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Originally Posted by MrPedantic If a student asked me, I would point out that the 'as much...as it is' construction has an element of redundancy, except in cases such as the one I mentioned earlier.
If the student then said, "Well, MrP, I rather like this construction, and find your approach overly restrictive; so up yours", I would say, Good luck to you, my friend.
MrP |
[First, here's a question. Are you talking about a student growing in an English speaking country? Or are you talking about an
ESL/EFL student that wants to learn how to
speak English?]
If you are talking about someone growing up in an English speaking country - someone whose first language is English - I should hope that's exactly what he/she says to you. If you're talking about an
ESL/EFL student, then it's very unlikely that he/she would say "up yours". However, this student would eventually find out that your pedantic Englsih is different from the English used in the normal world of English language speakers.
www.elllo.org/ - Here, you can listen to different types of English speakers from English speaking countries. This is normal everyday spoken English.
http://www.voanews.com/english/portal.cfm
The VOA site is the news. I don't even think the formality that news language typically adheres to is always as restrictive as pedantic English is. However, we can still view this site as using language that is more formal. The elllo site is normal English, or if you like "informal".
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by MrPedantic If a student asked me, I would point out that the 'as much...as it is' construction has an element of redundancy, except in cases such as the one I mentioned earlier.
If the student then said, "Well, MrP, I rather like this construction, and find your approach overly restrictive; so up yours", I would say, Good luck to you, my friend.
MrP |
Yes, but would you tell a student "you can't say it because it's wrong".
There is what we say, and there is what we write. There is register. There is formal and informal. There's context.
So, is this a "cannot say" to you? Is the manner in which you speak English really that well controlled? I tend to doubt anyone's spontaneous language conforms to such restrictive views of "ideal language".