On Tue, 3 Jun 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > >This was discussed recently. The lawerly answer: Vlad doesn't consider >himself to have been in the army in a formal sense (he didn't have a rank >I think, he didn't formally enlist, he didn't really follow a command >structure) or in any sense that would correspond to what Savn means by >being in the army. Or he doesn't want to encourage Savn by making it >seem a romantic or badass thing to do. - I suspect Vlad smiles >[bottom of page 90 in the original edition] because of an internal >conversation along the lines of: > "Check it out, Loioish, this poor Teckla kid thinks it would be >fun to sign up to be fed to Blackwand." > "Gee boss, waste of a teckla." > >The authoritative (literally) answer: Vlad doesn't feel like getting into >a long discussion about his history with a Dragraeran/Teckla/child. >Perhaps SKZB would say Vlad smiles because he finds himself lying, >which is against his code, or perhaps because he was about to not lie, >which is against his better judgement. Sincerelly, I prefer the first one. I think he explains many things to Savn but does not care to stop explanations when he wants. > > Finally, in page 95 Savn asks himself "Why aren't I afraid?" Excuse me > > for my poor english but I do not remember reading this grammatic > > construction before: what's its purpose? there is any kind of enphasis > > or stress which I do not catch? Thanks. > >I was going to say "because someone evil slipped you an altered version of >the text" but there on page 106 of my edition is the clunker you quote. >You are technically correct, but plenty of educated English speakers say >this. "Am I not?" is a common construction, but English wants to contract >it to "amn't", which isn't English (in America or Britain anyway), or >"aint", which is a notorious word considered an indicator of low >socio-economic status. "Aren't" doesn't make sense but is "colloquially >acceptable and indeed almost universal" (Fowler's Modern English Usage, >2nd Ed., under "Be 7"). I would speculate that Savn's usage of this form >shows that he is educated enough to avoid "aint" but not sophisticated >enough to shudder at "aren't", as Vlad would. I personally would write >(and for that matter say) "I wonder why I'm not afraid". There is anything to say but THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your answer. _________________________________________________________________ Localiza y ponte en contacto con tus antiguos compañeros de clase en MSN Compañeros. http://mipasado.msn.es/