National Preposition Day is now almost over and it's time to stop celebrating and to reflect on the many problems prepositions give us. I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, it's time to get rid of them altogether. So I'll take a crack at it here:
There have been proposals reducing and improving English years and years. One these was eliminate the past tense, example. Years failure have shown us that this is little value. It's not feasible do this. We can't neglect what's happened the past. But the use prepositions is hardly important. One thing, they're difficult children learn and non-native speakers have lots trouble them. As me, I'm all it. Dumping prepositions trash basket would shorten my emails and this would save paper that we use produce books. But you may ask what this would look like. Consider the title this important book linguistics:
Huddleston and Pullum should like this one. Okay, only one word is saved, but this book is far too expensive anyway most us purchase and every word saved will bring down the price.
Think also Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the beginning:
Not bad, eh?
And also the way it would end:
I kinda like the repetition, don't you?
And finally, think the Lord's Prayer:
It seems okay, except maybe for the "deliver us evil" part. Hmm. Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all.
Posted by Roger Shuy at December 16, 2007 11:37 PM