The Logic Off Topic list

>i ain't getting into another OT (or maybe i am)
>there are lots of english dialects - each with its own grammar - a
>description not a prescription.
>e.g. "I got plenty of nothing" is perfectly grammatical in some
>american black grammars.
>it is used consistently, it is meaningful and it conveys subtleties of
>its own.

That's not grammar it's pidgin.  I am not knocking using it if they 
want to.  I am aware of it's subtleties.  I am also aware of it's 
problems.  For example does it mean "I received plenty of nothing?" 
You and I both know it doesn't but that is just because we have a 
cultural context to put it in.  It could easily be read both ways and 
someone who simply understands English in it's literal form would not 
understand what was being said and the language would not be doing 
its job.  Just because some group of people talk that way somewhere 
does not make it grammatically correct.

I am all for tolerance but I am totally against faky social 
relativism.  The "Oh we don't expect you to be able to get it right" 
attitude behind it is far more condescending that the empiricalism 
that it is intended to remedy.


>
>come and comes can both be right.
>it depends on the way you mentally parse the sentence.
>"Chris & Marty" can be reevaluated gramatically as a single entity.
>
>imagine coloured guitars falling out from the sky...
>"here comes green....  here comes blue.....
>here comes red and white!"

You just demonstrated the fault with your argument.  You had to 
remove "guitar" and replace it with the color which can easily be 
singular before it would make sense in your example.


>in any case in this example it is the "here" which is singular
>therefore "comes" as teddybut said.

I hate to break this to you professor but "here" has no separate 
singular or plural form unless you happen to be talking about some 
other dimension.

>this is the same as "chris and marty WERE singing". the singing WAS
>chris and marty"
>"singing -  also singular".

In the first case Chris and Marty were the subject (s) of the 
sentence that's why "were" is necessary because there are two of 
them.  In the second case the Singing is the subject of the sentence 
singing is singular so that is why you have to use "was".

Thank you for providing the examples.