GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Jonathon on April 01, 2008, 01:41:03 PM
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Geoffrey Pullum wrote a great post (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005513.html) on Language Log the other day about reasonable, well-founded prescriptivist rules. Then he goes on to talk about the attacks and counter-attacks by prescriptivists and linguists and why they happen. I think he makes a lot of good points, though I'm still not sure what the solution is.
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I think it's just the nature of being inside an academic discipline rather than outside it. If you look at evolution, for instance, there is a proper way for it to be discussed in high school classes, but in universities there is a lot of dialogue about the actual processes of how it actually works and what has has not been explained.
Any area where people are getting Ph.D. degrees will have points of serious debate, but the people who emerge with the Ph.D.s [gosh that looks ugly] set about as standard bearers to the rest of the population who really don't want to know why the rules are the way they are.
They don't grant Ph.D.s in handwriting, I don't think, though I'm sure there are Ph.D.s in education or criminal investigation who wrote dissertations on the subject of handwriting. Maybe.
There is also that joke about wherever you have two [insert talkative ethic group members] you will have three opinions: the opinion voiced by the first person, the opinion in opposition to the first, and the opinion actually held by the second person.
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I think linguists would in general favor a return to cautious, revisable, and evidence-based criticism of prose structure.
that's the solution. :)
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Yeah, but how do you get people to do that?
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oh, a practical solution. That's not my department. You want to talk to the Linguistic Indoctrination wing.
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Mind you, I'm not a Ph.D., but the lady whose dissertation I was typing said "There is no right and wrong, only better or worse arguments."
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What lady is this?
Anyway, I would file the assertion that there is no right and wrong under "worse arguments." ;)
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Dr. Farwaneh (http://projects.ltc.arizona.edu/farwaneh/)
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What's the possessive form of "ass" ?
"The ass's harness" ?
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Yes.
So why is that question in this thread?
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'Cause I saw the word "punctuational." :blush:
Which would you have suggested?
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You are always free to start new threads for questions.
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It's the opposite of sakeriver!
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It is? I thought it was pretty clear that Mike hates Jesse's thread recycling.
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Would the plural possessive be "asses'"?
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Yes. And your question mark would go outside the quotes. :pirate:
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Like that?
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Yup.
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I get a little dizzy with too many quotes and apostrophes ganging up together.
He said, "Where do I put the apostrophe in 'asses''"?
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It is? I thought it was pretty clear that Mike hates Jesse's thread recycling.
Oh, he does. It's just that at sake, perpetual threads are the rule, and little one-off threads are the exception, that's all.
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I get a little dizzy with too many quotes and apostrophes ganging up together.
He said, "Where do I put the apostrophe in 'asses''"?
Yes. Yes he did.
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It is? I thought it was pretty clear that Mike hates Jesse's thread recycling.
Oh, he does. It's just that at sake, perpetual threads are the rule, and little one-off threads are the exception, that's all.
Oh, I see. Though this forum does have its fare share of perpetual threads, they're not nearly as dominant as they are over there.