{"id":699,"date":"2011-11-04T11:55:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T09:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teachenglishtoday.org\/?p=699"},"modified":"2011-11-04T11:55:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T09:55:53","slug":"english-in-the-dock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/english-in-the-dock\/","title":{"rendered":"English in the dock"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_pdf\"<\/a>\"image_print\"<\/a><\/div>

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0English in the dock:<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 A courtroom drama: <\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 The murder of the English\u00a0 <\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Language, <\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 or the Accusative Case<\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

PROSECUTOR:<\/strong>\u00a0 Are you Very Quickly, Adverbial Phrase?<\/p>\n

ACCUSED:<\/strong> I am.<\/p>\n

PROSECUTOR:<\/strong> Very Quickly, you are accused of splitting an infinitive. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?<\/p>\n

ACCUSED:<\/strong> Not guilty, not guilty.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> A double negative \u2026 \u00a0Then how would you explain your past imperfect?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I was going through an awkward phrase. There\u2019s no substantive proof. Now and then I just colon friends for a quick imperative before lunch.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> Is that all?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Well, no. There is rather a pretty feminine gender in the case, a Miss Pronunciation, who lives in Suffix with her grammar and grampa.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> When was your first dative?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I met her at a participle. There she was supining in a passive mood; she\u2019s superlative, absolutely pluperfect.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> Mr Quickly, would I be correct in this preposition that you were aiming at an unlawful conjugation with this feminine gender? Answer the interrogative \u2013 how far did you get?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I made a pause at her, but she declined. She said her parentheses would object.\u00a0 Anyway, she\u2019s about to become a noun.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> Was this neuter you?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Affirmative.<\/p>\n

P: Thank you. What nationality is she?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Italic.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> Mr Quickly, you\u2019re in quite a predicate I can tell you. Officer, put him in brackets. You are also accused of, evasion of syntax. Off with his prefix!<\/p>\n

Adapted from BBC Radio \u2013 many years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PROSECUTOR: Are you Very Quickly, Adverbial Phrase?<\/p>\n

ACCUSED: I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachenglishtoday.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}