Jack Campin - bogus address

In article <[email protected]>,
"ALAN HARRISON" <[email protected]> wrote:

    > "Giovanni Drogo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected] zoengr.vans.vg...
    > > Just for curiosity, did he teach you syntax, and in particular something
    > > called "analisi logica" (the translation "logical analysis" can be
    > > misleading if you do not know what this label applies to) ?
    > >
    > > And if he did, did you find this alike or similar to something which is
    > > done when teaching english to children in school in countries like UK or
    > > US ?
    > >
    > > We are questioning about this in the other NG I mentioned, somebody is
    > > saying "analisi logica" was devised to teach latin and is not even
    > > applicable to a language like English.
    >
    > I wouldn't know what "analisi logica" is without a description of what it
    > does in Italian. I'm guessing that it may be akin to the "clause analysis"
    > which was taught in England when I was a kid (secondary school '58-'65). In
    > simple terms, taking the sentence, "If I see Marilyn Monroe, I shall snog
    > her", this would involve identifying "If I see MM" as a subordinate
    > conditional clause and "I shall snog her" as the main clause.
    >
    > When I went on to read English lang and lit at university in my first
    > degree, I had to unlearn all this. In fact much of the English grammar
    > taught in schools was based on Latin, which it describes pretty well,
    > and applied to English, which it doesn't fit at all.

There's nothing wrong with that clause analysis. A lot of the formalism
of classical grammar DOES fit English, but not in ways that are commonly
taught. I had to learn German before I realized that English has two
verb conjugations - the idea is there in Latin grammar, it just wasn't
applied, so we were taught that English has a vast number of "irregular"
verbs (it doesn't).

There had been systematic grammars published in English of languages
very far removed from Latin long before anyone thought to teach English
grammar in schools. But people with the linguistic knowledge needed
to construct a grammar of Chinese, Arabic or Hindustani had no influence
on 19th century British schoolteachers trying to turn English grammar
into a school subject.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

Padraig Breathnach

"ALAN HARRISON" <[email protected]> wrote:

    >The other great no-no is the "double negative", where a spurious
    >mathematical logic is applied to language. "I haven't seen nobody" is
    >condemned as incorrect because two minuses are held to make a plus - "I
    >haveN'T seen NObody" = "I have seen somebody." Note that the "incorrect"
    >English sentence corresponds exactly to Italian "Non ho visto nessuno."
There is a good case to be made for guiding people away from the use
of double negatives in English, as the fundamental structure of the
language evolved in such a way that they are not necessary ("I haven't
seen anybody" and "I have seen nobody" are both perfectly clear
statements), and the use of two negatives can introduce ambiguity.

If I said "I haven't done nothing" I would normally intend it to mean
"I have done something", whereas somebody else might use it with the
intended meaning that "I have done nothing". Tone of voice would help
make the intention clear in spoken communication, but knowing one's
interlocutor and the context might also be required.

Other languages -- Italian, in your example, and also French "je n'ai
fait rien" -- have a different structure that includes negative
concord, where the negative components aid one another rather than
clash.

We could argue for a long time about what constitutes incorrect usage.
It depends greatly on cultural context. In my context, double
negatives continue to be a no-no.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED
My travel writing: http://www.iol.ie/~draoi/

Giovanni Drogo

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006, ALAN HARRISON wrote:

    > I wouldn't know what "analisi logica" is without a description of what it
    > does in Italian. I'm guessing that it may be akin to the "clause analysis"
    > which was taught in England when I was a kid (secondary school '58-'65). In

That is more what we call(ed) "analisi del periodo" ("periodo" here
indicates a sentence or phrase ... in your example you have a "sentence"
made of two "clauses" ... we call the sentence a "periodo" and the two
components are "proposizioni", in your example a main ("principale") and
a subordinate, but one could have also coordinate ones instead of
subordinate.

.
spoiler follows ... :-)
.
.
.
.
.

"analisi logica" is instead *internal* to a "proposizione". Things like
taking a sentence like "John gives a blue book to Mary" and saying John
is the subject, gives is the verbal predicate, a book is the object
("oggetto" or "complemento oggetto"), blue is an attribute of the
object, "to Mary" is a "complemento di termine" (and here I willingly do
not translate, as I do not know whether the plethora of, sometimes oddly
defined, "complements" are familiar to you).

I can't remember when I was taught this first. For sure when I was a kid
grammar was started in the 4th class of the primary school ("quarta
elementare", 9-year old, 1964 for me), but may be just morphology, not
syntax. Syntax was surely taught in the 1st class of the lower
secondary school ("prima media", 11-year old, 1966 for me), when also
latin and the first foreign language were started.

Personally, while I cannot judge on the scientific rank of "analisi
logica" in linguistics, I felt it was a valuable tool to learn
languages, specially those with cases and declinations like Latin,
German and Russian.


    > Then a leap was made to say that "to love" was the infinitive and that it
    > should not be "split" by the insertion of an adverb.

I guess here English suffers of the fact it has lost a true infinitive
with a specific ending (like -are -ere -ire in Italian, or -en in
German) so ... yes for me "to love" IS the infinitive, but I'm not
confused by the fact the "to" is not used in some cases ("you can go" vs
"you are allowed to go") or it replaces a preposition like German "zu"
or the wide (wild ?) variety we use in italian.

And I can smile when I see the breakable glasses in front of fire hoses
(produced in Italy) carrying the bilingual label

Rompere in caso d'incendio
To break in case of fire (sic!)

Guess it goes along with fried dormice (if you followed that thread a
while ago) :-)


    > The other great no-no is the "double negative", where a spurious
    > mathematical logic is applied to language. "I haven't seen nobody" is
    > condemned as incorrect because two minuses are held to make a plus - "I
    > haveN'T seen NObody" = "I have seen somebody." Note that the "incorrect"
    > English sentence corresponds exactly to Italian "Non ho visto nessuno."

I've always been taught to say "I haven't seen anybody". Anyhow the way
to expresso negation or interrogation has a large variability among
languages, so I'm not scandalized of apparent inconsistencies.

While the use of double or triple negations in italian bureaucratese can
some time give rise to funny, hardly intelligible constructs.

--
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Tile

"Giovanni Drogo" <[email protected]> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:[email protected] oengr.vans.vg...
    > On Mon, 23 Oct 2006, ALAN HARRISON wrote:
    >> I wouldn't know what "analisi logica" is without a description of what it
    >> does in Italian. I'm guessing that it may be akin to the "clause
    >> analysis"
    >> which was taught in England when I was a kid (secondary school '58-'65).
    >> In
    > That is more what we call(ed) "analisi del periodo" ("periodo" here
    > indicates a sentence or phrase ... in your example you have a "sentence"
    > made of two "clauses" ... we call the sentence a "periodo" and the two
    > components are "proposizioni", in your example a main ("principale") and
    > a subordinate, but one could have also coordinate ones instead of
    > subordinate.
    > .
    > spoiler follows ... :-)
    > .
    > .
    > .
    > .
    > .
    > "analisi logica" is instead *internal* to a "proposizione". Things like
    > taking a sentence like "John gives a blue book to Mary" and saying John
    > is the subject, gives is the verbal predicate, a book is the object
    > ("oggetto" or "complemento oggetto"), blue is an attribute of the
    > object, "to Mary" is a "complemento di termine" (and here I willingly do
    > not translate, as I do not know whether the plethora of, sometimes oddly
    > defined, "complements" are familiar to you).
    > I can't remember when I was taught this first. For sure when I was a kid
    > grammar was started in the 4th class of the primary school ("quarta
    > elementare", 9-year old, 1964 for me), but may be just morphology, not
    > syntax. Syntax was surely taught in the 1st class of the lower
    > secondary school ("prima media", 11-year old, 1966 for me), when also
    > latin and the first foreign language were started.
    > Personally, while I cannot judge on the scientific rank of "analisi
    > logica" in linguistics, I felt it was a valuable tool to learn
    > languages, specially those with cases and declinations like Latin,
    > German and Russian.
    >> Then a leap was made to say that "to love" was the infinitive and that it
    >> should not be "split" by the insertion of an adverb.
    > I guess here English suffers of the fact it has lost a true infinitive
    > with a specific ending (like -are -ere -ire in Italian, or -en in
    > German) so ... yes for me "to love" IS the infinitive, but I'm not
    > confused by the fact the "to" is not used in some cases ("you can go" vs
    > "you are allowed to go") or it replaces a preposition like German "zu"
    > or the wide (wild ?) variety we use in italian.
    > And I can smile when I see the breakable glasses in front of fire hoses
    > (produced in Italy) carrying the bilingual label
    > Rompere in caso d'incendio
    > To break in case of fire (sic!)
    > Guess it goes along with fried dormice (if you followed that thread a
    > while ago) :-)
    >> The other great no-no is the "double negative", where a spurious
    >> mathematical logic is applied to language. "I haven't seen nobody" is
    >> condemned as incorrect because two minuses are held to make a plus - "I
    >> haveN'T seen NObody" = "I have seen somebody." Note that the "incorrect"
    >> English sentence corresponds exactly to Italian "Non ho visto nessuno."
    > I've always been taught to say "I haven't seen anybody". Anyhow the way
    > to expresso negation or interrogation has a large variability among
    > languages, so I'm not scandalized of apparent inconsistencies.
    > While the use of double or triple negations in italian bureaucratese can
    > some time give rise to funny, hardly intelligible constructs.
    > --
    > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    > [email protected] is a newsreading account used by more persons to
    > avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected.
    > Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so.

If I well remember from my Latin years..
analisi logica is necessary to translate a latin sentence.

since normally.. in latin ...words do not have a fixed position,
we were taught to put numbers on each word. so we would put all the words in
order. and make a translation possible.

I was taught to recognize at once the verb
( in Latin there are also phrases without verbs... )
from the verb the subject
then all the complements
( starting from Object complement and ending with all other complements )

this method worked out very well with my son.. who had almost no Analisi
Logica and was unable to translate even the simplest Latin sentences.

let me say that School in italy was a very serious thing about 40 years
ago.
Latin was a must for those who wanted to go to University.. and the study of
latin was made in a very serious and accurate way.

if I well remember. at the age of 14 we were able to read De bello gallico..
( One of the preferred parts of it was the description of the building of
the first bridge on the river Rhein )
and translate the simplest pages of Cicero ( he was reputed to be the best
latin writer... )

from italian to latin, we were taught to use sentences coming from
classical authors.

I remember that once i translated the sentence

Vivere in pace ( Living in peace ) with the latin sentence
In pace vivere..
My professor told me it was a bad translation ( he was
suggesting .. Vitam otiosam agere.. ) until I showed him that that
expression had been used by a very famous author.

Ian Burton

"B Vaughan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:40:46 -0700, "Ian Burton"
    > <[email protected]> wrote:
    >>About native speakers of some form of Spanish, truer woids was never
    >>spoke.
    >>As for other languages, few are native speakers at the high school lever.
    >>I
    >>attended a prestigious New York City high school, and my excellent teacher
    >>of French also so taught German, Spanish, and Latin. She spoke English
    >>with
    >>a mild accent, but no one I knew could identify it. Perhaps she was an
    >>Esperantonese. :-)
    > I find it hard to believe that a prestigious school in New York
    > wouldn't have native speakers. In Princeton, they even had native
    > speakers in middle school. Actually, I realized after I sent the
    > letter that the woman who taught Italian and French was a middle
    > school teacher. (There was a big Italian community in Princeton, and
    > they offered Italian in deference to them; however, not many kids took
    > advantage of this, and they later dropped it.) In high school, my
    > daughter had a male teacher, who was French. When were you in school
    > in New York, if I may ask? I was in high school in the early 1960s. My
    > kids were in Princeton high school in the early 1990s. I wouldn't say
    > my high school was prestigious, although it was a good high school in
    > the suburbs of Philadelphia. I took both Spanish and German, and had
    > native speakers to teach both languages. Princeton, well, they think
    > they define prestige, but I wasn't very impressed with the school. But
    > they did have native speakers. (My other daughter took Latin and had
    > an ancient Roman teacher.)

Difficult to believe or not, in the mid- to late-1950s the Bronx Science
High School had several language teachers teaching several languages each.
Clearly these teachers were not native speakers of all of them.

In college I studied German and Russian and had native speakers for both.
My professor of Old English, however, was an Old American.
--
Ian Burton
(Please reply to the Newsgroup)

Ken Blake

Giovanni Drogo wrote:

    > On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Ken Blake wrote:
    >> Just out of curiousity, what happens to you, in Italy or elsewhere,
    >> if you overstay the three-month period?
    > To ME and in Italy nothing, I'm a native and resident citizen :-)
    > I suspect also nothing will happen if you are a tourist from the EU or
    > other country not requiring a visa. No policeman checking your
    > document will have an immediate way to know when you entered the
    > country (or Schengen area). Different story if you are trying to get
    > a job, or if you are a "wanted" criminal.
    > If you are "extracomunitarian"


Is that a real word? I've never seen it before.

Yes, I'm a extracomunitarian (and I can't wait to tell all my friends). I'm
a US citizzen.


    > (not EU citizen) BUT have proof of
    > identity with you, I presume you will receive a "foglio di via"
    > telling you that you have 5 days to leave the country at your own
    > expenses.


I assume that's only if a policeman happens to check you.

I guess what my real question was is that supposing I stay in Italy for four
months, and never speak to a policeman. Then when I leave, I show my
passport at the airport, and it's apparent that I've overstayed my visa. Are
there any consequences, like being denied admission next year?


--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup


    > This would apply if you have a stowaway look, I doubt if
    > you have a tourist look.
    > If you do not have proof of identity (most stowaways destroy it), you
    > will be detained for up to, I believe, 60 days in the so-called "First
    > Welcome Centres" (sic!) in order to identify you and your country of
    > origin. If budget allow you might be deported to your country of
    > origin, otherwise I presume you will get the "foglio di via" as above.

Giovanni Drogo

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006, Ken Blake wrote:

    > > If you are "extracomunitarian"
    > Is that a real word? I've never seen it before.

I do not know if it is a real word in English, but you seem to have
understood what it means. It is a real word in italian
("extracomunitario"), probably born as a bureaucratic term to indicate a
non-EU citizen, but nowadays used in everyday's language mainly to
indicate (legal or illegal) immigrants from places like Morocco,
Senegal, Albania, south America, Ukraine etc.

    > Yes, I'm a extracomunitarian (and I can't wait to tell all my friends). I'm
    > a US citizzen.

Technically even a Swiss is extracomunitarian (I remember in the old
pre-Schengen days we used to kid with a Swiss colleague at the European
Space Agency because at the airport he had to go across the gates
labelled "non EU citizens" ... Switzerland is in ESA but not in the EU).
I do not know about a citizen of Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein,
S.Marino or the Vatican ... I know there is a category called "Italians
not belonging to the Republic" but I've never understood to whom it
referred (the latter two ?).

    > months, and never speak to a policeman. Then when I leave, I show my
    > passport at the airport, and it's apparent that I've overstayed my
    > visa. Are there any consequences, like being denied admission next
    > year?

No idea, can't find a clue on the Police web site in the section about
foreigners (in italian), they only talk about "entrance" not exit. There
is however this link in (hmm?) English

http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/cit...ri/inglese.pdf

--
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Tile

"Giovanni Drogo" <[email protected]> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:[email protected] zoengr.vans.vg...
    > On Mon, 23 Oct 2006, Ken Blake wrote:
    >> > If you are "extracomunitarian"
    >> Is that a real word? I've never seen it before.
    > I do not know if it is a real word in English, but you seem to have
    > understood what it means. It is a real word in italian
    > ("extracomunitario"), probably born as a bureaucratic term to indicate a
    > non-EU citizen, but nowadays used in everyday's language mainly to
    > indicate (legal or illegal) immigrants from places like Morocco,
    > Senegal, Albania, south America, Ukraine etc.
    >> Yes, I'm a extracomunitarian (and I can't wait to tell all my friends).
    >> I'm
    >> a US citizzen.
    > Technically even a Swiss is extracomunitarian (I remember in the old
    > pre-Schengen days we used to kid with a Swiss colleague at the European
    > Space Agency because at the airport he had to go across the gates
    > labelled "non EU citizens" ... Switzerland is in ESA but not in the EU).
    > I do not know about a citizen of Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein,
    > S.Marino or the Vatican ... I know there is a category called "Italians
    > not belonging to the Republic" but I've never understood to whom it
    > referred (the latter two ?).
    >> months, and never speak to a policeman. Then when I leave, I show my
    >> passport at the airport, and it's apparent that I've overstayed my
    >> visa. Are there any consequences, like being denied admission next
    >> year?
    > No idea, can't find a clue on the Police web site in the section about
    > foreigners (in italian), they only talk about "entrance" not exit. There
    > is however this link in (hmm?) English
    > http://www.poliziadistato.it/pds/cit...ri/inglese.pdf
    > --
    > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    > [email protected] is a newsreading account used by more persons to
    > avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected.
    > Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so.

as far as I know san marino is not in the European Community.. and S.Marino
citizens need a permission if they want to have a permanent address in
Italy.

B Vaughan

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:01:05 GMT, "tile" <[email protected]> wrote:

    >as you might well know.. the use of subject is not necessary in italian..
    >as from the verb you know who the subject is.

Yes. It occurred to me as I was reading the Zingarelli that the
situations where "lui" was recommended as the subject instead of
"egli" were precisely the situations where a pronoun was necessary.

For example, the Zingarelli recommended that in the question, "Verr�
anche lui?", "lui" was preferable to "egli", even though it is a
subject, because the pronoun follows the verb. This is a sentence
where the pronoun can't be avoided. If it were a simple statement,
"Verr� domani.", the pronoun could be dropped, but if it wasn't
dropped, then "egli" would be more correct. (If you include the
"anche" in the sentence, then once again, "lui" is recommended instead
of "egli", because after "anche", "neanche", and "come", "lui" is
preferred.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the only instances where "egli" is
preferred are the instances where no pronoun is needed. This must
explain to a great extent the disappearance of "egli".


--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

B Vaughan

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:37:07 +0200, Giovanni Drogo
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >Just for curiosity, did he teach you syntax, and in particular something
    >called "analisi logica" (the translation "logical analysis" can be
    >misleading if you do not know what this label applies to) ?

Yes.

    >And if he did, did you find this alike or similar to something which is
    >done when teaching english to children in school in countries like UK or
    >US ?

When I was in school, we learned to make a diagram of a sentence that
showed the function of each word. This was actually useful, because
otherwise an English-speaking child would have little awareness of the
difference between an adjective and an adverb, because adjectives have
no inflection in English.

The syntax taught us in the Italian for foreigners class was more a
memorization of categories of adverbs and the like. I couldn't see any
usefulness at all in this extreme categorization of the parts of
speech.Most of it did not aid at all in understanding how to use the
words correctly. Nothing like that has been taught in the US in my
lifetime, and I don't think in my mother's lifetime either. (My father
went to school in Scotland, and his education was rather abbreviated.)

By the time my children went to school, there was no analytic grammar
being taught. I think this is a mistake; I would prefer some analytic
analysis, to the extent that it allows the student to determine how to
construct a sentence correctly and to communicate clearly. I am not in
favor of teaching grammatical terminology that isn't related to the
practical use of the language. This is something that should be
reserved for people who want to make a serious study of linguistics.
There should also be some instruction in how to put together a logical
paragraph and to write coherently. Many students who arrive even at
the most elite universities in the US don't know how to do this.




    >We are questioning about this in the other NG I mentioned, somebody is
    >saying "analisi logica" was devised to teach latin and is not even
    >applicable to a language like English.

--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

B Vaughan

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 06:56:09 -0700, "Ian Burton"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >Difficult to believe or not, in the mid- to late-1950s the Bronx Science
    >High School had several language teachers teaching several languages each.
    >Clearly these teachers were not native speakers of all of them.

Well, that makes more sense, as it was a science high school. In those
days, kids who wanted to be scientists used to study German so they
could read scientific articles in that language. (Later Russian was
added.) Speaking the language was probably considered unnecessary.
    >In college I studied German and Russian and had native speakers for both.
    >My professor of Old English, however, was an Old American.

Obviously not a native speaker.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

B Vaughan

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:25:14 +0200, Giovanni Drogo
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Ken Blake wrote:
    >
    >> Just out of curiousity, what happens to you, in Italy or elsewhere, if you
    >> overstay the three-month period?
    >To ME and in Italy nothing, I'm a native and resident citizen :-)
    >I suspect also nothing will happen if you are a tourist from the EU or
    >other country not requiring a visa. No policeman checking your document
    >will have an immediate way to know when you entered the country (or
    >Schengen area). Different story if you are trying to get a job, or if
    >you are a "wanted" criminal.

Americans don't require a visa, but they do get a passport stamp when
they enter the country.

    >If you do not have proof of identity (most stowaways destroy it), you
    >will be detained for up to, I believe, 60 days in the so-called "First
    >Welcome Centres" (sic!) in order to identify you and your country of
    >origin. If budget allow you might be deported to your country of origin,
    >otherwise I presume you will get the "foglio di via" as above.

I've read that it almost always proves impossible to determine the
country of origin, thus there is no way to deport the person.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

B Vaughan

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 07:56:02 -0700, "Ken Blake"
<[email protected]> wrote:

    >I guess what my real question was is that supposing I stay in Italy for four
    >months, and never speak to a policeman. Then when I leave, I show my
    >passport at the airport, and it's apparent that I've overstayed my visa. Are
    >there any consequences, like being denied admission next year?

The only people who examine your passport at the airport are the
airline personnel and the security people. These have nothing to do
with immigration, so I'm sure the information doesn't get passed
along.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

Alan Harrison

"Giovanni Drogo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] oengr.vans.vg...

    > "analisi logica" is instead *internal* to a "proposizione".

OK, it's syntactic analysis or "parsing" (the latter very much a word
associated with the analysis of the syntax of Latin or classical Greek).

    > Things like
    > taking a sentence like "John gives a blue book to Mary" and saying John
    > is the subject, gives is the verbal predicate, a book is the object
    > ("oggetto" or "complemento oggetto"),

"Direct object" in English

    > blue is an attribute of the
    > object,

OK, so it modifies the noun "book" forming the nominal group "blue book",
which is the direct object.

"to Mary" is a "complemento di termine" (and here I willingly do
    > not translate, as I do not know whether the plethora of, sometimes oddly
    > defined, "complements" are familiar to you).

In English, Mary is the "indirect object" (where "to" is said or implied as
in "I gave him the book").

A complement in English usually means something which is not an object,
because the agent (subject) doesn't act upon it. This usually apples to
verbs such as "be", "become", and so on. "Elizabeth II is the present
Queen" - "the present Queen" is the complement; "Benedict XVI became Pope in
2005" - "Pope" is the complement.
    > And I can smile when I see the breakable glasses in front of fire hoses
    > (produced in Italy) carrying the bilingual label
    > Rompere in caso d'incendio
    > To break in case of fire (sic!)

Yeah, a literal translation of the Italian use of the infinitive as a polite
imperative. My personal favourite correctly translated the imperative but
got another word drastically wrong - seen on a bus on the Brescia-Verona
route:
Scendere dietro, grazie.
Bitte hinten aussteigen.
Please get out of the backside.

Alan Harrison

Alan Harrison

"Padraig Breathnach" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

    > We could argue for a long time about what constitutes incorrect usage.
    > It depends greatly on cultural context. In my context, double
    > negatives continue to be a no-no.

Well, yes, I avoid them, but it is a relatively recent (and pedantically
driven) development in English. Look at Chaucer, for instance, where "he nas
nat" is commonplace.

Alan Harrison