Periods Meeting Quotes

@JTT,

Love your work JTT.

Good bait for a good catch.

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@JTT,

Blimey!! The president of Harvard is a lady called Faust.

What a crass solecism.

No wonder there are stories going around about Harvard trading on the reputation of its past excellence and providing easy, beautifully embossed, certificates for cash.

Not to worry though: they say Oxford and Cambridge are at it as well.

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@JTT,

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[I knew I shouldn't have thrown another difficult concept at you] But I don't expect you to understand that either.

So glad you got the first gratuitous insult out of the way quickly, JTT. I am sure you feel much better about yourself with that done...and I am always delighted when you are feeling better about yourself.

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Everyone learns to speak their language, Frank. Not everyone learns to read and/or write. Reading and writing are artificial aspects of language.

And that is because you have designated it as such...or do you have a god in your corner helping you with that?

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But let's not get off topic.

That ought to be interesting as a change for you.

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You still haven't provided anything in defense of "your" prescription. You still haven't addressed any of the reason I've laid out illustrating why the prescription is a falsehood and "everyone/their" collocations are as natural as ... speech.

The prescription, JTT is not a falsehood...it is the prescription. Jeez!

You may think the prescription to be unnecessary and not especially useful...BUT THE PRESCRIPTION IS THE PRESCRIPTION.

The notion it is a falsehood is really just a means for you to get your jollies by calling those of us who brought it up "liars" or "falsehood spreaders."

Hey, we understand your psychological needs...and none of us AM stopping you from dealing with them as you obviously have to (prep ending)!

But we are just calling your attention to the fact that your depiction of what we have said is more a "falsehood" than the item you are calling a falsehood.

Anyway, you wanted to get back on topic. Read the topic heading...read the question asked...and answer it.

THEN YOU WILL BE BACK ON TOPIC.

Or, let us continue this interesting and entertaining sidebar in which we are engaged.

Yer cherse, JTT.

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@JTT,

Quote:

Reading and writing are artificial aspects of language.

But you couldn't have written that post out of grunts and chirps and squeaks. Your posts are 100% determined by the language you call artificial and that makes your posts artificial as well. Which I assume you concede.

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Writing, the alphabet, punctuation, have been largely determined by a much smaller segment of users of the language.

That's a red herring. It doesn't matter that the developers of the language were a small number. Or are now. The number who use it is what matters and even people who can't read or write use their artificial language and not a language developed exclusively orally. Such a language has no A2K. It has Twitter mind you. Emotion symbols. But what crudity.

Only an artificial language can convey the nuances in a question mark to those who didn't see the question asked. And this artificial language not only conditions how people communicate but also a great amount of how they think.

Quote:

You still haven't addressed any of the reason I've laid out illustrating why the prescription is a falsehood...

But prescription is not a falsehood when prescription is the most efficient means of communication. Like with a railway timetable. Or a legal definition of penetration.

"Are you claiming that biology has primacy over intellect?" he said, leaning forward slightly and looking over his glasses apprehensively. Which is a defensible proposition. An evolutionist has no alternative it seems to me.

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@Frank Apisa,

Im reading your responses to these guys. They are funny little gnomes arent they?

Ive always used semicolons in the connection of two clauses that are independent. Hoever, Ive always used parentheses where there was an independent/deendent claual relationship.

I have several cattle,*six are Dexter and the others are all Irish "

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@farmerman,

Glad you are reading this stuff, FM.

JTT does seem intent on making her own rigid take on this issue to be the CORRECT AND ONLY CORRECT take...and is equally intent on characterizing any other position to be false and reprehensible.

Don't really know the dynamic at work here with her, but I guess for some people, taking a dump must be a major ordeal! Anal, when applied to some of her recent posts in this thread, should be capitalized, but that would only bring on another round of accusations of "you are a liar spreading falsehoods"...and I think that would be a further waste of bandwidth.

Spendius, I might mention, although he is loathe to agree with me on anything, seems to see this issue in similar light to me. His arguments are right on the button. I guess I gotta thank JTT for helping make that connection.

By the way, I really enjoyed the farm work post you made on the 4th of July thread. Laughed my butt off! Hope you did manage to see some fireworks despite the demands of a farmer's live!

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@Frank Apisa,

Im only reading your seriatem clips of others. It sounds like, unless you are only clipping the ones that mke those two sound even more deranged, that they are rising to the bait and are getting frustrated with your cityfied sense of humor.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Put your teeth back in fm for ****'s sake.

Can you assert that the pile of cowshit I have is a heap of gold doubloons. I'll go fifty-fifty. Or ninety ten if you insist.

I have several cattle, six of which are Dexter and the others Irish. Isn't "all" unnecessary?

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

His arguments are right on the button.

Do you mean that fm can't assert my cowshit into doubloons? Aaaaaaww!! Shite! I thought I was on easy street.

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@farmerman,

Frank does not have a sense of humour fm. And neither do you.

A sense of humour is only accessible to those who view the antics of the human race as idiotic. And the antics of animals as well.

Both of you take yourselves so seriously that such a frame of mind is out of your reach. It is really quite funny how seriously you take not taking anything seriously and imagining you have a sense of humour. So seriously that you are ever on the alert for opportunities to point these things out to people and offer them as proof of your superiority.

You ******* silly, supercilious twat!!

1 Reply

@spendius,

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Frank does not have a sense of humour fm.

When I was in England, I dates a pair of anorexic twins. Two birds, one stone.

Now...tell me again that I have no sense of humor.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

I'll explain the humor in that joke to the non-British among us tomorrow!

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@Frank Apisa,

Sorry to hear about your testicular problems Frank.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

But if I suggest to someone that a particular usage may be wrong,

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Nice try to borrow my “you’ve come a long way”, JTT

Just in this thread, you've gone from probably to may. [You earlier went from damn sure to probably] It's easy to tell that you are learning, Frank, albeit, quite reluctantly - your embarrassed, and childish obtuseness illustrates that.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Frank writes: The prescription, JTT is not a falsehood...it is the prescription. Jeez!

You may think the prescription to be unnecessary and not especially useful...BUT THE PRESCRIPTION IS THE PRESCRIPTION.

Did you read right past this, Frank?

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Of course, you have a perfect right to hold the opinion that 'they' with a singular antecedent seems distasteful or ugly to you. In that case I would advise you not to use it. But don't call it a grammatical error, because it clearly isn't one, and never has been. Don't say that it betokens a breakdown in our ability to tell singular from plural, because it doesn't.

And don't allege that it generally introduces ambiguity, because it doesn't.

And this,

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And in contemporary Standard English, with antecedents like somebody or everyone or any citizen, people typically use the pronoun 'they' for "bound variable" meanings in this sort of syntactic situation.

Strunk and White baldly assert that this is an error. They simply say don't use 'they' with syntactically singular antecedents like somebody. They don't give a reason; and it is pretty clear they didn't know anything much about the literary evidence that 'they' has been grammatical and normal with singular antecedents for six or seven centuries. Strunk and White are just wrong about Standard English syntax, here as nearly everywhere else where they deal with grammar in their book The Elements of Style.

Did you learn this falsehood from Strunk & White, Frank, and now you are too ashamed to admit it, too ashamed to admit that S&W is one of the skinny little "grammar" books in your possession?

You continue to assert the nonsense that a falsehood isn't a falsehood because the falsehood is just a prescription, nothing more.

In golf, when teeing off at the start of a hole you must always use a putter, and only a putter. No other choice of club is permissable because, ... well just because. That should be more than enough reason for any sensible person.

Don't be misled because you see other people using different clubs, don't be misled because others have used different clubs for centuries. They are simply ignorant buffoons who don't know that one must only use a putter in those situations.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

I'll explain the humor in that joke to the non-British among us tomorrow!

Nobody except visiting American tourists has called women or girls "birds" since about 1965.

1 Reply

@contrex,

contrex wrote:

Nobody except visiting American tourists has called women or girls "birds" since about 1965.

Interesting. I heard women/girls referred to as "birds" by non-American locals when I visited in the early 90s.

I suppose you'll tell me that's only because I was a visiting American tourist ...

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I'll explain the humor in that joke to the non-British among us tomorrow!

An American suggesting worldliness. A rare sighting indeed!

Don't you really mean, Frank, "I'll explain it to all the Americans tomorrow". Smile

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@Ticomaya,

Ticomaya wrote:

Interesting. I heard women/girls referred to as "birds" by non-American locals when I visited in the early 90s.

I suppose you'll tell me that's only because I was a visiting American tourist ...

Well, the early 90s were 20 years ago; in any case 'birds' is decidedly old-fashioned, quaint, even.

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I'll explain the humor in that joke to the non-British among us tomorrow!

I'm acquiver with nervous anticipation.

1 Reply

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