Re: Is "is" a verb?

From: M. Ranjit Mathews (ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/15/04 

Date: 15 Jun 2004 16:04:25 -0700

de781@aol.com (DE781) wrote ...
> ranjit_mathews@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote ...
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote ...
> > > DE781 wrote:
> > > > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
> > >
> > > Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> > > else can you say "This person is being well"?
> >
> > Excellent observation! That is a fairly literal translation of an
> > equivalent Indian sentence. That introduces the piquant question of
> > what DE781's native language might be, that he finds this correct.
>
> Here's a lesson to learn: it's STUPID of a foreigner to criticize a
> native speaker of the language that they're admittedly just a novice at,

I didn't admit that I was a novice at English. If you aren't a novice
at English, I'd be most interested in perusing your rephrasing, in
whatever dialect of English you speak, of all or some of the following
composition of mine in response to an Anglo writing under the
pseudonym of "Ivanhoe":

Ivanhoe wrote:
> I have noticed that (especially on the 'Net), Chinese (especially
> those from Hong Kong) have a severe tendency to rape the English
> language by deliberately distorting its grammar structure and
> blatantly add end-of-sentence particles (which is present in most
> Chinese dialects and Japanese), which does not belong in Western
> languages. Who do they think they are? Dr. Esperanto? *** it.
> Is it justifiable to create Chinglish this way?

M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
Perish the profane blighters, ye exalted spawn of Sir Walter Scott,
for no man, be it within his ken to wield a mighty pen in the tongue
of his forebears, can presume to wield it thus in the Royal tongue
lest he fall afoul of many a savant who has earned his pride of place
by dint of perseverence and quotidian a sobering rebuke under the able
tutelage of most didactic a caviling martinet at aught a select
academy with hallowed hallway graced by many a portrait of the bluest
of blood that ever composed a missive in King's English never so
solicitously with nary a solecism and few a slip betwixt the pen and
the pad lest his escutcheon be besmirched, nay his noble lineage of
many a peer of the realm on which the sun never set.

> especially when you're WRONGLY correcting someone's "error".

I wasn't correcting an error; I was just wanted to know what your
native language was, so that I could compare its grammar with that of
Indian languages. Alas, I perceive that my curiousity has cut you to
the quick!

> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!

It is arguably correct in Indian English. If I'd used it in a
composition, my didactic martinet of an English teacher would have
caviled no end since he considered Indianisms fit for coolies.

If one's answer to the quintessential question "to be or not to be?"
is "to be", then one had might as well endeavor to be as well as one
can, and with sufficient practice at exerting every fiber of one's
being to the end of excelling at being, one would presumably be being
well on occasions when one is progressing toward a goal that ends
one's being:-)

> Bullshitters need not respond.

What would you understand by "I am keeping well"?

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