The linguistic parsing that occurs on this site would cause all communication to break down in real life. It's like, in a quest for one-upmanship, people's ability to make inferences or engage in other sociolinguistic reasoning just melts right out of their ears.
My new favorite phenomenon is the policing of modal verbs, e.g. "might, can, will, may."
A person, to me: "I would replace 'may' in this tweet w/ 'will.' Perhaps delete 'may' all together."
Me: "I would put your head in a toilet, but we can't always get what we want, can we?"
A person, to me: "I would replace 'may' in this tweet w/ 'will.' Perhaps delete 'may' all together."
Me: "I would put your head in a toilet, but we can't always get what we want, can we?"
Here's my suggestion:If you feel the impulse to engage in such parsing or other tedious "corrections," imagine if you did the same thing at a Happy Hour. Would people want to be your friend? Or, if you don't care about friends, would anyone say, "Now THAT is a fascinating point"?
I DO welcome corrections. I'm only talking about unnecessary parsing:
Me: "If we lose, that may-"
You: "If we lose, that WILL"
Me: "If we lose, that will cause-"
You: "Maybe you mean 'influence'?"
Me: "If we lose that will influence people-"
You: "ALL people?"
In an endless loop
Me: "If we lose, that may-"
You: "If we lose, that WILL"
Me: "If we lose, that will cause-"
You: "Maybe you mean 'influence'?"
Me: "If we lose that will influence people-"
You: "ALL people?"
In an endless loop
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