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