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Re: USAGE: subway

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 9, 2003, 10:56
BP Jonsson scripsit:

> >Two hundred years ago we all shared a common language. > > More like 300 years or even 50-100 years more.
Perhaps. Did lootenants and leftenants face one another across the lines at Yorktown? We'll never know. The earliest (Scottish) writer on Americanisms, one John Witherspoon (fl. 1781), whines about our neologisms, not our accent: that came later.
> >have preserved the pure well of English undefiled > > Not so. It was Irreparably Defiled already in back in the > 15th century or so, when ye mucked up your speeche beyond > measure, aka The Gross Vowel Sh*t.
I will admit that Middle English is a coole speeche, but, it's, well, *old*.
> I'm neither a Tory nor a relative of his, nevertheless brace > yourself for the Quotation:
"Now Mr. Lee could not but be very obnoxious [i.e. repulsive, not rude] to Dr. Johnson, for he was not only a Whig but an *American*." --Boswell -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --_The Hobbit_