Can we speak "a lot kinds of things" in English?

@JTT,

Your opinion is as valuable to me, and anyone else come to that, as ever it was.

@McTag,

It's not my opinion. It is a carefully thought out judgement from language science. While people like you can offer good opinions, I've seen some, your overly simplistic notions can be damaging.

When you go to the old canards/prescriptions your info is completely useless. And you know it.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

your overly simplistic notions can be damaging.

Still with the personal attacks, eh?

You have a few well-thumbed textbooks, but no commonsense, no manners, and no class.

Additionally, you display your gift, as someone once said, for inaccurate summary.
I write on this forum mainly for diversion, and the most off-putting sight on a thread update is to see that the last contributor is Oralloy, Gungasnake or JTT. Unpleasantness is guaranteed. You should be ashamed.

2 Replies

@McTag,

That you write mainly for diversion is apparent. You diverting ESLs with your oft times cockamamie language notions is not at all helpful. You're like a quack, dispensing "medical advice".

0 Replies

@McTag,

Quote:

Still with the personal attacks, eh?

Nope, just the truth, something that you have difficulty with.

Quote:

. You have a few well-thumbed textbooks, but no commonsense, no manners, and no class.

Why do you take such pleasure in parading your ignorance? What do you have but a collection of old prescriptivist rags which you are ashamed to quote from. And the teachings of a couple of equally ignorant parents.

The top books on language science, the ones that illustrate the lies you have been long advancing are hardly textbooks.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

the teachings of a couple of equally ignorant parents.

No manners, and no class.

1 Reply

@McTag,

You were the one who described your parents teaching you about can/may. That clearly was ignorance of how English actually works.

You don't seem to much go for facts and straight forwardness, McTag.

But you do have a penchant for zeroing in on the inane.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

You were the one who described your parents teaching you

In your pathological eagerness to attack me, you have misrepresented what I described. In common with most other people in the developed world, my parents were the ones who supervised my education, provided my vocabulary, advised on my reading matter in early years. What a surprise.

Quote:

about can/may

You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this, as you keep harping back to it. The words have discrete meanings, and also a degree of overlap. It is best for a foreign learner to be aware of the difference.

2 Replies

@McTag,

Quote:

he words have discrete meanings, and also a degree of overlap. It is best for a foreign learner to be aware of the difference.

And you were not able to accurately describe those differences saddled as you are with the nonsense your parents, by your own words, put in your head.

0 Replies

@McTag,

I feel no need to attack you but I will point out what seems to be increasingly dumb ideas on language.

What is pathological is your complete inability to deal with the language issues you raise.

0 Replies

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

I have explained to you before, Ori. It's not you who has to spend the time fixing the screwups.

I operate from scientific language sources, most of these others from sources that would be laughed out of academia.

If those were scientific findings, you may write an article and contribute it to Applied linguistics, a peer-reviewed journal by Oxford. Criticise the academia and win respect. To attack any one in particular, esp. your best friend McTag in A2K is very wroing.
Remember: Publish or Perish.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

You're being ludicrous, Ori. McTag's offerings are mostly crap.

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

You're being ludicrous, Ori. McTag's offerings are mostly crap.

Do you mean McTag's offerings are mostly prescriptive？Because prescriptivist's language is crap in your eye.

1 Reply

@oristarA,

They are sometimes prescriptive and they are frequently misinformed. That's not a good combination.

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

They are sometimes prescriptive and they are frequently misinformed. That's not a good combination.

He's not a linguistic professor of Oxford or Cambridge. His information cannot be so accurate. He gives clues and hints which are helpful.

2 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

He's not a linguistic professor of Oxford or Cambridge. His information cannot be so accurate. He gives clues and hints which are helpful.

I'm glad that we've got that established. Damned with faint praise.

0 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

He's not a linguistic professor of Oxford or Cambridge. His information cannot be so accurate

Don't be misled by "a person who knows how language really works" yet makes so many howlers and blunders up so many blind alleys. My offerings are indeed accurate, and a lot more sensible than JTTs in my humble opinion. I'm not one of the native English speakers who need to be told what to think by the likes of Professor Pinker. The Disciples of Pinker (let's call them DOPES for short) have developed a branch of study of interest and value chiefly to themselves. JTT apparently can't hack it among his peers, and that's most likely why he hangs about here, giving himself airs, baffling himself, trying to patronise all and sundry and insulting his betters.

3 Replies

@McTag,

McTag the language doofus, repeating the nonsense his ignorant parents saddled him with.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

My offerings are indeed accurate, and a lot more sensible than JTTs in my humble opinion.

Your opinion is not at all humble. You have a much overinflated sense of what you know about English.

It's not much at all. It could be good but you're so bogged down by the silly notions you've picked up over your lifetime of blind dedication to prescriptive nonsense.

Quote:

I'm not one of the native English speakers who need to be told what to think by the likes of Professor Pinker.

What an idiotic comment! Descriptivists aren't told what to think nor do they tell others what they must and mustn't do as regards language.

That is the province of prescriptivists like you. That was the sum total of your peeves threads - a bunch of dolts spreading lies that they had heard about language, with not an original thought from the lot, certainly not from you.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Quote:
He's not a linguistic professor of Oxford or Cambridge. His information cannot be so accurate

Don't be misled by "a person who knows how language really works" yet makes so many howlers and blunders up so many blind alleys. My offerings are indeed accurate, and a lot more sensible than JTTs in my humble opinion. I'm not one of the native English speakers who need to be told what to think by the likes of Professor Pinker. The Disciples of Pinker (let's call them DOPES for short) have developed a branch of study of interest and value chiefly to themselves. JTT apparently can't hack it among his peers, and that's most likely why he hangs about here, giving himself airs, baffling himself, trying to patronise all and sundry and insulting his betters.

Thanks for clearing that.

Is Professor Pinker the idol of JTT？

Quote:

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.

0 Replies

Can we speak "a lot kinds of things" in English?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know