TIP: Click on subject to list as thread! ANSI
echo: english_tutor
to: Alexander Koryagin
from: Anton Shepelev
date: 2023-10-06 16:53:00
subject: A piece of pie!

Alexander Koryagin:

AK> The absence of "a" article after "of" is another
AK> different English song.

This need not be a specific subject in English.  The general
rule for the indefinite artcile applies -- that it is never
used with uncountable nouns, and `of' often makes the noun
uncountable by denoting a part taked out of the whole. The
whole is thus no longer atomic, invivisible, but is just
substance: "a piece of manuscript."

AS>> For more pleasant example, heed Rosemary Clooney sing
AS>> "I will give you candy!" in /Come on a-My House/.
AK>
AK> I heard that in songs the Grammar rules are not
AK> necessary at all. The rhyme is more important. ;-)

I do not believe in poetic license (uncountable).  The term
is of recent origin, and invented, first, to save
grammarians analysis of some correct yet unusual sytax, and
second -- to let modern writers defend their sloppy English.
Bethink thyself how many examples in old grammar manuals are
in verse, including Milton's and Shakespeare's, for example:

   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14006/14006-h/14006-h.htm

Rosemary Clooney was a white American songstress of Italian
origin.  Flourishing in the 1950s, she was recorded by major
U.S. labels, which must then respect their audience of
conservative white Americans, very unlike black R&B singers,
who were allowed to express themselves with peculiar
grammaer in thick New-Orleans patois:

            She don't fancy to dancin'
            And she don't care 'bout movie shows
            She don't fancy to dancin'
            And she don't care 'bout movie shows
            She just love her daddy
            And she go wherever he goes
            ------------------------------------
            Love don't love nobody
            ------------------------------------
            I wanna walk you home.
            Please, let me walk you home.
            I wants(!) to walk you home.
            Please, let me walk you home.
            I wish I was(!) the lucky guy
            To walk you right on down the isle.

Verse or no verse, that is genuine Creole speech, not poetic
license.

--- 
           
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

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