LL-L "Grammar" 2004.09.30 (03) [E]

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Grammar

Bill wrote:

> <and> in place of <to> may just be one of those attempts to add an
emphasis to what might otherwise be ignored.  I hear it all the time from
people who should know better but who, seemingly, do not care to be bound to
some set of grammatical rules. <

As I've understood the discussion up to now there's been no suggestion that
"and" is ungrammatical, and I can't see what emphasis has to do with it. BTW
we haven't yet mentioned a "low" form of the construction - "he went and did
it", ie "he did it", with no sense that motion was involved. Is this just a
London idiom? The sense is often that whatever was done was done against the
better judgement of the speaker. "I told him not mix his drinks but he went
and did it."

I wrote: > "I should of gone" is unacceptable.< and Sandy replied:
>It seems to me significant that you don't explain why it's unacceptable. Of
course, the logical argument against it is obvious but as you so succintly
and usefully put it, "Language doesn't have to make sense as long as it
conveys sense". I think it is really only a matter of degree.<

What I was trying to indicate by the progression I set out was that we all
have our limits. It can't be denied, as well, that at some point too great a
deviation from the norms of a speech community makes communication
impossible, and before that very difficult, so we are bound to resist some
things as errors even if in the longer term they become generally accepted.

I wanted to sign off with the slogan "Delenda est Bryson" but I didn't know
how to decline him. BTW Criostoir raised the objection that BB gets his
information by skimming encyclopaedias. I don't object to that. Presenting
technical subjects in an interesting and accessible way to non-experts is a
very valuable activity. It's also very difficult. My objection to Bryson
(and his editors and publishers) is that in  _Mother Tongue_ the job was
done so badly. (But I have learned a great deal over the years by reading
bad books. I wouldn't have researched Alcuin of York and the Carolingian
court if BB's account hadn't been so incomprehensible.) If I promise to cite
Bryson less often (but there is that thing he wrote about compoundnouns ...)
can I have a go at Melvyn Bragg (_The Adventure of English_) instead?

John Feather CS johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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