Brian brought up a point that 'gonna' is taught to ESL students because of
current English usage - I would nearly die if I had to teach it this way,
too.
A kick in the gon(n)ads, eh <g>?
To me simply talking it doesn't mean it should become canon
Nope :) I *was* taught all such (gonna, wanna, shulda, ain't etc) but not until I studied English at the U-level and was getting ready to teach it; '68-'73. And, even then, we were told that those were *substandard* forms and not to be used in writing, unless one was trying to represent the speech of an uneducated and/or regional segment of population (Mark Twain was often quoted, as was Scott Fitzgerald)
A'coz, when I was *first* learning English ('57), we were still being taught the difference between "I shall" and "I will", although "I'll" (which, neatly, "takes care" of the distinction/problem <g>) was allowed in both informal speech and writing (as in: "a letter to a friend in England". As if we had any... <g>). I've forgotten *those* rules long since :)
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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