Thanks Erminia for the literary history: I'm not sure what we're arguing
about, except that I have a visceral problem with appeals to grammatical
authorities, deeply associated as they are with the King and other such
Real issues (wasn't the first Spanish grammar released about
simultaneously with the Spanish imperial expansion of the 1400/1500s?).
Of course I could not construct this sentence without grammatical
traditions, but people warp language to their own usages and contexts and
these are as important in the constructions of meanings...
I understood a versiculo (from the conversation here) to be derived from
verses in the Bible, given a particular Spanish twist, and it arrived via
a discussion of poetry and prose, which distinctions it destablises: is
that very different from what you're saying? Yes, let's have snakes as
well, of all kinds. But tell me, why do you speak like Dante? Has
Italian changed so little in the past 500 years?
Best
Alison
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