More on "what's" (was: Re: excrescent 's)

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Jun 9 22:44:06 UTC 2012


On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> For me "How'd you/he/she do it?" is much easier to get than "How's s/he do it?"

For me, there's just no difference, WRT ease of interpretation. OTOH,
I labored for dekkids under the mispreapprehension that _done_, as in,
"I'm done with this," as opposed to  _through_, as in "I'm through
with this," was totally non-standard or, at least, totally
non-literary.

Youneverknow.

BTW, the chapter-heading,

"We're _through_ being cool"

is quoted on p.418 of Language 88:2, June 2012. It's a prime example
of the "proper":-) wording.

--
-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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list