On 28 Nov 2004 18:16:58 GMT, Mark Barratt
<mark.barratt@enternet.hu> wrote:
> 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,
"to whom we are talking"
> and
> written English (even in highly informal contexts such as text
> messages and online chat rooms) tends to be structured
> differently than
"... differently from"
> 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,
Sorry, I do. Well, not often, it's not a common phrase, but if I do
need it that is the phrasing I would normally use. I will normally use
"mine" as the possessive when the following word starts with a vowel
sound (my car, mine apple, similarly thy life, thine error).
> and I seriously doubt that you eschew the perfectly
> ordinary "I've got" construction in natural speech.
I certainly do, and so do many Americans (I'm British, but that doesn't
stop me from preferring certain US forms). "I have" is easier to say
than "I've got" because it flows better. "Do you have...?" is no harder
than "Have you got...?" I'm not entirely consistent, admittedly, it
depends to an extent on the context (if someone asks be to 'get' an
object I am likely to respond by saying that I've 'got' it, for
instance, but that is the past tense not the present).
> 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?
Ask the question "Have you got a pencil?" of many Americans and you will
either receive a blank look or the reply "I do" (if they rephrase it as
"Do you have?"). Or "No, I haven't got it, I had it already".
Quite frankly, no, I don't regard peer pressure as an influence. If I
had done so then my vocabulary would never have progressed beyond
primary school stage, I was picked on by children at school from when I
started because I used words with more than one syllable and used
correct grammatical construction rather than the abbreviated mess most
of them spoke.
Similarly, I rarely swear even though my 'peers' have tended to do so
almost all of my life (when I do, it seems to really shock people and
they know that I am really angry). I am myself, people either respect
that or they show themselves as people whose respect I do not find
important.
(And yes, I use the first two examples as well...)
Chris C
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