Shifting the ground? Yet I'm showing that we can end sentences with a verb. Or even, ending sentences with a verb is something we can do. So now you're changing the goal posts. "To go shopping", or even just "shopping" is a verb. I am shopping. As for "we can to the shops go", yes, it does occur in English, but it's archaic or pedantic... Hey ho! To the market we will go.
Do you speak German? The separation of the verb from the subject is the joke. My original post may perhaps best be appreciated by people who can compare English grammar with German or who have struggled to master German. And by those who would agree that the English language is the finest in the world, a language spoken all over the planet and even in space as any fan of Star Trek will tell you.
Sehr klein (heute). It's been ~30 years since I last used German, but at the time I didn't "struggle". The finest? On what grounds? Ho ho.
A gerund can serve the grammatical role of noun (Skiing is my favorite sport), adjective (The crying baby finally stopped), adverb (While thinking I crashed my car), or verb in a compound construction (I am studying for a test). Although in the latter progressive aspect it can be argued that logically it is an adjective: The home team is losing; the losing team came home. It's unusual for a normally-inflected verb to be at the end of an English sentence that has an object. Since it's usually done for emphasis, it comes off as biblical or Yodaesque: This job you must not take. Him I can't stand. For her I would die. Sehr wenig. Klein Means "little" as the opposite of "big." Wenig means "a little" as the opposite of "a lot." Language chauvinism is a sort of patriotism, although in the case of English (and several other languages like Spanish and French) it transcends nationality. The Ukrainians and Belarus have taken great pains to insist that they have their own languages and don't speak dialects of Russian. The Flemings' claim that Flemish is not Dutch is a cornerstone of their independence movement. Oscar Wilde said, "What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?" I think "language" could fit just as well in that sentence. Scan through the articles on the anti-immigrant movement in the USA and tally the reasons those Rednecks give for hating them. I'll bet "They don't talk American" is the most common.
I could get well stuck into this theme but (a) extended discussion may be off-thread, (b) I'm due at work tomorrow, and (c) I don't want to. Spk soon.
Fraggle Rocker, call me lazy but to save time on research would you be kind enough to tell this awed newcomer (me) where you stand in the league table of most profuse contributors with your thirteen thousand posts?
I haven't done the research either, so I can't answer your question. I'm sure SAM's post count is ten times higher. I've been a member since 2001 or 02 and a Moderator for about three years.
