"Bugs the hell out of me" is easily diagrammed "Reed-Kellog" showing hell as
the DO
and "out of me" as a prepositional phrase modifying hell.
If any readers attempted to diagram the sentence beginning "Due to," they
would quickly see that
"had to" is not the error that Trask was indicating.
I do find it inexcusable that participants in an elist for English grammar
would try to obfuscate
the issue by waving the ethno-racial flag in defense of incorrect grammar.
It has been long
accepted that foreigners can and often do excel in their speech and writing.
Note that one of the
most respected English grammarians was Jespersen and that GB Shaw wrote "Her
English is so
perfect, which clearly indicates that she is foreign. For foreign people
are instructed in the English
language while the English people are'n." I just returned from an
international congress in Barcelona.
The presentations in English by non-English participants were equal to or
surpassed those by English
speakers in most cases. Almost every participant was a professor in some
field or another--only
three, to my knowledge, held professorships in onomastics--the subject of
the congress.
Scott
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