Smyth's grammar
Trevor Peterson
06PETERSON at cua.edu
Wed Aug 21 14:35:06 EDT 2002
>===== Original Message From "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
=====
>Just a qualification here: I would agree that if what you're interested in
>mastering is spoken Modern English, that's the thing to focus full
>attention upon. If, on the other hand, you're seriously concerned about
>modern English LITERATURE, you'd better expend some effort on reading
>Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
Agreed. And my point was not to say that there is no value in studying
Shakespeare, the KJV, etc. On the other hand, I can't really conceive of
recommending that a person who wanted to gain expertise in Modern English
(assuming, BTW, that we're using that term to distinguish the English used
today from that of the Renaissance period), even in its literature, begin from
scratch by learning the language of these earlier literary pieces. I don't
think the original question was about merely what is valuable but where one
ought to begin.
Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics
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