MSGID: 1:153/716.0 ed023492   
   REPLY: 2:221/6.0 5ecb90e0   
   CHRS: IBMPC 2   
   Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  I could add a story about some things a friend gave us   
   AH>  after his mother's death, but apparently you don't need   
   AH>  it....  :-)   
      
   AS>  I should fear to hear it -- what if the inheritance   
   AS>  turns out to have another magickal item?   
      
      
              Nah.  Just a few ordinary household items made of xxx, yyy, and zzz   
   ... none with magic(k)al powers, but all of which we are still using.  :-)   
      
      
      
   AS>  It reminds me of a dialog line from a British horror story,   
      
   AH>  Note to Alexander:  dialog(ue) reflects the way the characters   
   AH>  in a story would speak & can't necessarily be taken as a guide   
   AH>  to proper usage.   
      
   AS>  Yes, and that woman is a British schoolteacher.   
      
      
              Okay.  I imagine she'd know the rules of formal grammar....  :-))   
      
      
      
   AH>  If this woman thinks it's imperative that "forgot" agree with   
   AH>  "was" she may be adhering to a "rule" which native speakers   
   AH>  break routinely   
      
   AS>  Whithersoever I look, I see adherence, quite sticky adherence,   
   AS>  nigh sufficient to catch flies:   
      
                              [...]   
      
   AS>  and so on. Where do they break the rule?   
      
      
              I can't say they do & I see a reasonably broad selection of authors   
   there.  I've caught myself speaking the same way over the last few evenings...   
   when Dallas didn't catch me first.  In such circumstances we both find it more   
   aesthetically pleasing if the verb tenses agree than if they don't.  But a lot   
   of native speakers find it puzzling when one can't be sure e.g. what became of   
   item xxx or who's still vegetarian in the absence of further data, and while I   
   must have been taught that way I'm not sure there's a rule about it.   
      
              We've often had people say to us, in casual conversation, "I didn't   
   know you're a teacher."  I doubt they are the only people who do this....  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
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