Re: Rs

Jake X wrote:

>[tSr\Ist@n r\oUt]
>
>
>>See, the thing is, in my dialect, 'father' and 'farther' are homophones.
>>'Further' and 'farther' are sort-of synonyms (they are both comparitives
>>of 'far'). So we basically decided to ditch 'farther' (not as a concious
>>effort, mind you). 'Further' and 'furthest' (and perhaps 'more further'
>>and 'most furth(er)est') are the only comparitives or superlatives of
>>'far', regardless of what you're talking about.
>>
>>
>It's natural for people who have a distinction in pronunciation
>to have a distinction in usage.  As it is, most people don't really know
>what the difference between the words is.
>
It wouldn't surprise me if it were one of those made up distinctions
that prescriptivists decided to add to it.

>>(In your dialect, it's probably perfectly fine to say something like 'I
>>wrote him', but to us, that means you wrote down the lettters H, I and M
>>in that order, unless you can't spell.)
>>
>>
>Would you say "I wrote to him"?  What do you do when you have both an
>accusative and a dative complement?  Do you say, "I wrote to him a letter"?
>That doesn't sound right to me in English.
>
>
No. You're right that 'I wrote to him' is correct. But when you have
both, you say either 'I wrote a letter to him' (cf. 'I threw a bag to
him') or 'I wrote him a letter') (cf. 'I threw him a bag'). Basically,
'write' behaves perfectly normally: if the dative preceeds the
accusative, it drops its preposition; otherwise, it keeps it.

>>>"I'm breathing heavily.  I can't run any further."
>>>
>>>
>>'I'm breathing heavily. I can't run any more.' (But if I were to use
>>either of further and farther, it would definately be 'further'.)
>>
>>
>Yeah, I would say it your way probably too.  But I was looking for
>an example, and further worked in that case.
>
Fair enough :) I guess you could have a subtle distinction with it: 'I
can't run any further'=I'm exhausted, but 'I can't run any
farther'=there's a cliff in front of me.

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

There's no such thing as an infinite loop. Eventually, the computer will break.
-- John D. Sullivan