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From: "Mark Barratt" <mark.barratt@enternet.hu>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Decline of the English language
Date: 28 Nov 2004 18:16:58 GMT
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Chris Croughton wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:22:28 -0600, Raymond S. Wise
> <mplsrayNOSPAM@gbronline.com> wrote:
>
> > (1) "I got the latest gadget," with the meaning "I have the
> > latest gadget" is grammatical in nonstandard dialects.
>
> As a past tense it is grammatically correct in standard
> dialects as well (meaning "I obtained..."). I don't like it
> and generally don't use it, because I find it aesthetically
> unpleasing, but that's a different matter and no one's problem
> but mine own.
>
> > (2) "I've got the latest gadget," which has the same meaning,
> > is grammatical in standard dialects. The negation of (1) is
> > "I don't got the latest gadget" or "I ain't got the latest
> > gadget" while the negation of (2)--again, a standard
> > usage--is "I haven't got the latest gadget."
>
> "I have the latest gadget" is, to my sensibilities, preferable,
> but again that is my aesthetic preference.
>
> (And like others, all of those statements are in my case
> untrue, I don't got no latest gadgets nohow -- to talk like
> what I were brung up talking <g>...)
Hi Chris.
I think you need to distinguish between different levels of
formality, and different contexts in English. We all adjust our
English to some extent depending on who we're talking to, and
written English (even in highly informal contexts such as text
messages and online chat rooms) tends to be structured
differently than spoken English. I don't for a moment believe
that you'd use "no one's problem but mine own" in a non-jocular
sense, and I seriously doubt that you eschew the perfectly
ordinary "I've got" construction in natural speech. Few here
would deny that "I have" is better in formal writing, and this is
certainly an aesthetic matter, but in casual conversation it can
sound stilted and unnatural, and lead people to suspect you of
dissembling. Isn't peer-approval also an aesthetic matter?
--
Mark Barratt
Budapest
www.geocities.com/nyelvmark
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