Avatar

Useless argument. WARNING: basic semantic theory inside (Recruitment)

by Funkmon @, Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 15:23 (2574 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Once again you mischaracterize me and I do wish you would stop it. Plenty of native English speakers speak terrible English--myself included sometimes. At the same time being a native speaker can give you intuition regarding nuances of usage that a non-native speaker would have to learn. (I don't quite agree with Funkmon's assertion that this sort of thing can't be learned.) I characterized Raichu's non-conventional word choices as characteristic of non-native English speakers. That is all.


Did you know the hit TV show on NBC "This is Us" is actually incorrect? Grammatically it should be "This is We". But which sounds better? Language is flexible. Be adaptable. Or else we'd be stuck with "to go boldly where no one has gone before".

Inside means whatever you want it to mean as long as that meaning is clear to the listener.

WUT

It flat out isn't this is we. We is the nominative, us is the accusative and dative.


S V O
This is us

Subject verb object.

Some may be under the misapprehension that is is an auxiliary verb thereby meaning it doesn't have the power of the predicate and needs another one, like "Steve is dancing," where dancing is the verb and is is the auxiliary.

English is very clear on this.


Some style guides, which often have huge amounts of made up modern rules (like Strunk and White having rules that are simply pet peeves of Strunk, with zero agreement at the time from other sources), suggest something like "It was I." It's a flat out misuse of English pronouns, and we know this, because we have to be taught it. At this point, things like "It was I," are accepted among some and exist idiomatically, but are not productive in speech.

But you're right, English does change, and you just gave great examples of language change that has been thrust upon English from its speakers, like rules to not split infinitives, not organic change itself.

Few native English speakers speak bad English.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread