Author Topic: Quotes from work (Read 192629 times)

Jonathon · « **Reply #1475 on:** March 04, 2015, 09:44:40 AM »

Because for each reading assignment, there's a one-page writing assignment. Thus the student writes four separate one-page papers on each set of readings. My first reaction was the same as yours, but it makes more sense in the full context of the lesson.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1476 on:** March 09, 2015, 03:13:49 PM »

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One scholar (Remi Brague), for example, has proposed that a distinctive feature of the Greek language might have been a decisive factor.
This language, Brague tells us, possessed a rare grammatical feature that lent itself to the abstraction necessary to philosophy. It was possible in Greek, Brague explains, but not in other languages, to speak, not only of a “whole this” or a “whole that,” but of the concept of “The Whole” (ta panta). What if Greeks were able to speculate about “The Whole,” that is, “The Cosmos,” because they, unlike other peoples, were first able to say it? Is it not intriguing to consider that Western Civilization, and thus the revelation of certain fundamental human possibilities, might have sprung from such a linguistic quirk?

Ugh, no. This is a terrible argument, and most linguists would laugh at it. If anything, the causation is probably reversed: the Greeks started thinking of "the whole" and used the word panta to refer to it. And apparently this root goes back to Proto-Indo-European, so this so-called linguistic quirk is not a uniquely Greek. So if the PIE language had this word, and if the word can magically cause people to develop philosophy, then why didn't philosophy arise 6,000 years ago in the steppes of western Asia?

Jonathon · « **Reply #1477 on:** March 18, 2015, 09:22:24 AM »

Is it normal to refer to Thomas Aquinas as simply Thomas? My field isn't religion and philosophy, but I think I've mostly heard him referred to as Aquinas.

dkw · « **Reply #1478 on:** March 18, 2015, 11:19:12 AM »

It's not uncommon.

His spin-offs are Thomistic theology and Thomists, not Aquinian theology and Aquinists.

Depending on audience I would probably use full name for first reference and Aquinas afterward in a formal paper, though.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1479 on:** March 18, 2015, 11:39:56 AM »

Danke schön!

Jonathon · « **Reply #1480 on:** April 20, 2015, 01:24:49 PM »

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I broke my jaw and dislocated my other jaw.

How many jaws does this author have? I know that technically you have an upper and lower jaw, but I don't think anyone would say that they broke their jaw if they broke the maxilla. I think she means that she broke one side of her mandible and dislocated the other.

pooka · « **Reply #1481 on:** April 26, 2015, 07:00:24 PM »

Maybe she's one of Ridley Scott's

Jonathon · « **Reply #1482 on:** April 26, 2015, 09:55:25 PM »

rivka · « **Reply #1483 on:** May 06, 2015, 03:57:11 PM »

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an alumni

Jonathon · « **Reply #1484 on:** May 13, 2015, 12:24:41 PM »

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She met her husband of almost twenty-five years at BYU and has lived in Orem ever since.

The editor's comment: "Was he almost 25 when they met or have they been married for almost 25 years? This is a little unclear."

*headdesk*

rivka · « **Reply #1485 on:** May 14, 2015, 06:04:53 PM »

I found this amusing, and thought at least some of this crowd might as well.

Quote from: registrars' listserv

Most official documents now are stripped of all their special characters (and character!), so if a student declares it, we'll typically use it. So, yes, on our diplomas we have circumflexes, umlauts, tiles, accents, carets, and cedillas!

Jonathon · « **Reply #1486 on:** May 14, 2015, 08:06:44 PM »

I don't think I get it.

rivka · « **Reply #1487 on:** May 14, 2015, 10:28:48 PM »

Maybe it's only funny to registrars, after all.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1488 on:** May 15, 2015, 07:49:15 AM »

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She met her husband of almost twenty-five years at BYU and has lived in Orem ever since.

So, out of curiosity, does anyone else think this is ambiguous?

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1489 on:** May 15, 2015, 07:54:46 AM »

It sounded to me like they've been married for 25 years. If the writer meant he was 25 years old, it would be "She met her husband at BYU when he was 25".

rivka · « **Reply #1490 on:** May 15, 2015, 08:31:13 AM »

Agreed.

Tante Shvester · « **Reply #1491 on:** May 15, 2015, 09:06:59 AM »

My husband of five years earned his PhD.

My husband earned his PhD when he was five.

Totally not mix-up-able.

dkw · « **Reply #1492 on:** May 15, 2015, 11:10:21 AM »

Quote from: Jonathon on May 15, 2015, 07:49:15 AM

Quote
She met her husband of almost twenty-five years at BYU and has lived in Orem ever since.

So, out of curiosity, does anyone else think this is ambiguous?

Not in the slightest.

I suspect your student editor has never encountered the construction "husband of ___ years" and had to stop and think about it so it seems ambiguous to them.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1493 on:** May 15, 2015, 11:13:43 AM »

I'm really having a hard time seeing how someone could construe it the wrong way, even if they've never seen that kind of construction before.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1494 on:** May 15, 2015, 02:45:05 PM »

Yeah, I never would have interpreted to be about his age.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1495 on:** June 09, 2015, 02:01:07 PM »

There's a lady at work who does voiceover work for free. We have paid, professional people who do voiceovers, but you have to have them bill to your project and it isn't cheap so this lady in the department who has a very good voice but doesn't require billing is really helpful for small-budget projects.

I had been aware of her, so I approached her about the narration for a video I'm doing. She was more than happy to help out, but when I got the audio files back I realized I'd heard her work before and it drove me absolutely batty.

My video is about calibrating pH meters. She decided she needed to clearly enunciate the /t/ in nearly every occurrence of the word meter, as well as water and button. Now, button doesn't sound quite so stilted, it comes across as someone just trying to be clear, but there is no one in the English-speaking world who says or expects to hear /mitəɹ/. British dialects will use /t/, yes, but most of them don't pronounce the /ɹ/. It sounds really bizarre and stilted the way the narration came out.

I felt bad asking for a re-take since she did it for free, but tried to word it nicely. I told her I was looking for a more "conversational" feel and linked her to an online dictionary's pronunciation, asking if she could pronounce it that way.

Her answer was, "Yeah, I originally pronounced it with a D but went back to re-do it. The D is just super Utah and so any time I produce something for outside of Utah I like to make sure the T is there."

.... would whoever is telling people lies about their "Utah accents" please stop? No, that isn't super Utah, that's something that every other American English speaker does.

I didn't say that, but I did want to reply, so I told her not to worry about having a Utah accent, she sounded very standard American to me.

Goodness.

Jonathon · « **Reply #1496 on:** June 09, 2015, 03:06:55 PM »

I think I'd let her know that's a general American English thing. Otherwise she'll probably keep overenunciating on other stuff.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1497 on:** June 09, 2015, 09:54:27 PM »

I want to. I'm not sure how well she'll buy my authority on the subject, though.

Annie Subjunctive · « **Reply #1498 on:** June 11, 2015, 12:43:54 PM »

Argh. I think I've learned my lesson just not to go with the free voiceover lady. She fixed her pronunciation of "meter" for me, but there are so many other places where she's just awkward and strained. She paces sentences really oddly. Her voice has a nice quality, so it sounds really professional, but then the sentences are just so stilted that the end result is weirdness.

pooka · « **Reply #1499 on:** June 19, 2015, 08:28:12 AM »

Did you see "In a World"? I don't know that I can recommend it since it frequently crossed into raunchy territory. It was just interesting to explore the idea of people who take voiceover so seriously. In the follow up ending, they showed that it can be pretty important in how you present yourself. Though it's hard to believe that people with that kind of problem wouldn't just note the problem and correct it. I know my hair looks ridiculous, but since I'm not currently being paid by anyone to look professional, I'm going to keep rocking the 1st year Hermione look.