Love these linguistic discussions.
Linguistic change is a fascinating process that has been going on forever.
English grammar has, on the whole, simplified considerably during its
history, and the process continues. It seems to me that change was slowed
down greatly by the invention of the printing press, but now in
the "Information Age" it has speeded up again.
What we say seems to depend on where we are and also on
how old we are. I'm, I guess, English-Australian, and 39 (relatively
young, I think, for this list?) and can't imagine ever saying
or writing "whilst", "amongst" or "amidst".
"Toward" and "towards" aren't really words I use in speech,
but in print... hmmm...
Come toward me.
He went toward her.
She crawled towards the opening.
I think I would prefer to write "toward" because it's simpler.
That "s" just seems unnecessary. In prose anyway.
In poetry, all rules suspended are!
As for Jons note about its and it's. Im always hoping that we will
drop apostrophes completely from abbreviations and ownership
words. I really cant see why we need them and getting rid of them
would mean you couldnt get it wrong. It looks a bit weird at first
but wed soon get used to it. (Never mind that "wed" - just think of "read"
and "read".)
But I'm not going to start a campaign! It might happen as part
of the natural process of language change - but perhap's it's more
likely that the opposite will happen and we will start using apostrophe's
for plural's and other word's ending in "s", as so many
semi-literate writer's already do. Aagh!
What a lovely mess our language is.
Janet
------------------------------------------------------
Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Poems at Proximity:
http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
------------------------------------------------------
|