> On 10/03/2008 07:50 AM, Jim Allan wrote: >> Harold Fuchs wrote: >> >>> >>> You and your teacher are absolutely correct. The purpose of >>> language is *correctly* to transfer the thoughts of one to another. >>> That is precisely why grammar is important. The phrase "The >>> President said Monday ..." implies that the word "Monday" is >>> included in what the President said. Therefore it does not >>> *correctly* transfer the thought. >> >> The president said, "Monday ....". >> "The president," said Monday .... [Monday is here the name for a >> person.] The president said Monday .... >> The president said on Monday .... >> The president said on the economy .... >> The president said on the dais at the Lincoln Center ... >> The president spoke Monday .... [A very unambiguous utterance.] >> The president spoke on Monday .... [This could mean that the >> president spoke on the subject of Monday.] >> The president spoke on the economy .... >> >> Grammar alone often does not correctly transfer the thought to the >> point where a hearer *cannot* interpret the utterance very >> differently than intended. Yet the utterance may be fully understood >> without difficulty >> by 99.9999% of those who hear the utterance. "President saided >> Monday ...." >> >>> The same is true of "Biden will debate Palin". No he won't. He'll >>> debate [the issues] *with* Palin. If he debated Palin he'd be >>> discussing her existence. Again, the thought is not correctly >>> transferred. To get the thought correctly transferred you need the >>> right grammar. >> >> Biden will debate with Palin. [I believe "Biden will debate against >> Palin" would be less likely to be misinterpreted.] >> >> And someone may quite easily debate the subject of Shakespeare or the >> subject of Palin without ever discussing whether they actually >> existed >> or not. >> >> See http://www.bartleby.com/61/19/D0061900.html . "Debate" is both a >> transitive and intransitive verb. That is one of the reason why >> apparently contradictory meanings may be extracted from grammatically >> correct utterances. >> >> "Again, the thought is not correctly transferred." >> >> You may believe that the thought *should* not be correctly >> transferred. But what if it *is* correctly transferred to anyone who >> knows who Biden and Palin are? Context *is* important. >> >> That is why modern grammarians generally eschew artificial examples. >> Instead they search through texts to find what grammar is being used >> and understood and why they tape dialogues between subjects to >> attempt to >> see what forms are being used and understood. >> >> Jim Allan > > [purposely not snipped] > > And that is why it is so difficult to write and implement a grammar > extension/plugin/add-on.
Well, if you tend to re-invent the wheel, yes, that would be correct. But if you simply "do as others do" then it's pretty well set out for you; it only needs implementation. I don't think I'd advise applying a grammar checker to the above <g>. Twayne --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
