You want to know what nerds talk about at lunch? we dissect things. yesterday someone brought up the usage of the word "ditto", and we had a heated discussion about when it can and when it can't be used.
Our conclusion (or rather my conclusion, I guess) is that "ditto" is only compatible with sentences with a 1st person subject, and it modifies the subject, transplanting the speaker into the position of the speaker of the original sentence.
So I can say, "I think people are dumb", and an appropriate response is "ditto", because that person is stepping in to take my place in the sentence.
On the other hand, if I say, "people are dumb", someone can't say "ditto" to that, because there's no 1st person to step into. This construction just doesn't work.
0 comments:
Post a Comment