[bmacho]

Sure, you and the other guy, claiming London in his bio (we don't know if he's a native speaker or not).

It might be a regional dialect, which is also a form of broken English, especially if it is very obscure and other English speakers can't even guess the meaning of the idiom out of context.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Yes, I am a native UK English speaker.

> It might be a regional dialect,

a) it isn't - it might be archaic and poetic, but I don't view it as "regional"

> a regional dialect is also a form of broken English

Wrong! That's not how it works.

As the sibling comment says, what do you want? To understand the piece, improve your vocabulary or to tell the writer that they're Englishing wrong because "The Critic - Britain's Most Civilised Magazine", is using a turn of phrase that's not well known in your neck 'o the woods? I doubt that they care about that.

[afandian]

Excuse me, do you have a license for that gerund?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Well no, but I get tired of using the literary British voice after a while and I want to mix it up, demonstrate bending the rules, annoy the purists, épater le bourgeois, etc.

[afandian]

Thank you, that reason is on the list of allowable exceptions.

[afandian]

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here.

If you're trying to understand the original article I think you have enough information.

If you want to expand your understanding of English then you have some leads to follow and an opportunity to learn. If you don't believe them that's your choice, but it's not evidence to the contrary.

If you're trying to gate-keep and prescribe someone else's language, then you should at least respect if others don't want to join your argument.

(EDIT - Here's a past exam paper published by Cambridge that references such a phrase on page 16

https://pastpapers.co/cie/O-Level/English-Language-1123/2019... )

[bmacho]

I don't try to accomplish here anything. I expressed my opinion that I don't think that particular phrase is poetic, it is just broken without being poetic. Then people tried to prove that it is indeed an existing English idiom, which is usually very easy, they are in the dictionaries, in the books, in the articles, on the internet. Then they failed during this process, which made me more confident in my opinion.

> https://pastpapers.co/cie/O-Level/English-Language-1123/2019...

Okay, I can accept this.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Then people tried to prove that it is indeed an existing English idiom ... Then they failed during this process, which made me more confident in my opinion.

This is a very arrogant statement.

...

> Okay, I can accept this.

LOL. And indeed LMAO.

This method is producing poor results for you, maybe re-evaluate it?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43358412

[bmacho]

Whoa. I don't remeber an internet stranger making me _this_ angry in a while. IMO I made a perfectly valid argument overall, expressing my _unfamilirity_ with the usage, then meaningfully engaging with all the cited proofs, spending my time refuting them, then, when confronted with a good one, I concluded that I was indeed unfamiliar.

And after all this is over, the next day you come after me, lie, and shit talk me.

Now I am incredibly angry. Wow.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

So to sum up: You are unable to admit fault, are bad at regulating emotions, and are projecting.

[bmacho]

I guess the reason that you come after me is that you feel that here's an opportunity to shittalk someone. (Which you tenchically can, even tho all of your points are wrong, or straigt up lies.)

Have you ever wondered why do you feel the need to do this?

edit: omfg I don't have time for this. In your other comment you wrote

> ... arrogant ... entitled ... fixed mindset ... Whatever it is, it's best viewed at a distance, like car crash.

Can I ask you to take your own advice, and kindly fuck off? (Including not talking to me, and not shittalking me in other threads.)