Re: Case

Sally Caves wrote:
> No reason except custom, which shudders at the thought!  Me am going to
> the
> store?
Well, why not get rid of the "to be"?  "Me going to the store".  :-)

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, English could get by with no cases,
and only three verb forms, the stem, the past (-ed), and the progressive
(-ing) - with the adoption of "did" you could get rid of -ed.  My
proposal for Simplified English ;-)
Past tense: use did
Progressive: be + verb-ing (me am seeing)
Passive: be + verb (me am see)
and so on, with possessives indicated by mere juxtaposition (John house)
- which would actually DECREASE ambiguity by removing the phonological
ambiguity between "the boy's coats" and "the boys' coats" - hey, maybe
the apostrophe could be an orthographic indication of possession - John'
house?

That's the way we should speak!  ;-)

But seriously, several of these ideas have been incorporated into my
various attempts to describe a futuristic "con-English".

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