Rules against most?

[Wilson Gray]

Well, just between you and I, Barbara, I'm almost certain that yours
is the right analysis.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 12:05 AM, Barbara Need <bhneed at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Barbara Need <bhneed at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Rules against most?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am teaching developmental writing these days and one of my students
> threw me this evening. We working on organizing ideas and I was
> putting together a paragraph from what we have and I wrote a sentence
> that began something like the following: Next, most students use the
> internet for communication. When I was just about done with the
> paragraph, one of my students (40-ish black male, if that should be
> relevant--Chicagoland) said he thought I should delete "most" and he
> expressed surprise that a writing instructor should use this
> construction. I asked him to say why he found the surprising, but he
> could not articulate it beyond he didn't expect an writing instructor
> to use. Any guesses as to what rule I violated?
>
> It did occur to me as I was driving home that he may have been told
> not to use most when it is short for almost, but I'm not sure.
>
> Barbara
>
> Barbara Need
> Chicago
>
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