Re: On prescriptions and misunderstanding: was can/may

On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 06:11:03PM -0500, J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:06:23 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> >I would argue,
> >in fact, that the English of educated discourse is actually a second
> >language (to those of us whose first language is English itself),
> I strongly believe it's different varieties of one and the same language.
You're inferring a distinction I did not mean to make.  Native English
and formal English ("mother" and "father" tongue; thanks, John!) are
obviously mutually intelligible (mostly), and calling them different
dialects of the same language is certainly more justifiable than calling
them different languages.  My point was simply that they are
different; that what we learn in school adds a manner of speech,
rather than replacing or even merely extending the natural
language we pick up before going to school.

-Marcos