Personally, I can't align myself with your notion that this question has become unnecessarily complex. I will however agree that if we are restricting ourselves to seeing it as an issue only in terms of communicative discourse, it is possible to overly analyze it or to become too tangenital.

In regards to the notion of complexity, I find that to be one of the fascinating things about the English language. We have at our disposal an extremely wide range of options and subtleties we can employ to be definitive in our speech and writing. If more of us would be cognizant of this fact, perhaps there would be less breakdowns in communication, or fewer misunderstandings and even less need to continually redefine what we're trying to get across.

I think too that most math majors would disagree with you as to the boredom involved with learning algebra. I'd agree with you - no doubt about it. But then I'm more into words than I am numbers.

Those English as a Second Language students though who seem to excell, are often the ones that see the beauty of subtlety and are willing to ferret out the necessary information to find that subtlety. My advanced students at the university where I teach are such students and I am often challenged by the questions that spring forth out of the well of their curiosity.

But, oh well, some of us find these things interesting and others don't. To each his own. And just so you don't fall into the illusion that I'm trying to pick an argument with you Fish, let me add that I've seen some of your previous posts and I know you to be a dedicated teacher capable of sparking interest in your classes. However, I do think you can be overly confrontational at times here in the forum.