The English Language

Well what happened to the farmer and the bear?

The bear was shot with the farmer.

The bear should have attacked the farmer with the gun.

Why? There's only one farmer.

Then, there is no reason to specify that he had an axe.

Exactly why "who had an axe" is better than the original.

The bear dropped the gun in horror as he realized what he had done: The innocent farmer he'd shot was also his son.

Mrs. Bear, as hard as she tried, could not console him. He wept and raged, raged and wept, for hours on end. Little did she know that her world was about to be turned upside down with the revelation of another wife, another family, and all of them humans that he supposedly hated so much.

Definitely.  Who brings an axe to a gunfight.

No, really, I'm actually not clear on this.

You have an axe to grind?

That's what they say.

The axe leaps!
The solid forest gives fluid utterances;
They tumble forth, they rise and form,
Hut, tent, landing, survey,
Flail, plough, pick, crowbar, spade,
Shingle, rail, prop, wainscot, jamb, lath, panel, gable,
Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library,
Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, shutter, turret, porch,
Hoe, rake, pitch-fork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce,
Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor,
Work-box, chest, string’d instrument, boat, frame, and what not,
Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States,
Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans, or for the poor or sick,
Manhattan steamboats and clippers, taking the measure of all seas. 

The shapes arise!
Shapes of the using of axes anyhow, and the users, and all that neighbors them,
Cutters down of wood, and haulers of it to the Penobscot or Kennebec,
Dwellers in cabins among the California mountains, or by the little lakes, or on the Columbia,
Dwellers south on the banks of the Gila or Rio Grande—friendly gatherings, the characters and fun,
Dwellers up north in Minnesota and by the Yellowstone river—dwellers on coasts and off coasts,
Seal-fishers, whalers, arctic seamen breaking passages through the ice.

Cork man drowns. That was a real news headline. The man came from County Cork in Ireland.

I imagine that he or she was an associate of Malcolm Little.

I think in every language there is a contradiction or anomaly between "everyday usage" and "grammar".

It can sound weird to follow "grammar" in a language for "everyday usage".

That's why it sounds weird for foreigners to speak foreign languages.

Don't foreigners do fine with foreign languages? It's when foreigners speak local languages that they sound funny to the natives.

Ziryab, nice argumentation, but you are for the majority of the world population a foreigner! Tell me, how is your pronunciation of French, which is for both of us a foreign language? :-)

I speak French as a foreigner who has rarely heard the language spoken, and I read it via Google Translate, which may be worse than not at all.

This forum is a great lesson in languages !   I now came across the next word to be discussed :  " them "  instead of those, see post number 171, " like all of them humans ... "  Compare : did you see them shoes she was wearing ?

For Dutch readers : compare Dutch hullie and zullie (for zij) ; zullie=they !

@ post 180 : I know I sound funny to them natives, when speaking and writing European English,  (btw I like the word natives here) , but I am happy when I am for 100 % sure that the other party ( in technical and commercial discussions ) understands what I ment to say !

And post 181 : I cannot help saying that for me hearing an Englishman/American speak French is nice...; Jeremy Paxman has a fine pronunciation of French, and the other extreme is a TV soap series with Englishmen in hiding in France in the second world war...

Keep her alive.