Differences?

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Are the following sentences correct?I was in Seoul forty days. I was in Seoul for forty days.If they are, are there differences in meanings?Regards,

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Are the following sentences correct? I was in Seoul forty days.[/nq]
I would regard this as incorrect, but understandable.
[nq:1]I was in Seoul for forty days. I would regard this as correct.[/nq]
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Are the following sentences correct? I was in Seoul forty days.[/nq]
[nq:1]I would regard this as incorrect, but understandable. I think we are going to find, if we look it up, ... really old text like the King James version of the Bible. That should give a good idea about this historically:[/nq]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/kjv/gen007.htm

#begin quote 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. #end quote

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2] I would regard this as incorrect, but understandable.[/nq]
[nq:1]I think we are going to find, if we look it up, that time phases can often be used without ... this historically: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/kjv/gen007.htm #begin quote 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. #end quote[/nq]
I was referring to modern usage, not 17th century usage.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2] I was referring to modern usage, not 17th century ... a foreign language i gave him the guidance he requested.[/nq]
I'd also like to point out that it is customary in Usenet in general and in this newsgroup to bottom post.

regards, Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

Oh come on native speakers, anyone reading this five minutes would know 10 seconds in that it's quite acceptable to use a time description without a preposition.
[nq:2] I think we are going to find, if we ... upon the earth forty days and forty nights. #end quote[/nq]
[nq:1]I was referring to modern usage, not 17th century usage. Regards, Einde O'Callaghan[/nq]

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2] I was referring to modern usage, not 17th century usage. Regards, Einde O'Callaghan[/nq]
-- http://www.msnbc.com/news/976111.asp #begin quote In February 2002, the CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV to the African country of Niger to check on reports that the Iraqis tried to buy yellowcake uranium to make a nuclear weapon.

Wilson, an experienced Africa hand, eagerly took on the CIA assignment to poke around Niger. (He accepted no pay, other than expenses.) After drinking mint tea and talking to Niger officials for about a week, Wilson concluded that the reports of Iraqi uranium purchases were almost certainly bogus. #end quote

Usenet · Answer

The inimitable "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" (Email Removed) stated one day
[nq:1] in[/nq]
[nq:2]message news:...[/nq]
[nq:2]Oh come on native speakers, anyone reading this five minutes ... quite acceptable to use a time description without a preposition.[/nq]
You are projecting your own stylistic judgments on the rest of the native-English-speaking world. Not everyone will agree with all your style choices.
[nq:1]Of course it is acceptable. I provided an example from all the way back in the King James version of the Bible. Was that enough to convince the poster? Nope.[/nq]
As Einde points out, historical usages have no bearing on what is acceptable in modern English, regardless of how much anyone wants to be legalistic and cite old usages as enabling and empowering precedents for similar contemporary usages.

In addition, this site is directed at students of EFL and ESL as well as at other students and teachers of English. We who teach EFL are obliged to teach standard English grammar and structure while, to be sure, pointing out that, as is true with all other languages, there is no one-to-one correspondence between what grammar and usage books say is technically correct and what native speakers (we won't consider non-native speakers here) actually write and say. The primary reason we must teach the standard is that the tests our students will have to take to enter institutions of higher learning in their own or in anglophone countries will require them to know standard grammar, structure, usage, and idioms, not the kind of colloquial English represented by "I was in Tokyo forty days"; this type of sentence is likely to appear on an English test with an instruction to decide whether it has any errors. For the purposes of the test, there is an error: the omission of the preposition "for".

While it is perfectly fine that most native speakers are woefully ignorant of the grammar of their own language (true for all languages, not just English), it is not fine for non-native speakers learning the language. And, to be sure, once those non-native speakers learn the standard textbook language, they ought to have no problem modifying their speaking style to fit in with the native speakers they normally talk to. That is what countless students of foreign language learners all over the world do. I did it with French and Japanese; it's not a big deal.

Final point: Top-posting is not appreciated by readers of posts for what ought to be an obvious reason.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Oh come on native speakers, anyone reading this five minutes ... quite acceptable to use a time description without a preposition.[/nq]
[nq:1]Of course it is acceptable. I provided an example from all the way back in the King James version of ... your insistence on top posting I've got no idea which bits actrually come from Bill Bonde and which from others.[/nq]
This quote in your sig actually tends to bear out my contention:
[nq:1]#begin quote In February 2002, the CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV to the African country of Niger to ... officials for about a week, Wilson concluded that the reports of Iraqi uranium purchases were almost certainly bogus. #end quote[/nq]
In conclusion I'd like to support fully the points made by Franke - regardless of historical usage in the 17th century, any learner of English who used this structure in a test in the 21st cventury would lose points even though the structure is quite understandable.

Einde O'Callaghan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The inimitable "Bill Bonde ( the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack )" (Email Removed) stated one day[/nq]
[nq:1]You are projecting your own stylistic judgments on the rest of the native-English-speaking world. Not everyone will agree with all your style choices.[/nq]
[nq:2]Of course it is acceptable. I provided an example from ... the Bible. Was that enough to convince the poster? Nope.[/nq]
[nq:1]As Einde points out, historical usages have no bearing on what is acceptable in modern English, regardless of how much ... big deal. Final point: Top-posting is not appreciated by readers of posts for what ought to be an obvious reason.[/nq]
After 21 years in the EFL classroom I agree pretty much with everything above. It comes down to what we consider "correct" to mean - I tend to think that if native speakers when using standard English say it, it's "correct" - but lets not go down the presciptive/descriptive line again. However, I really don't feel that 'I was in Seoul forty days', without using a preposition of time (here 'for') is a marked utterance or even especially unfamiliar. The point about style is interesting - utterances like 'I was only in the Supermarket ten minutes' might come from the less formal end of the register, but that doesn't make them 'wrong'. However, glancing at a few grammars, including COBUILD which is based on corpus analysis of genuine texts, I can't find an example. While you may be right that some tests might set this up as an error, would you point it out as such to a student?

What's top posting then?

Usenet · Answer

The inimitable (Email Removed) (Django Cat) stated one day
(...)
[nq:1]After 21 years in the EFL classroom I agree pretty much with everything above. It comes down to what we consider "correct" to mean - I tend to think that if native speakers when using standard English say it, it's "correct"[/nq]
"Even monkeys fall from trees" (Saru mo ki kara ochiru: Old Japanese proverb), so native speakers are not immune to error. It's not so much a question of descriptive/prescriptive, but of appropriate register and acceptable style. While style is generally a personal matter, it is also tested on the SATs, GREs, TOEFL, etc. There are many awkward and ambiguous ways of saying something, and that awkwardness and ambiguity is what these tests ask testees to point out. Sentences like *"Having finished his homework, a cool drink of lemonade was a welcome refreshment" is not an infrequent native-English-speaker structural error. This is not a matter of style but of grammar and clarity. Many native speakers would write and say this type of sentence. It's just dead wrong.
[nq:1]- but lets not go down the presciptive/descriptive line again. However, I really don't feel that 'I was in Seoul forty days', without using a preposition of time (here 'for') is a marked utterance or even especially unfamiliar.[/nq]
Sure, you're right about that, but it's informal and not the sort of thing that should be taught as Standard English. It may be the way a significant number of native-English speakers speak and write, but many native English speakers would fail the tests that EFL students have to take to get into college and graduate school.
[nq:1]The point about style is interesting - utterances like 'I was only in the Supermarket ten minutes' might come from the less formal end of the register, but that doesn't make them 'wrong'.[/nq]
No, it's not wrong to say it; it's wrong only on tests of formal grammar and structure.
[nq:1]However, glancing at a few grammars, including COBUILD which is based on corpus analysis of genuine texts, I can't find ... that some tests might set this up as an error, would you point it out as such to a student?[/nq]
What I point out to students is that there are two types of English (just as I have learned that there are two types of French, German, Japanese, and Chinese), the textbook type that one learns in language school and the everyday type that real native speakers use when communicating with each other. The textbook type is rigid and formal, but it does allow the learner to understand the standard grammar and structure of the language as it is used in formal writing and speech, and if they can understand that, there should be no problem learning, simultanteously if they are in an English environment, the everyday type that is used on the street. Both are in one sense correct and in another sense incorrect. One uses the former type for tests and the latter for informal communication, the primary mode of human communication, except in textbooks and at funerals, weddings, coronations, and inaugurations. One is not always better than the other; each has its appropriate place. Register is socially not grammatically important. It's simply a matter of perspective.
[nq:1]What's top posting then?[/nq]
Top posting is posting your reply to a post at the top of the post instead of at the bottom, as you have done here.

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