08 Jul 12 00:46, Ardith Hinton wrote to Roy Witt:   
      
    AH> Hi, Roy!  Recently you wrote in a message to mark lewis:   
      
    ml>>  and mine is short enough to make a tagline from ;)   
      
    RW>>  and? from?   
      
    AH>             Good questions, IMHO.  Read on....  :-)   
      
    RW>>  There's also an English grammar rule about using an idiom   
    RW>>  at the beginning of a sentence and/or a preposition at the   
    RW>>  end of a sentence.   
      
    AH>             When you & I went to school it was frowned upon to begin   
    AH> a sentence with a co-ordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but"   
    AH> although the writers of magazine ads did.   
      
   It was noted in my 9th grade English class that newspapers were the   
   foremost offender of conjunction syndrome in their reporting.   
      
    AH> It was frowned upon to say "It's me" although other kids our own age   
    AH> did.  It was frowned upon to say "Where are you from?" although you   
    AH> may have recognized it as a pickup line at the local tavern shortly   
    AH> thereafter.   
      
   I remember those days.   
      
    AH>             No doubt many students wondered what planet their   
    AH> teachers were on. Chances are these students knew how to speak   
    AH> colloquial English before entering school, however, and it was the   
    AH> teacher's duty to drag them kicking & screaming to the next level by   
    AH> modelling formal usage.  That was the situation in Canada, at any   
    AH> rate... as seen from the other side of the desk later.  ;-)   
      
   That was also the case in the states, although it has gone the way of the   
   dodo bird in more recent times. I also got the reprimand from my father   
   when I began to use what he termed as "Chicagoisms" such as dis, dat and   
   many other words.   
      
    AH>              In Fidonet, people tend to use informal language because   
    AH> we're all in effect members of the same club.  That's what I'm doing   
    AH> when I say "Hi, Roy" rather than "Hello, Mr. Witt".  That's what I'm   
    AH> doing when I use metaphors such as the one in the first sentence of   
    AH> the previous paragraph... remembering how I enjoyed learning about   
    AH> the equivalent (for example) of "put that in your pipe & smoke it" in   
    AH> French, I understand why some of our readers from the ex-USSR have   
    AH> made a point of encouraging native speakers of English to use them   
    AH> freely.  The "rules" WRT formal & informal usage are a bit different   
    AH> at times.  I think your query about the use of "from" here involves   
    AH> more than just word order, however. As I was about to post this reply   
    AH> I noticed you'd found another example... I'll continue the discussion   
    AH> later with more detail about "from" in particular.   
    AH> :-)   
      
   Cool. I'm always up for another session of English 101. (I hope the   
   Russians know what 'cool' means in American colloquial English)   
      
                   R\%/itt   
      
   ... besides, IMNSHO, Ward Dossche should resign as ZC2 and surrender his   
   ... net node-number to the ZCC !            - Cato the Elder -   
      
   ... Reminder:   
      
   ... On Friday September 8th 2006, Mike Godwin's 16 year experiment was   
   ... concluded and Godwin's Law was officially repealed by a popular vote   
   ... among millions of individuals.   
      
   ... http://repealgodwin.tripod.com/   
      
      
   --- Twit(t) Filter v2.1 (C) 2000-10   
    * Origin: Roiz Flying \A/ Service * South Texas * USA * (1:387/22)