密歇根新闻广播 标准英语让人听不懂

Among the many odd things about standard varieties of English is the s at the end of knocks as in She knocks on the door.

If you were to change she to I, you, we, or they, the s would go away, and knocks would become knock. Why does third person singular tense get an "s" tacked¹ on the end?

Frankly², the s at the end of she knocks or he sings or it talks isn't doing any work. It may be considered grammatically correct, but it's also redundant³ and unnecessary.

English Professor Anne Curzan often describes the history of English as "the history of endings falling off." This is clear in the history of verbs.

In Old English, you'll find that in all persons, both singular and plural⁴, there were different endings for the verbs. If you've read Renaissance⁵ literature, you've likely seen some of the endings that were still hanging around: "she knoweth," "he hath," "thou sayest."

Those are remnants of the Old English endings of verbs falling off. Those endings are then replaced with s which never falls off in standard varieties of English. However, in many varieties of English, both in the United States and around the world, the "s" has fallen off, and that's where we see things like she knock, he sing, and it talk.

Somehow, the "s" at the end of third person singular present tense verbs has managed to hold on in standard English, even though leaving the s off is a much more regular and logical system. Curzan says that's why we should be careful when people try to argue that standard varieties of English are somehow more logical than other varieties.

"Standard varieties are standard because they're the varieties that got institutionalized in schools and by printing presses. It's not that they're more logical," says Curzan. In fact, you can sometimes find much more logical constructions in non-standard varieties than in standard varieties."

1 tacked   

用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝

参考例句：

• He tacked the sheets of paper on as carefully as possible. 他尽量小心地把纸张钉上去。
• The seamstress tacked the two pieces of cloth. 女裁缝把那两块布粗缝了起来。

2 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

3 redundant   

adj.多余的，过剩的；(食物)丰富的；被解雇的

参考例句：

• There are too many redundant words in this book.这本书里多余的词太多。
• Nearly all the redundant worker have been absorbed into other departments.几乎所有冗员，都已调往其他部门任职。

4 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

5 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。