Robert Swier wrote:
> If the person who wrote those words was a native speaker of
> English, then he or she isn't wrong. Whether an utterance is
> acceptable or not can only be judged by whether or not it is
> acceptable to a native speaker (or, group of native speakers).
> Native speakers do not make consistent mistakes, by definition.
I'm afraid I couldn't disagree more. If we all accepted what you write
above, then overnight the art of communication would be lost; the rules
are there for a very good reason. Over hundreds of years they may get
bent and then changed, but just because it can be uttered by a "native
speaker" that most certainly doesn't make it right, nor should it.
> It is only by examining how native speakers use a language that
> we know anything about a language at all.
How so? We know nothing about how native speakers used Latin, for
example (except that they didn't use it!), yet it remains a very
important and interesting language.
> They can't be wrong (consistently).
Oh yes, they can. And often are.
> If two native speakers disagree, then they speak different versions
> of the language.
In which case there are perhaps about 5 milliard versions of English.
I don't think so!!
Simon
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