grammar
Andi Scharfstein
calvin8 at t-online.de
Sun Jun 1 04:26:47 PDT 2003
Hi,
> On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 04:13:29AM +0200, Andi Scharfstein wrote:
> [...]
>> encountering this thread. I also spoke with a few people today, two of
>> which had spent a year in the US. They all agreed that the meaning of
>> "In case X, do Y" (that's what I asked, verbatim) was "If X occurs, do
>> Y", so it's not just me.
> You need to be careful how you ask that question. I, as a native North
> American English speaker, would have to accept both meanings as almost
> equally valid. However, depending on how you asked the question, I
> might not give that as my answer...
Well, that certainly was a well thought-out and detailed explanation,
to which I can only say that I fully agree. Only, like I said, I
didn't know about the distinction you both pointed out prior to
encountering this thread, so there's your problem.
About biasing people towards what I want to hear from them: All I
asked them was to translate the above quote. As in: "We have a
discussion on a ML I'm on, I'd like to hear your opinion about it. How
would you translate 'In case X, do Y' to German?" The reason I chose
that phrase was that it was the original one that set off this
discussion. On an afterthought, I should also have asked them about
the various cases you pointed out. Oh well.
--
Bye: Andi S. mailto:nullpointer at myrealbox.com
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