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  • Picking on my grammer because of my nationality, that will get me going every time, especially as I think it's the English who normally leave random words out, not the yanks. An example:

    In English English
    A: Have you thought of going to the kitten porn convention?
    B: I would do, but I'm supposed to take my gimp to the pet shop, innit.

    In American English
    A: Do you think you're going to go to the kitten porn convention?
    B: Yeah, Dude, I was thinking about going, but I promised my gimp I would take him to the pet store.

    Nice attention to detail in 'pet shop' vs. 'pet store'. ;)

    The original example, 'to write someone' probably owes something to the influence of the German language on American English. In this case, the German word for 'write', "schreiben", takes the dative case , i.e. doesn't take a preposition, e.g., 'to write to someone' = "jemandem schreiben". 'Translated' lazily, this then results in 'to write someone'.

    Interesting to hear that a phrase like 'I would do' isn't common in American English.

    By contrasting 'going to' with 'going to go to', do you mean to highlight another difference in wordiness?

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