Re: [tied] Anglophonian (was: Creole Romance?)

From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 23989
Date: 2003-06-28

In a message dated 6/28/2003 6:53:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, richard.wordingham@... writes:

Would you treat the use of 'on account of' as a conjunction as
a 'creole effect', as in the American English sentence 'I won't do
it on account of I'm too tired to.'?  Such constructions seem
American to me (an Englishman), but I doubt that they're accepted as
grammatical.

   They're not.  The "on account of" seems to me, at least, to require not a second sentence but a subordinate clause.
   Even more important is the use of the word "which."  It seems to have become, for many, an all-purpose conjunction, usually meaning "and," but also used for "but" and other conjunctions.  It sounds almost as if the speaker meant to make a subordinate clause out of the second half of the sentence and then decided that it seemed incomplete.  Very odd sounding.
   For those in American, I recommend watching some of the court shows, such as "People's Court" and "Judge Joe Brown."  I suspect that some of the people are trying to sound formal and educated, but in general their speech seems to reflect everyday English.  It's a great opportunity to hear a large number of people from a variety of social classes.

David Fickett-Wilbar