Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear David:

In this case I have to agree with you.

On 3/30/07, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rolf,
>
> Let me say again: "have" in the example you cite is commonly used
> throughout Australia to mean "to eat" and not "to be in a state of
> eating". My intuition here is that it might even NEVER occur with the
> meaning you assign. The "linguistic analysis" here you present is just
> plain wrong as you force a meaning to my words which I just do not mean.
> A true linguistic representation of the sentence you cite with the
> assigned meaning should actually be given a # in the front or something
> to show that this meaning is absurd to native speakers.
>
> "Had" can also be used in the same manner: "We had dinner at Maxim's".
> This equates to "We ate dinner at Maxim's".
>
> To repeat: Despite your linguistic intuitions here, they are in conflict
> with how the phrase would be understood by English speakers in
> Australia, perhaps elsewhere too I would say.
What you state is accurate for American English as well.

> In this case you really should withdraw your statements and admit you
> were wrong.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
In this case, I'm thankful that English is my mother tongue. Even a
millennium after the Norman invasion, English is still somewhat of a
creole, with oddities and exceptions galore. Though it is a relatively
simple language to learn its basics, it is one of the most difficult
languages to master.

Rolf: you are wrong here. You have run into one of those oddities and
exceptions of English. Your command of the English language is quite
good, better than many, but native speakers recognize that you have
erred on this issue in English.

Too bad there are no surviving speakers of Biblical Hebrew to show
where "we got it wrong".

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.