Re: Rs

[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.
> (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.
> >"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.

Jake

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