He reinforces and exercises his existing language skills by helping others who are not as fluent as he (is).
Oh, and another question. "Is" is optional, correct?
Thanks again

Donna
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So, if the word "as" can be a preposition, then why can't we use a reflexive pronoun in your example? Because it's being used in a prepositional phrase (or elliptical clause) which is complementing an adjective (really the adverb of an adjective, the 1st "as") rather than a verb.
It depends on who you're talking about. I believe William Safire is one of the few who do. (Ex: She's better than me.) I'm under the impression, however, that most grammarians do not "concede" that, but rather militate for She's better than I — at least concerning outstanding English for the sake of publishing, business, self-enrichment, and such.ouyang wrote:Grammarians have recently conceded that the word "than" can function as both a conjunction and a preposition in comparative structures.
This is an unnatural sounding sentence for reasons other than conjunctions. It's the writer's job to make every part of the sentence sound good in its entirety. I'd rather say, "I didn't think you'd be quite so good as we are, but it turns out that you are." This sounds much better when you manipulate the sentence. The unnecessarily repeated pronoun sounds funny because it's...repeated. But none of this matters because it's just people talking informally. This is precisely what I'm not talking about. Informal discussions need not be polished. And what's wrong with supplying the verb at the end if it sounds better? You make it sound like that doesn't count. But it does count.JuanTwoThree wrote:You'll permit me a little rant. I haven't had one for ages.
jotham, you cannot seriously be suggesting that any two people, having played a match of some kind with two other people, would ever say, think or write, however outstanding they were being:
"We thought that you were not as good as we but it turns out that you are better than we"
It hasn't to do with instinct. Your definition of instinct is raw thoughts. My definition is unstudied response or expression of those thoughts. I don't believe that my raw thoughts are wrong; I just believe there are poor ways, adequate ways, better ways, and perfect ways of expressing them. So when I study how to communicate better or more effectively, I'm not shunning my "instinct" or thoughts, but rather empowering or enabling them. When I'm just shooting the breeze with people, adequate communication is adequate. Just like I don't need to practice chopsticks and it's still enjoyable to many.Your quest for "outstanding English for the sake of publishing, business, self-enrichment, and such" really sounds as if you have no instinct, or don't trust your instinct, for what is acceptable The only explanation I can find, though I'm sure that you are an exception, is that there are people who are so insecure, or ashamed of themselves or something, that they swallow every single half-baked invented shibboleth, concocted by largely self-appointed arbiters. Out here in the real world native speakers for the most part trust their own judgement.
The New Yorker is full of stories. When I do searches, it seems nearly to be in quotes all the time. Same with the New York Times, (where William Safire works). They're not going to change what people say.However, if proof were needed, I could cite an arguably largely well-written and formal source. Let's look at "The New Yorker" but it could be any other:
Exact phrase "than me" only from www.thenewyorker.com. 126 hits from writers such as Paul Theroux and Hanif Koureishi.
Exact phrase "than I" without "am, was, do, did, can, will, must, should" from the same site. Not one result.
What's wrong with following it up? Why doesn't that count? Maybe that's part of their editing guidelines. Such doesn't countermand the grammarians' position.Nobody has written "than I" in the web version of The New Yorker without following it up with an auxiliary or a main verb.
This is a perfect description of descriptivist philosophy. I'm sure glad there aren't descriptivists in music, sports, or other field of refinement or attainment. Nothing is wrong with slutty, dirty, gut instinct; but neither should it bar others from seeking otherwise or somehow replace attainment and a striving for excellence or perfection. It's the human spirit to excel; why should written communication be different from any other endeavor? To each his or her own.English is a dirty, slutty language that has nothing to go on except for the gut feelings of its users.
Precisely. Why must everything be so black and white?woodcutter wrote:Intrinsic excellence vs we luv smutty again. Always the extremes.
Exactly right. There is no intrinsic excellence in English or any other language in the world. Just as intrinsic beauty in buildings isn't automatic. Only people can make it so. If we let down our hair and standards all the time, English could easily slip and become just as imprecise or incapable of expressing abstractions as any number of tribal languages, for example.though there is no intrinsic excellence in standard inglish
I agree that sometimes the disjunctive sounds a bit odd at times (and perhaps odder with time). But here is where we differ: in such case, I would rather manipulate the sentence so it reads I am rather than throw the baby out with the bath water by completely replacing it with plain me — at least in certain contexts, obviously not all.JuanTwoThree wrote:But we are talking about disjunctive "I", where "I" is used in the place of "me". Well, I am.
I think I can sympathize with the British point of view, because Standard British isn't the natural dialect of a plurality of people. It really is just another small dialect dominating over — I don't know — hundreds of other small dialects. Such a scenario just magnifies the attitudes of British elitism that go along with it. I say keep up the fight for equality; even if that translates into criticizing British standard. In the States, however, Standard American is spoken by a plurality of people, and it really does sound accentless or neutral to most other Americans, which enhances our commonness.My objection is not to disjunctive "than I" per se. Obviously (very few) people do use "I" in this way. Rather they than I!MY problem is with this kind of guffery:
http://www.bartleby.com/68/25/825.html
which sets out the case for "I" used disjunctively being somehow de rigeur at a certain level of formality. It not only flies in the face of my own experience, which does seem to rather annoy me I have to say, but is also couched in the most pompous of terms.
The USA is a free society in which people may choose to prosper or just slide. American structure is more favorable (than the structures of most other societies) to those that strive to succeed on their own effort. Our editing sophistication, an art that continually develops, matches our general American commitment to excellence applied to every field.The USA does sometimes seem to have created a free society that then wants to be bogged down by rules for everything: dating, not wearing white shoes before Labor Day, making up rules for English only to find that hardly anybody obeys them.......