I'm not going to teach you grammar, but I would advise you to teach yourself, since you've demonstrated that you don't know how preferences should be expressed, ... — Sapientia
One more thing specifically relevant to this thread - unilaterally changing the name of a thread that is not offensive or misleading is particularly petty. It spends your credibility capital when you should save it for when you really need it. — T Clark
"If you don't like what I say, delete me or ban me."
I confess that to me, your objection seems disingenuous since my meaning is perfectly clear. I truly can't tell why you are continuing to troll me about this. Are you stating that you genuinely did not understand the meaning of what I wrote? Is English your first language? That's a serious question. What I wrote is colloquial English. Not the King's English as they say, but perfectly understandable to any native speaker.
ps -- I clicked your handle. You're in England. Aha! You are not a native speaker of American English. What I wrote is a very common informal locution on this side of the pond.
As George Bernard Shaw allegedly said, The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language." — fishfry
it leaves me wondering as I mentioned above how you would express an instruction — Baden
Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter now. I'm just asking a question about the grammar. — Baden
And since I can't control what the staff does — fishfry
I was officially instructing the moderation staff that if in the future I say something objectionable to them, I would prefer my post to be deleted rather than altered. Isn't that what I said? — fishfry
It's a very common locution among American sportscasters to say something like:
"If he doesn't fall flat on his face, he scores."
Now this is a bit of an odd usage in everyday English but it's still legal. If expanded via the pedantic transform (PT), we get:
"If he hadn't fallen flat on his face, he would have scored."
A political usage might be: "If Hillary doesn't set up that private email server, she becomes president." Any native speaker of English will understand that as an informal way of saying, "If she hadn't set up the server she'd have become president." — fishfry
Do Americans really mix up present and past tense like that? Do they really use "doesn't" when they mean "hadn't"? That's crazy. — Sapientia
Think of it as a past tense counterfactual expressed in the historical present. No one is mixing up their tenses. It's colorful. It's also a way of avoiding the subjunctive mood, and expresses greater certainty. — Srap Tasmaner
Like, if the sportscaster said it afterwards, but is speaking as though he's reliving the moment, thus the lack of past tense — Sapientia
"...don't step on my blue suede shoes". — Cuthbert
Elvis is not asking to be slandered. — Cuthbert
Let's not confuse syntax and semantics. — Sapientia
Sure, from the pragmatics point of view, I get it. I just wondered if there was a deeper reason for the original apparent chasm of disagreement. And apparently not. — Baden
In my opinion I would rather have a post of mine deleted than changed. If you don't like what I write, delete me or ban me. But don't change my words. The original title was perfectly clear and refers to a quote of Einstein. And the moderators of this site are clearly no Einsteins. — fishfry
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