No problem ! What is a problem is that people who speak this way are hardly going to pay any attention to either one of us - which may or may not add force to Andrew Dalby's claim that languages, as abstractions, do not exist. The truth value of that proposition is dependent, of course, on whether abstractions as a class can be said to exist, and that, in turn on what we choose to mean by «existence». But I think I'll leave the question of Universals for another day....... Thanks for opening my eyes.
Henri