
Grammar: What exactly are our rules comprised of? - edward
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/04/johnson-grammar
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skywhopper
>> "just because something is common doesn't make it standard English"

At some level of commonness, surely this is impossible. What else makes
something "standard English" besides how commonly it is used?

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skywhopper
In regarding the Geoff Pullum article mentioned
([http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/04/13/a-certain...](http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/04/13/a-certain-
closeness/)), turning off automated grammar checking in your word processor is
the first thing you should do.

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egwynn
I wish I knew what Brad Johnston’s idea for correct English pluperfect
construction was. The article doesn’t explain it, and reading his comments on
other websites doesn’t give me a good “ground-up” explanation, it only points
out where other people are wrong.

~~~
joshuaheard
I'm not sure, but I think it is that where a verb itself refers to a past
activity, like develop, putting it in the past tense then adding a modifier is
a triple whammy, making it ungrammatical.

~~~
adekok
The past tense is for a past activity. The past perfect tense is more
complicated. From an online ref:
[http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/pastperfect.html](http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/pastperfect.html)

 _" With Non-Continuous Verbs and some non-continuous uses of Mixed Verbs, we
use the Past Perfect to show that something started in the past and continued
up until another action in the past."_

Which is a more precise statement than it was just in the past.

Languages are full of such corner cases. I was once asked by a non-native
English speaker what the differences were between the following phrases:

* I went to the store

* I was going to the store

* I have gone to the store

* I had gone to the store

* I had been going to the store

* I have been going to the store

All of the phrases refer to actions in the past. The differences between the
phrases indicate where it was a past event that was one-off, or continuous, or
whether it started in the past and continued to the present, or started in the
past and ended in the past.

Language tenses exist for a reason. Simply denying them is delusional, IMHO.

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blang
Looks like the writer listens to NPR:
[http://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392568604/dont-you-dare-use-
co...](http://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392568604/dont-you-dare-use-comprised-of-
on-wikipedia-one-editor-will-take-it-out)

