• Captain Aggravated
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    9 months ago

    My pet theory is that spoken English and written English are two different languages that kinda translate between them.

    In spoken English, “I read books.” doesn’t have ambiguous tense.

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      You’re not exactly wrong. Spoken english was shaped by mostly the use of common people while writing was exclusively the domain of the clergy and nobility for a very long time.