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Thanks for the link. It sounded extremely weird to me. I didn't know corp were often plural nouns in British English.



For some more fun with American English, try http://fine.me.uk/Emonds/


Interesting link.

I'm not a linguist but parsing these sentences as an American reader, I feel a bit like this page's examples are playing games with word order and omission. The cited "prestige" grammar sounds less intuitive to me not because of the pronoun used, but because of word order and words that are left out.

Example cited as correct prestige grammar:

> They didn't give anyone that worked less than she a raise.

That sounds a little weird to my American ears, but "worked less than she did" sounds totally correct.

"Worked less than her" (cited as correct non-prestige) sounds a bit casual and informal, not sounding too jarring but not what I'd expect in decent writing. Similar to the other example of "us commuters". If I'm talking to someone I wouldn't blink if they said this, but I wouldn't see it in the New York Times. (Though this also reminds me of phrases like "me too" or "it's me", which despite being inconsistent with distinctions between subject and object in other phrases, you'd hear a lot more than "I as well" or "it is I".)

> Mary and him are late.

Sounds very wrong to me.

Thinking back to my childhood it was pretty common for kids to be a bit "confused" about using pronouns this way before 10 years old or so, so maybe there is something to the author's statement that kids learn the non-prestige form and then the educated ones are "corrected" later.

> Mary and he are late.

This still sounds weird. I'd say "he and Mary are late".

> her and us

> she and we

These sound pretty clumsy regardless of which is supposed to be used.


Your arrogance is astounding. This is why people hate Americans.

An English person, writing English in an English way, and you say you're not going to continue reading. Do you require him to write like an American? Why should an English person, writing their own language, have to follow your conventions?

"I didn't know"

Well then don't start shouting your mouth off! If you don't know, keep quiet.


I had a hard time reading that phrase, and I thought it was because he didn't spend enough time editing the article. I like to think I am a cultured person, but I truly didn't know it was grammatically correct in British English. Don't judge all Americans just because I am naive.


Your misunderstanding and dramatic response is astounding. It's ignorance, not arrogance. Say what you want about his reaction to the perceived poor grammar but it's nothing more than that.


If he didn't understand why it was written like that, how about trying to find out why, before posting a snarky message?


For the same reason you didn't bother to figure out whether it was ignorance or malice on his part before jumping to your own convenient conclusion, I would imagine.


Again sorry I offended you. I wont make this mistake in the future.


Wow you sound extremely angry. There must be a deeper issue at play here because this is way out of proportion to the comment you are responding to.




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