What are you going to do?:-(

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jun 23 19:20:07 UTC 2011


iTunes:

"This computer is not authorized to play this [whatever]."


All right. So, I take the appropriate steps.


iTunes:

"This computer was authorized to play [whatever]."


Say what, iTunes?!!! It "*was*" authorized?!!! If it *already* had
authorization, then whyTF did you say that it *didn't* have
authorization and make me authorize it all over again, for no reason,
thereby wasting my time?!!! Of which I have precious little left, BTW.

Oh, I see. The system of tense in the English verb that I learned as a
native-speaker back in the late '30's and earlier '40's ceased to be
used. Hence, the string,

"This computer _is_  / _has been_ authorized ..."

now no longer comprehensible to contemporary native-speakers, became
ungrammatical and obsolete.

--
-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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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