BS: English Grammar question

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 01:22 AM

"Grammar" isn't sacrosanct; check Stephen King--he's a world bestseller.

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 02:47 AM

McGrath, "I be wrong" or "I be ready" are examples of ebonic language heard from inner city Black children. In a few city schools, pupils at first may be taught conventional English along with an acceptance of ebonic language, but I had quite forgotten that these phrases may appear in some English regional dialects (as well). I be forgetful.
Bobert, Robert Graves did a good job of putting Chaucer's Canterbury Tales into modern English. The traditionalists hate it.

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: Declan
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 08:08 AM

A question if something is particularly Wickid should it be described as "well good" or "well bad" ?

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 09:57 AM

Anybody got any problems with people saying things are "dead good"?

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: Snuffy
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 09:59 AM

Our world-champion football hooligans like to think of themselves as "well hard"

WassaiL! v

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: Gary T
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 10:34 AM

kendall: My ex often said "O felt badly..." that never sounded right to me, and, I used to ask her why she never said "I felt goodly.." Opinions please.

Opinions? We don't need no stinkin' opinions! We got the immortal truth--

"Felt badly" means your fingers weren't working properly, and you did a poor job of feeling some object.

"Felt bad" means you were ailing. In this sense, the verb "feel" is taken to be a variation of the verb "is." So one might say "I am good," "I feel good," "I am sick," "I feel sick," "I am bad," "I feel bad" (not that these have the same meaning, but rather the same type of constuction)--but one does not say "I am badly" nor "I feel badly" in this sense.

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: GUEST,Soma
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 10:40 AM

What about "well off".
Explain that Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: English Grammar question
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 03:25 PM

Young folks have a habit of changing meanings in midstream. In ebonic language, "I be Bad" was given as meaning I did it incorrectly, or I did something I shouldn't have. Now it means I did something far out, therefore exceptional. The older usage continues, so inflection becomes part of it. Gary T, verbs such as feel, am, etc. are all replaced by "be," e. g. "I be sick." To stretch it out, they might say, "I be, like, sick."

I remember excuses for failure to show up for class- "I felt badly so I went to the dorm and collapsed" was a common one (meaning- I looked up my girlfriend, or me and my buddies went to the local Cheers and got tanked). This at university level.