Subj : And/From...  1.
To   : Roy Witt
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Fri Mar 02 2018 18:00:57

Hi, Roy!  Recently you wrote in a message to mark lewis:

ml>  and mine is short enough to make a tagline from ;)

RW>  and? from?


            Good questions, IMHO.  Read on....  :-)



RW>  There's also an English grammar rule about using an idiom
RW>  at the beginning of a sentence and/or a preposition at the
RW>  end of a sentence.


            When you & I went to school it was frowned upon to begin a sentence 
with a co-ordinating conjunction such as "and" or "but" although the writers of 
magazine ads did.  It was frowned upon to say "It's me" although other kids our 
own age did.  It was frowned upon to say "Where are you from?" although you may 
have recognized it as a pickup line at the local tavern shortly thereafter.

            No doubt many students wondered what planet their teachers were on. 
Chances are these students knew how to speak colloquial English before entering 
school, however, and it was the teacher's duty to drag them kicking & screaming 
to the next level by modelling formal usage.  That was the situation in Canada, 
at any rate... as seen from the other side of the desk later.  ;-)

             In Fidonet, people tend to use informal language because we're all 
in effect members of the same club.  That's what I'm doing when I say "Hi, Roy" 
rather than "Hello, Mr. Witt".  That's what I'm doing when I use metaphors such 
as the one in the first sentence of the previous paragraph... remembering how I 
enjoyed learning about the equivalent (for example) of "put that in your pipe & 
smoke it" in French, I understand why some of our readers from the ex-USSR have 
made a point of encouraging native speakers of English to use them freely.  The 
"rules" WRT formal & informal usage are a bit different at times.  I think your 
query about the use of "from" here involves more than just word order, however. 
As I was about to post this reply I noticed you'd found another example... I'll 
continue the discussion later with more detail about "from" in particular.  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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