Re: USAGE: subway

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_