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From:
Subject: Re: [CHS] spelling!
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:24:19 -0400
References: <200507191858.j6JIwqf19258@proteus.obantec.net> <006801c58ca7$44af1880$974d4354@OWNERRCT1IQJLW>
In-Reply-To: <006801c58ca7$44af1880$974d4354@OWNERRCT1IQJLW>


I'm an American, but I don't speak English. I speak Texan. Nothing
like it in the world.

Allen Peterson
Katy, Texas USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Sue Wallworth <>
To:
Sent: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 22:17:28 +0100
Subject: Re: [CHS] spelling!

Didn't we the English invent the language it Bob,? 
what the Americans did with it was their affair. 
 
Sue 
 
----- Original Message ----- From: "Rodney Hall" <> 
To: <> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 7:58 PM 
Subject: RE: [CHS] spelling! 
 
> Perhaps we should stop saying "British English" and "American
English" and 
> say "English" and "American English". 
> Where did the language originate? Apart from the roots in Latin and >
French, 
> the language IS English, after all, and the others are variants. 
> 
> -- 
> Rodney HALL 
> Heywood, Lancashire 
> 
> Suaviter sed fortiter 
> Agreeably but powerfully 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
>  
> http://rmhh.co.uk/ 
> http://rmhh.org.uk/ 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
>> -----Original Message----- 
>> From: Graham Pointon [mailto:] 
>> Sent: 19 July 2005 12:24 
>> To: J Olsen 
>> Subject: RE: [CHS] spelling! 
>> 
>> 
>> Judy - 
>> 
>> I take it that you, like me, are a linguist. I have to take 
>> issue with you about "correct" spelling: the social conditions of
the 
>> present day demand that for someone to be considered literate 
>> and well educated, he or she must spell in the conventional way. 
>> Unconventional spelling is stigmatized. That is the 
>> justification for plugging away at it. 
>> 
>> I also take issue with your example sentences. The Oxford 
>> Advanced Learner's Dictionary, latest edition (the seventh), 
>> distinguishes 
>> between "a number of ..." and "the number of ..." When the 
>> article is the indefinite one, the verb should be plural, but when
the 
>> article is definite, the verb is singular. The same point is 
>> made in my book "Word for Word", published by OUP in 2003 (page
143), 
>> and presumably in other teaching manuals. Your example 
>> sentence is therefore grammatically incorrect, and examiners 
>> or others who 
>> treat it as such would be right in doing so. The OALD also 
>> points out that "staff" in the sense in which you are using it in
the 
>> other example sentence takes a plural verb in British 
>> English, and a singular one in American English. In British 
>> English, the 
>> safest rule with collective nouns is simply to say that 
>> either singular or plural is acceptable, BUT that once the 
>> number has been 
>> chosen, it should be maintained for the rest of the statement 
>> (i.e. to say "the Government are ..." is alright - or all right -
but 
>> to follow in the next clause or sentence with "it ..." would 
>> be inadvisable). Perhaps at some date in the future the dictionaries 
>> will record otherwise, but in teaching foreigners, and in 
>> advising native speakers, some rules must be formulated, and for the 
>> present this is the position. 
>> 
>> Graham 
> 
> 
> 
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