At 02:07 PM 11/18/99 +0000, Bill East wrote:
>
[deletion]
>
>Incidentally, nobody every does this sort of thing in the plural.
>Nobody (unless you, Crockers) says "It is we" or "They are older than
>we". Or, for that matter, "We can see farther than they."
>
>Yours, relativistically pussy-footingly,
>
>Oriens.
>
>
No, but I would have thought that most of us (or we? or wee?) speakers of
USA English would say "They are older than we are" and "We can see farther
than they can." On the other hand, as I recall it (or him? or he??), Walt
Kelly, creator of a once very popular cartoon centered on a possum (or
opossum) named Pogo, once had Pogo say, at a moving moment (speaking
cartoonwise), "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Sort of a homily on
original sin, I guess.
Gordon Fisher [log in to unmask]
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