In Dialects^x, Tenses^x

Hello td I'm not an expert or a student of linguistics. But we've had a few discussions about modals on this forum, and I've noticed three things: 1. Speakers of different dialects seem to respond differently to the same modal verb. 2. People's sense of 'tense' in modals seems to vary. I find...

Your toes look pretty sharp and nimble to me, Paco! I think doubt often does arise, for native speakers, when they're using this structure in written English. I've had conversations like the one above on a number of occasions, when someone has suddenly doubted their own intuition while writing a...

I can't agree more with you, Casi. Purists may call this speech pattern non-standard English, but all said and done, it is English. All varieties of English, any language for that matter, including this one, have their own set of established standards and are governed by their linguistic and...

Many Singaporeans do speak very good English, but the reason many western native English speakers don't consider that Singaporeans in general speak 'native English' is because of the predominance of the Singlish dialect. Singlish in it's most extreme forms lacks inflection for tense and plural...

http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/auxiliary.htm#may Unless otherwise indicated, all written material on this Web site is the property of Professor Charles Darling and the Capital Community College Foundation and is published here for free use by the college's students and staff and for the...

JTT wrote: You couldn't have done more than glanced at the box "May/might", at the 'commnet' site, Mr P. If you had, you'd have noticed the glaring inconsistencies that show "that different people DO NOT hear conditional and modal verbs slightly differently. No need for all caps, JTT. Please use...

Sorry, this will probably be a really long post. My mission? To dispell false notions about American English First, we do NOT say "drug" as the past tense of "drag." It's dragged! There are only three kinds of Americans who would say this: Young children who have not yet mastered the grammatical...

Hello MrP History of English Gerunds (quoted from OED) The most notable development of the verbal nouns in form of -ing is its use as a gerund, i.e. a substantive with certain verbal functions, particularly those of being qualified by an adverb instead of an adjective, and of governing an...

It is perhaps better to dispense with the idea that there is only one English that is correct. In a nutshell American and British English are but two dialects of ENGLISH. "They have enough respect for the language to use correct spelling, clear enunciation and to observe the correct use of...

In regard to the comment on Americans not having the variety or plethora of accents present in the UK, I have a mixed response. Part of me wants to be angry because that is a pretty ignorant statement, but another part wants to agree with you for some strange reason. I will start off by stating...