Idiots hijack thread. Useless brains.

[2NaFish]

Nice to be reminded that you can choose what you want to do with English a lot of the time.

Provided you dont lose that ability whilst having a jolly in frogville.

Still, atleast you could get someone to teach you the patter when you return. Having endured loads of old firm pish lately, may i recommend..

James and Walter - Superstars of Banter Booth

[sunnyp]

I love English grammar. I don't care if I'm a geek, but in English it's possible to express things which other languages simply cannot.

We've used the mandative subjunctive without knowing it. It's when you say for example,

"I demand that he be left alone"

Basically, some verbs (eg demand) are followed by 'that' + clause, often in passive voice. This is the mandative subjunctive. Subjunctive refers to a hypothetical situation like "God save the Queen". She doesn't need saving, but 'if she did, then God would save her'.

I've just returned from Russia where I was an English teacher, and there they don't have a difference between:

If I knew the answer, I would tell you" and "If I had known the answer, I would have told you". For them, it's the same. Also, in Russian and other Slavic languages, it's not grammatically possible to say "If I'd joined the army, I would be in Afghanistan now".

[2NaFish]

I love English grammar. I don't care if I'm a geek, but in English express things which other languages simply cannot.

wahey!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

[sunnyp]

^ Haha, you were on that in a flash. I wrote something, deleted it, and then reformed the idea. Unfortunately, the duty free whisky has made me careless, and I'd forgotten to complete the sentence correctly.

Guilty as charged.

Be it as it may, the effort was there.... Do I get marks for effort?!

[2NaFish]

you get marks for showing your working, effort is worth jack shit though m'boy.

[sunnyp]

That'd surely get me GCSE nowadays!! I've tied my shoelaces... have a GCSE.

2na is a stingy miser.

[2NaFish]

pah, GCSE.


Scotch educashun siztem is myles betta.

[sunnyp]

Britain's finest at work.

I heard a story about a young lad in Manchester, who got a diploma for catching a bus..... a fucking bus!!!!

No word of a lie.

[nemo]

Britain's finest at work.

I heard a story about a young lad in Manchester, who got a diploma for catching a bus..... a fucking bus!!!!

No word of a lie.

That's not true... I won't have it.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/AQA-Certificate-For-Catching-Bus-Given-To-Bobby-McHale-In-Bury-Manchester/Article/200908215361010

I stand corrected.

If I knew the answer, I would tell you" and "If I had known the answer, I would have told you". For them, it's the same. Also, in Russian and other Slavic languages, it's not grammatically possible to say "If I'd joined the army, I would be in Afghanistan now".

Yeah, quite a few languages don't distinguish between conditionals in the way we do, and most of them don't have 4 different conditional forms, quite often it's the 3rd conditional that gets dropped.

Similarly to the first example you gave, in French there's no difference between 'I play' and 'I am playing' as there's no such thing as a continuous tense.  They also use the present perfect tense to express what is essentially the past simple.

[nemo]

Fuck the three of you.

Well I still don't really see what you were trying to achieve with your research question.  'Some people on the internet think drug dealers and cops shooting the shit out of each other is probably not a great thing.  Some other people on the internet knew nothing about it, but from what they hear others say, it doesn't sound ideal.'

No matter how well i dressed that up, I'm not really sure I could get that sort of work published anywhere. 

[Sean]

o yay we are on topic...     I think,  I missed the original post