Open books AT page 20/ON page 20?

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 2:40 pm

I never said that, "I was in Krakow yesterday," was wrong only that, "went to" is more common.

More to the point, by getting our students to say "to" we are getting them to use a journey metaphore. I cannot emphasise this enough, the journey metaphore underpins the use of English. Think of yourself as on a journey and suddenly masses of expressions become instantly clear.

The other time when we use to is followed by the infinitive to express a puropse. By encouraging the use of "to" instead of "in" we can help the students get a feel of the "dynamic" nature of English (travel metaphore), and imbue their work with a sense of purpose.

This is why, although I am mindful of over-correction, I still "correct" this even though it isn't strictly speaking wrong.

Think back to hamlet's speech, "To be or not to be. That is the question," the whole of that speech is about search for purpose. It is no accident that it starts with to and the infinitive.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 5:34 pm

Andy wrote:I never said that, "I was in Krakow yesterday," was wrong only that, "went to" is more common.

OK, Andy. But I'm not buying this either, at least not until you can show me some corpus statistics that prove it. Around here, "I was in Krakow yesterday" would be heard pretty often--perhaps just as often as "went to."

He also wrote:More to the point, by getting our students to say "to" we are getting them to use a journey metaphore. I cannot emphasise this enough, the journey metaphore underpins the use of English. Think of yourself as on a journey and suddenly masses of expressions become instantly clear.

How come I've never heard this before? Am I that far out of the loop? Am I disconnected from basic English structure? Perhaps I am, because I can't recall ever hearing this before you brought it up, Andy.

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 6:07 pm

How come I've never heard this before? Am I that far out of the loop? Am I disconnected from basic English structure? Perhaps I am, because I can't recall ever hearing this before you brought it up, Andy.

I think this is because it was something that Fred Haliday wrote, Larry.

In his day, Fred Haliday was one of the great innovators in the theory of English teaching. It was Haliday who came up with the idea of the four skills - reading, writing, listening and speaking. He also neatly paired them up as:

............. |Receptive |Productive
Literacy |Reading |...Writing
Oracy..| Listening | ...Speaking

I'm sure you've heard of the four skills but may not have heard of Haliday.

Haliday had some truly great ideas many of which are lying on book shelves gathering dust. Sadly, Haliday seems to have been replaced by Penny Ur as the most influential EFL theorist.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 8:58 pm

OK Andy. Thanks for the info. As a matter of fact, I certainly have heard of Haliday, although I don't believe I've read anything of his directly. Several times, in my readings, other authors have referred to him at some length though. Also have heard of Penny Ur, and in fact used one of her books to good effect in my classes in Taipei. She wrote a great little volume called Discussions that Work containing lots of practical stuff for small group work. Haven't read her theoretical stuff though. Why do you say, "sadly"?

Larry Latham

P.S. Do you think we've strayed far enough from the original AT/ON question?

NicoBas · Post by **NicoBas** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:25 am

Yes, true, a fascinating thread!!
I have long been teaching the same distinction between "above" and "over" that Andrew points out. I can't say I've ever heard "above" used to indicate motion. The distinction between "below" and "under", though theoretically the same, is much more blurry in practice.

As for "I was in Krakow yesterday" and "I went to Krakow yesterday", I defenitely see a difference. "I was there" means I could have gone the day or several days before, whereas "I went there" means I arrived yesterday. Neither indicate whether I returned yesterday or today though obviously both indicate that I'm not there now. It's interesting, because here in Argentina where I live, Spanish speakers continually use "I was in such and such a place" because that's the way they say "I've been there" in Spanish (the River Plate variety, that is). They hardly use the equivalent of the present perfect (though it does exist). So they instinctively translate it to "I never was in China" for "I've never been to China", and naturally have great difficulty grasping the difference between "He's been to the bank" and "He's gone to the bank", becuase for them it's either "He went to the bank" or "He was at the bank"!

BTW, I'd be delighted if any of you would check out my question and remarks on "be committed to" which I recently placed on this board.

Cheers, Nicholas

Duncan Powrie · Post by **Duncan Powrie** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:54 am

I suspect Andy was being ironic about Penny Ur, Larry (she doesn't exactly spring to mind as a "theorist")!

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 4:02 am

Oh.

My only contact with her is through the small book that I mentioned. It is really quite good for classroom discussions. I've heard her name bandied about from time to time too. But I wonder if Andy really is engaging in a bit of irony there, or could he be serious! Are you, Andy?

Larry Latham

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 2:57 pm

She [Penny Ur] wrote a great little volume called Discussions that Work containing lots of practical stuff for small group work. Haven't read her theoretical stuff though. Why do you say, "sadly"?

I haven't got much against Penny or her work, but I haven't got much for it, either. It's difficult to argue with what she says, it's basic common sense stuff, but I am put off by what I feel to be her patronising and at times rude style. She also always refers to the teacher as "she". I'm an EFL teacher, and I wasn't a "she" last time I looked. She says it's because there are more female than male EFL teachers. My experience is that it's nearer 50:50. I think that you won't find much in the way of deeply theoretical stuff from her, but I have worked in schools where what she writes is held to be the only stuff looking at. I remember it being described as the latest thinking too. However, I think the main problem is that her popularity has sidelined more worthwile material.

I can't remember the source but there was a story where someone says, this scientist is really good he (it was a he in this case) has published an awful lot of stuff.

So has Barbara Cartland came the reply.

Harzer · Post by **Harzer** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:51 am

"Ago" is English's only postposition...... ".

Andrew, I don't think anyone else has picked up on this statement, so...

How about "hence/thence" as in "two weeks hence/thence"?

How about "on" as in " three days on"?

How about "out" as in "they were six weeks out on their RTW trip"?

As a matter of fact, I wouldn't call these postpositions at all, but adverbs.

Compare this with a language that does have postpositions, Japanese or Turkish, say, and maybe the distinction, which I can't articulate, will become clear.

In German,which is largely pre-positional, the few postpositions betray their status by demanding a change to the case of the preceding noun:

deR Bahnhof -> deM Bahnhof entgegen = towards the station

Harzer

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:17 pm

English does present difficulties in analysis because it doesn't have inflections, though maybe the difficulty is that we are trying to analyse it with a schema based on inflected languages.
I tend to agree with Harzer in this one. I can see little reason to analyse He came three weeks ago[/] as being different from 'He came three weeks later'.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:12 pm

Stephen wrote:I can see little reason to analyse He came three weeks ago[/] as being different from 'He came three weeks later'.

Oh, I cannot agree with you there, Stephen. And I don't think Harzer would agree either.

...three weeks ago measures the three weeks from NOW and going backwards in time.

...three weeks later measures the three weeks from some point in past time and going forwards in time.

They are not even close to the same!

Larry Latham

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:48 pm

Dear Larry

You're not paying attention to the whole thread. Harzer was attacking the idea that 'ago' should be treated as a postposition, whilst 'hence', 'on' and 'out' when used after the same words are not considered postpositions.

I am quite aware of the fact that 'ago' and 'later' have different meanings; what I am saying is that in the sentence given there is no reason for considering them different parts of speech.

The sentences 'He drove from the factory' and 'He drove to the factory' are opposite in meaning but we would still say that 'from' and'to' are prepositions, and would analyse both sentences the same.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:53 pm

Sadly, Haliday seems to have been replaced by Penny Ur as the most influential EFL theorist.

Actually, the most influential theorist at present is a Halliday, though Michale Hallliday, not Fred Halliday

Duncan Powrie · Post by **Duncan Powrie** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 5:06 am

On the basis of postings on Dave's, Mike Amazing Kick*ss Halliday must be the most mispelt name in linguistics (followed by Swann (sic)).

I have a theory (which I will call the "M" theory) that seeing the name "Michael" throws our brains into a tizzy of trying to distinguish between at least English, Gaelic, French and Russian, which distracts us from spelling the surname - and probably also the first name - correctly. Fascinating stuff, eh!

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:38 am

Stephen wrote:Dear Larry

You're not paying attention to the whole thread. Harzer was attacking the idea that 'ago' should be treated as a postposition, whilst 'hence', 'on' and 'out' when used after the same words are not considered postpositions.

Ah! OK, I see your point now, Stephen. My apologies.

And I agree!

Larry Latham