MSGID: 2:221/6.0 5c8e3076   
   REPLY: 1:153/716.0 c8d68c62   
   PID: JamNNTPd/Cygwin32 1.3 20190208   
   CHRS: CP866 2   
   TZUTC: 0200   
   TID: hpt/w32-mvc 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   Hi, Ardith Hinton!   
   I read your message from 16.03.2019 17:52   
      
    AK>> It is difficult to fight with people when they have a bad habit. I   
    AK>> remember a thing from Pygmalion, by Bernard Shaw:   
      
    AK>>  -----Beginning of the citation-----   
    AK>> HIGGINS.  How the devil do I know what's to become  of  you?  What   
    AK>> does it matter what becomes of you?   
    AK>> LIZA. You don't care. I know you don't care.  You wouldn't care if   
    AK>> I was dead. I'm nothing to you -- not so much as them slippers.   
    AK>> HIGGINS [thundering] THOSE slippers.   
    AK>>  ----- The end of the citation -----   
      
    AK>> I  still  cannot  see  the  logic  why  she  used  _them_  instead   
    AK>> of _those_. It is not a kind of error a Russian could make.   
      
    AH> No... it's the sort of error a lower-class native speaker who'd had   
    AH> little or no formal education  would  have  made  at  the  time  of   
    AH> writing.  Higgins conducted an experiment to  find  out  whether  a   
    AH> young adult who was motivated to learn  would  be  able  to  change   
    AH> habitual speech patterns.  Both he  &  his  student  seem  to  have   
    AH> reverted to old habits when they were emotionally upset.... :-))   
      
   Well, _them_ is well known pronoun, who can we mix it up with _those_?. Can I,   
   for instance, say, "I gave _them_ _them_ books"? Not of course. It is not a   
   matter of education, IMHO. ;)   
      
    AH> Those who are not native speakers of English tend to make different   
    AH> errors.  People from Russia have difficulty with articles,  for the   
    AH> same reason people from China have  difficulty  with  plurals:  the   
    AH> rules are a bit different in their  language.  I  see  no  need  to   
    AH> pluralize "broccoli", e.g.,  because it is plural already...  yet I   
    AH> would say "a bunch of grapes".  When I visit the local greengrocery   
    AH> I understand that from a Chinese POV it might be  more  appropriate   
    AH> to say "one potato, two potato, three potato" (i.e. a counting game   
    AH> used in my childhood).  From my  POV  as  an  advanced  student  of   
    AH> English  it's  easier  to   sort   out   many   of   the   apparent   
    AH> inconsistencies with a dictionary which explains what language  xxx   
    AH> came from & how it was spelled in this language at the time.   
      
   But Eliza got her English with her mother's milk. We can admit that she had an   
   ignoble pronunciation, but mixing _them_ and _those_ is too much, IMHO.   
      
    AH>>>> Its use in formal English has become more common with the  trend   
    AH>>>> toward gender-neutral language,   
      
    AH>> It has become more common in recent years,  but  not  because  the   
    AH>> mood at the time of its resurgence  took  into  account  that  our   
    AH>> ancestors knew things we might well pay attention  to.  Quite  the   
    AH>> contrary...  Jerry Rubin,  e.g.,  made headlines when  he  advised   
    AH>> other folks not to trust anybody over 30. I suppose they must have   
    AH>> followed his advice because he doesn't make headlines now.   
      
    AK>> I imagine what does a foreign student  think  when  he  hears  the   
    AK>> sentence like the first sentence in last paragraph.  After reading   
    AK>> it ten times I think I understood what you meant. ;=)   
      
    AH> Good point.  Alexander has been with us for over a decade, he reads   
    AH> widely,  and I know that if he doesn't understand what I'm babbling   
    AH> about he'll say so...  but I don't mean to leave him & other  folks   
    AH> behind in the dust.   
      
   Well, in reality, I like when you write something complicated and   
   nativenglishly. ;=) But when a person has nothing to say to the point he   
   usually starts carping at other person. ;)   
      
   Bye, Ardith!   
   Alexander Koryagin   
   english_tutor 2019   
      
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