Author Topic: New column-type thingy (Read 112375 times)

rivka · « **Reply #300 on:** January 11, 2012, 02:07:21 PM »

Must be a pretty big region. "Fish or cut bait" is definitely a common expression to my ears, primarily used when talking about a relationship getting serious -- or not.

Jonathon · « **Reply #301 on:** January 11, 2012, 02:24:10 PM »

Look. I'm winking. Look at my eye.

Marianne Dashwood · « **Reply #302 on:** January 11, 2012, 05:41:30 PM »

Your mom is common parlance.

rivka · « **Reply #303 on:** January 11, 2012, 05:45:07 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on January 11, 2012, 02:24:10 PM

Look. I'm winking. Look at my eye.

It's good you pointed that out. I hadn't noticed.

[We need a dryly sarcastic emoticon.]

Jonathon · « **Reply #304 on:** January 11, 2012, 06:06:00 PM »

Oh, I got it just fine without the emoticon.

Also, five bonus points for whoever gets the reference in my previous post.

pooka · « **Reply #305 on:** January 11, 2012, 06:47:06 PM »

I believe Sergeant Apone says something along those lines in Aliens.

Jonathon · « **Reply #306 on:** January 11, 2012, 06:51:35 PM »

The sergeant part is right.

rivka · « **Reply #307 on:** January 11, 2012, 07:35:31 PM »

Quote from: Jonathon on January 11, 2012, 06:06:00 PM

Oh, I got it just fine without the emoticon.

Ok, I need it. I want to be able to fully express myself!

Jonathon · « **Reply #308 on:** January 11, 2012, 08:34:28 PM »

More on That

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #309 on:** January 12, 2012, 05:52:18 AM »

In paragraph five, you are missing a word. It should be "The day that we met", not "The that we met".

Other than that, I found the topic and explanations too esoteric for this woefully ignorant English major to understand.

Porter · « **Reply #310 on:** January 12, 2012, 06:34:50 AM »

Quote from: Jonathon on January 11, 2012, 11:08:39 AM

I've never heard either of those phrases and have no opinion.

Ditto.

rivka · « **Reply #311 on:** January 12, 2012, 08:46:52 AM »

Quote from: Tante Shvester on January 12, 2012, 05:52:18 AM

I found the topic and explanations too esoteric for this woefully ignorant English major to understand.

Ditto, only sub in "almost-minor" for "major".

Jonathon · « **Reply #312 on:** January 12, 2012, 10:00:17 AM »

I was afraid of that, but making it more accessible would probably make it much, much longer and also dilute some of the points. Like I said, a lot of the syntactic stuff was going over my head too.

rivka · « **Reply #313 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:47:49 PM »

I'm not complaining (and I don't think Esther was either). We simply cannot be fully wowed by the brilliance of that which we fail to grasp.

Jonathon · « **Reply #314 on:** January 12, 2012, 01:58:08 PM »

Oh, I didn't think you were complaining. I just think it would be nice if it were more accessible. The inaccessibility of some linguistic theories is, I believe, a major problem in the prescriptivist-descriptivist debate. Prescriptivists sometimes think that linguists are just interested in abstract theories that have no bearing in the real world. I've even read at least one author who said that linguistics is worthless unless it can tell people what's right and wrong.

But I digress.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #315 on:** January 12, 2012, 02:34:04 PM »

As a linguist, why don't you go tell that author that he (or is it she?) is wrong, thus proving your worth.

Jonathon · « **Reply #316 on:** January 12, 2012, 02:40:11 PM »

(Is there a joke there that I'm missing?)

I've thought about writing something into response to that book (which, by the way, is Language and Human Nature by Mark Halpern), but to be honest, I couldn't finish it. I couldn't get more than a paragraph or two without wanting to throw the book across the room because of all the logical and factual errors and charged rhetoric. The guy has a major axe to grind. I finally gave up on it after about eighty pages or so.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #317 on:** January 12, 2012, 02:46:35 PM »

Maybe a little joke. You said the guy claimed that linguistics is worthless unless it can tell people what's right and wrong. So I said that you should tell him he is wrong (so that you won't be worthless). I was kind of calling you "linguistics" instead of a "linguist". I guess that's where the joke got unfunny. Or maybe it was just born unfunny. In which case, I guess it's not a joke at all.

Jonathon · « **Reply #318 on:** January 12, 2012, 02:48:38 PM »

I think it was just a little too subtle for my sleep-deprived brain.

pooka · « **Reply #319 on:** January 12, 2012, 03:47:51 PM »

I thought it was funny.

In theoretical linguistics there isn't right or wrong. Though I guess there's well formed and not well formed. Well formed basically means the usage has been observed to occur, which is where the term descriptivist comes in. We're just describing what does occur.

Jonathon · « **Reply #320 on:** January 30, 2012, 09:27:03 PM »

New blog post: a look at the history and use of that troublesome word comprise.

rivka · « **Reply #321 on:** January 30, 2012, 10:23:17 PM »

Quote

And who’s to say it isn’t correct now?

That would be me.

I have yielded on "hopefully", I am teetering a bit on less/fewer, but I'm not giving in on this one!

Jonathon · « **Reply #322 on:** January 30, 2012, 10:33:49 PM »

Quote from: rivka on January 30, 2012, 10:23:17 PM

Quote
And who’s to say it isn’t correct now?
That would be me.

I was actually expecting that.

rivka · « **Reply #323 on:** January 30, 2012, 10:48:36 PM »

Yeah, I knew I was being predictable when I posted, but I don't care!

Brinestone · « **Reply #324 on:** January 31, 2012, 06:11:16 AM »

To be perfectly honest, while all your arguments are perfectly convincing and rational, "is comprised of" still bugs me. Some habits die hard, I guess.