[Magdalen] To Lay and To Lie.

[Christopher Hart]

I’m sorry, but I refuse to give up on the distinction between who and whom.
I also bemoan the other justified complaints in this thread. One of my pet
peeves lately is people who don’t know that discreet and discrete are two
entirely different words that merely sound alike. This, of course, is
mainly a problem in written English.

On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 5:04 PM cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
> The people I interact with each day seem totally unable to handlethe "to
> lay" and "to lie" differentiation.  The same is true with written
> materialthat I read regularly.  I realize there is overlapping of these
> verb forms.I suppose that there is little hope this situation will change
> because 90%
> of English speakers in this area confuse the verbs and the majority of
> thepopulation never hears them used in the traditional grammatical way.
> I suppose, since users/confusers of these verbs seem to communicatequite
> well despite the grammar "problem," we will find that this mattergoes down
> the path of the "who/whom" confusion, where grammarians havegiven up
> completely.
> And another verb irregularity:
> In this region, there is a situation in which a majority of the population
> rarelyemploys the third person singular of the verb, "to do."
> "Does/doesn't" isalmost absent. Does turns up in such as "He does play the
> piano,"  But the
> in negative usage, it reverts back to "He don't play the piano."
> I guess I should chalk it up to the evolving English language.
>
> David Strang.
>
-- 

Christopher Hart

List Mail Address: cervus51 at gmail.com
Personal Mail: cervus at veritasliberat.net
Twitter: @cervus51