Herb: Thank you! You are very nice to me. Eduard On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Herbert F.W. Stahlke wrote... >Thanks, Ed. We just need a little time to socialize this newcomer. > >Herb > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Edward = >Vavra >Sent: Tue 2/28/2006 4:43 PM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: "work for" plus adverb clause >=20 >Herb, > I admire your patience. >Ed > >>>> [log in to unmask] 2/28/2006 4:08:12 PM >>> > >Eduard, > >Let me try this again. =20 > >"Grammatical" has at least two widely accepted meanings. In >linguistics >it's concept used to distinguish between sentences a native speaker >would recognized as possible in the native language and those that he >or >she would not so recognize. By this common linguistic usage, your >first >sentence is clearly ungrammatical. You may not like this definition, >but it is one of some linguistic importance and considerable utility. > >The second sense refers to judgments people make as to what seems to >them to be appropriate usage in formal standard English. Having >taught >English for most of my life at this point, I have learned that these >judgments vary considerably, based on age, region, experience with >editing and correcting, and simply personal preference. And very >often >these judgments are made with little sensitivity to context. > >Here's an example that some educated speakers of English, including >colleagues and students in my English department, have told me is >ungrammatical because the use of "it" in it is redundant. > >Hillary simply hates it that she's not considered a liberal. > >Now, one may also say > >Hillary simply hates that she's not considered a liberal. > >The difference is that the extraposed structure (with "it"), a term >introduced, I believe, by Otto Jespersen to describe this sort of >construction, is used when the speaker/writer wishes to emphasize the >newness or contrastiveness of the that-clause. =20 > >I don't know how you would judge these two sentences, but clearly >there >are skilled editors and language teachers who would come down on >either >side, as I have found with my colleagues. > >There are contexts, perhaps, where the "for" of the example we've been >discussing would feel redundant, in which case I too would encourage a >student writer to remove it, but I would be delighted if my student >had >a sufficiently subtle sense of language to tell the difference and to >know when it WOULD be appropriate to use it. > >In short, I would not consider the presence or absence of "for" in >that >sentence to be a matter of grammaticality but rather a matter of >appropriateness to context. Redundancy is a bit too coarse a measure >for choices like this. > >Herb > > > >To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web = >interface at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html >and select "Join or leave the list" > >Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ > >To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html >and select "Join or leave the list" > >Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/