Belated reply re: "the" wife

[Dennis R. Preston]

My apologies mate. Thought you were reporting your own usage, not them
around you. No offense I hope.

dInIs

>On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>
>}Yeah but the guy who said he couldn;t say it revealed his Britishness. No
>}US respondent has yet denied it.
>
>If that's me, I'm not quite sure how to take it.  As I said in an earlier
>message, I'm from L.A...... I'm just trying to observe what is said in
>Britain, since that was kinda, sorta part of an earlier query.
>
>========================================================================
>Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
>aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
>http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics
>
>"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
>        --Death

Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736