same, although each has its own nuance. (Notice the use of "both" and "each" in that sentence, where they are not interchangeable!) Perhaps the problem comes with confusing the word/concept "both" with the word/concept "pair". My Dictionary of English Synonyms led me to this conjecture. "Both" is a Scandinavian word (bo=two, th=the); "pair" comes from the Latin "par" (equal). "Both", in short, means "the two" (both boys=the two boys) whereas "pair" implies two equal objects that belong together, or that when combined form a complete whole ("a pair of gloves"). Anyhow... My husband, an English professor who was sometimes forced to teach Freshman Composition, used to love to shock his students by telling them "English has no grammar." That was, of course, exaggeration for the sake of effect. But to a certain exent his statement is nonetheless true: English has syntax, which is very important, but very little "grammar" as that word is usually understood. That has made people so uneasy, over the centuries, that it has impelled the more pedantic among them to invent grammatical rules that have never had any basis in colloquial speech. jbe