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From | To | Subject | Date/Time | |||
Alexander Koryagin | Ardith Hinton | They knows? |
March 17, 2019 1:33 PM * |
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Hi, Ardith Hinton! I read your message from 16.03.2019 17:52 AK>> It is difficult to fight with people when they have a bad habit. I AK>> remember a thing from Pygmalion, by Bernard Shaw: AK>> -----Beginning of the citation----- AK>> HIGGINS. How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What AK>> does it matter what becomes of you? AK>> LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't care if AK>> I was dead. I'm nothing to you -- not so much as them slippers. AK>> HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers. AK>> ----- The end of the citation ----- AK>> I still cannot see the logic why she used _them_ instead AK>> of _those_. It is not a kind of error a Russian could make. AH> No... it's the sort of error a lower-class native speaker who'd had AH> little or no formal education would have made at the time of AH> writing. Higgins conducted an experiment to find out whether a AH> young adult who was motivated to learn would be able to change AH> habitual speech patterns. Both he & his student seem to have AH> reverted to old habits when they were emotionally upset.... :-)) Well, _them_ is well known pronoun, who can we mix it up with _those_?. Can I, for instance, say, "I gave _them_ _them_ books"? Not of course. It is not a matter of education, IMHO. AH> Those who are not native speakers of English tend to make different AH> errors. People from Russia have difficulty with articles, for the AH> same reason people from China have difficulty with plurals: the AH> rules are a bit different in their language. I see no need to AH> pluralize "broccoli", e.g., because it is plural already... yet I AH> would say "a bunch of grapes". When I visit the local greengrocery AH> I understand that from a Chinese POV it might be more appropriate AH> to say "one potato, two potato, three potato" (i.e. a counting game AH> used in my childhood). From my POV as an advanced student of AH> English it's easier to sort out many of the apparent AH> inconsistencies with a dictionary which explains what language xxx AH> came from & how it was spelled in this language at the time. But Eliza got her English with her mother's milk. We can admit that she had an ignoble pronunciation, but mixing _them_ and _those_ is too much, IMHO. AH>>>> Its use in formal English has become more common with the trend AH>>>> toward gender-neutral language, AH>> It has become more common in recent years, but not because the AH>> mood at the time of its resurgence took into account that our AH>> ancestors knew things we might well pay attention to. Quite the AH>> contrary... Jerry Rubin, e.g., made headlines when he advised AH>> other folks not to trust anybody over 30. I suppose they must have AH>> followed his advice because he doesn't make headlines now. AK>> I imagine what does a foreign student think when he hears the AK>> sentence like the first sentence in last paragraph. After reading AK>> it ten times I think I understood what you meant. ;=) AH> Good point. Alexander has been with us for over a decade, he reads AH> widely, and I know that if he doesn't understand what I'm babbling AH> about he'll say so... but I don't mean to leave him & other folks AH> behind in the dust. Well, in reality, I like when you write something complicated and nativenglishly. ;=) But when a person has nothing to say to the point he usually starts carping at other person. Bye, Ardith! Alexander Koryagin english_tutor 2019 --- * Origin: nntps://fidonews.mine.nu - Lake Ylo - Finland (2:221/6.0) |
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