More fun vs Funner

[Serzige]

[Nessie]

Haha, there's no need for you to get so angry like that, Sergio now let me answer your feedbacks one by one:

OK NESSIE! Believe what you want to believe
=> I do, of course => no need to tell me!

Since I've been writing in here nobody has complained about the way I greet. Not even Teachers, so why do you?
=> They don't tell you, of course not! However, that doesn't mean they don't feel vexed by the way you are. They are just too kind to speak out. Do you think they will bother to give comments to such triffles?

What I perceive here is an offensive air.
=> Oh, if you think so, why are you still here? (By the way, what I perceive from you is an ungrateful impolite person)

So, if I did offend you somehow, well I do apologise
=> No need to apologize me, I'm used to such kind of people!

But you don't have to be a toady person (look the statement that I highlighted above) and make me look bad in front of everybody else. Was it clear?
=> Hahaha!!! This is so ridiculous! You are childish beyond the words, Sergio. Actually I told you those things not because I tried to please the teachers (If you don't realize it, I joint this forum earlier than you did, and I know about the teachers here more then you do: they DON'T EVER need such flatteries as your childish mind may think!) I told you those simply because of these two reasons:
1. Seeing your impolite way of expressing yourself, I'm sure you're going to get little or no help (believe me! I'm very very much experienced in that) so I just tell you so that you change your own way and so that in the future, you'll get help more quickly and easily, but you, with your childish mind, just think that I want to make you look bad. That's so ridiculous!!!
2. The second, and most important reason for my being a little bit nosy: I love the teachers here and I just want you to have more decent behaviours towards them in the future (REMEMBER that they are giving their TIME and KNOWLEDGE and EFFORT to you FOR FREE!!!) but you, with your childish mind, think that I was trying to flatter them? haha!!! How ridiculous, too!
P.S: If you add a link make sure it is working...that way everybody can see what you're talking about.
=> The link is absolutely and perfectly all right. Give your own pc a check before getting mad at me!
_________________
... something we never have again, I know... I guess I really really know..

Sorry seems to be the hardest word...

[Serzige]

[Nessie]

Calm down Sergio, from the beginning you're so prejudiced against me because you think I wanted to make you look bad. I can understand that. However, as stated above, I have no such intention. Anyway if you are bothered by it that much, then ok, it's all my fault, I'm sorry, happy now? Actually I don't want to make a fuss over triffles because this is a public forum, so one more time: this is all my fault, so let's stop arguing here

P.S: LASTLY, I just want to say that I DON'T EVER DARE to speak ON BEHALF OF the TEACHERS, Sergio. I don't think I have the right to do so, I just stated my OWN idea
_________________
... something we never have again, I know... I guess I really really know..

Sorry seems to be the hardest word...

[Jmoponfire]

I've enjoyed this dialogue, minus the flaming that started.

I am a native english speaker studying for my M.A. in TESOL. Today, I had an interesting experience in an ESL lab. It had to do with breaking the one syllable "rule" for comparative forms. The word was "blue" and it seemed more right to me to say "more blue." Bluer just sounds funny. The other example I came up with was "shyer." I wouldn't say He is shyer than her. I would say more shy.

Interestingly, many of the other people working in this ESL lab are not native speakers. One older lady, who was sort of a lead assistant, really went off on me about using more blue instead of bluer. Her example was, just because you've heard it said that way doesn't make it right. She said, English learners and native speakers alike say "John and her really like each other."

Her point was that even though "her" is not in the subjective form "she" like it is suppose to be, people still say it. But I don't think that is the case here with the funner issue. I confidently explained to her that language is not a static entity. It is slowly changing, and has been for thousands of years. There are generally exceptions to hard and fast rules.

What I find so interesting is this simple question leads to a much larger idea. Prescriptivism. What really determines what is "proper"? Someone writing a book? A linguistic description? Mob rule?

For as long as I can remember, I was corrected when saying "funner" by my dad (who was an English Teacher.) I can also understand how an English learner "wants an answer" as to why the exception breaks the rule, but language learning is not math. Language, although it has structural properties, it does vary from them often. Was the great vowel shift that now confuses so many Spanish speakers learning English an example of how the whole world is now speaking non-standard English? No, I think there's a bigger idea here, one that doesn't have "an answer" yet. Not having an answer is not the same as something being "wrong". I think the act of explaining something creates answers, and this is not the same was right, wrong, or truth. This is the type of thing theses are written about. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to search for journal articles on this topic.

[Harry_Ph]

Good lecture, Nessie.