PSAT Glitch

[Dennis R. Preston]

I'm afraid I'm on arnold's side here (though I will refrain from
referring to arnold pronominally since I first mentioned arnold with
a possessive). Why does mention by one silly high school teacher make
this "stand to reason" that other high school teachers might be
equally silly? Since there is nothing to enforce (except what this
one person made up), how could "some others" be enforcing it?

dInIs



>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Arnold Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>>
>>  david colburn:
>>   >some of the kids taking the test might have been taught this (silly,
>>   >in my opinion) grammatical rule
>>
>>  of course, the kids weren't taught such a "rule"; it's a figment of
>>  someone's imagination.  you might as well declare that sentences
>>  with an odd number of words are ungrammatical, because even numbers
>>  are "better" than odd ones.
>>
>>  it's a bit dismaying to see so many people on this list - and i stress
>>  *on this list* - taking the existence of this "rule" for granted.
>>
>I don't follow you here. Why is it so obvious that no high school students
>were taught such a rule? I made clear in my message that I think the rule is
>nonsense, but that doesn't mean innocent students aren't being told to
>follow it.  We know that at least one high school teacher (Mr. Keegan) was
>punishing students who broke this "rule," so it stands to reason that some
>other teachers around the country are probably enforcing it as well. Just
>because *we* know the rule is silly doesn't mean students aren't being
>taught to follow it.
>
>-David Colburn

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290