Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell

When I said speak was intransitive I was of course forgetting that it
can take an object... a language. However, apart from that it is usually
intransitive, and you can't mention what was said easily. Tell is also
not always bitransitive, since what was said can be omitted, but who it
was said to can't. So the difference between say and tell is actually
one of focus really: say focuses on what was said, whereas tell focuses
on who it was said to, and both can optionally have a third argument.
But anyway... there's definately no reason not to merge all three.
 I would point out though that in many languages you "know" a language
rather then "speak it".... "I know Spanish" is good English, although
I'm not sure if "conozco ingles" sounds strange in Spanish. In Basque
its "badakit ingelesez" (literally "I know (it) in/by English"). I'm
sure there are many other languages where you simply don't say "I speak
language X" but rather "I know language X".