This morning, "Robert" added a comment to a Language Log post from April 30, "Books more loved than looked in". He began: Just found your website, after hearing one of you discuss it on BBC Radio 4. I'm very glad to have discovered it, because it looks like good fun. I tend to avoid split […]
Having commented in an idle moment on what and/or means and why we have it, I started to receive email from people solemnly informing me that they were native speakers but in their variety of English or had only the exclusive meaning, where the disjuncts can't both be true. In other words, these are people […]
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On the wall behind the table where I usually sit to blog, there's a framed print, shown in faded miniature on the right. The title below the picture is "Dr. Syntax Making a Discovery". But there's not a subjunctive or a preterite in sight. The couple in the foreground, though perhaps engaged in discovery, don't […]
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