I Think

Well, I took the siding off around the left half of the back door. The right half still has a few dozen screws holding it in place. Got to replace some rotted wood, then put on sheathing. There is a broad area of wall that I can fill in with new siding, once that is accomplished. There will then be a sixteen foot length of wall to be completed next week or so. Rain is expected more than one day next week; therefore caution is to be employed. (There's an exercise in semicolon usage. He he.)

On the topic of using correct English, I have always, in each case, used the structure that seemed best at the time. As a student, I never thoroughly learned the rules they threw at us. Because I read library books, constantly, I was able to guess enough correct answers on the tests to pass. My problem was, my life was awash in negativity. Futility reigned. It kept me from being able to concentrate on and retain such information. Novels, including The Black Stallion and biographies such as Jedediah Smith, I clearly remembered, because they took me out of a drab world, sharing with me feelings and human contact of a kind not there for me in the day to day misery of 'true' life. In present day my writing I have to feel my way to the completed product, because I generally cannot tell you why a sentence is better in any paragraph than a similar one.

My post of yesterday somehow got lost. Oh, well. My little jots are mostly disposable.

The thread on semicolons has me contemplating my knowledge of proper English. The truth is, I had a tough go of it in grade school. I could not remember the rules. Only the fact that I read so many library books enabled me to make good enough guesses to pass the tests. My entire childhood was engulfed in futility, a primary factor keeping me from absorbing most of what I was assigned to learn. Novels and biographies were my escape. The ones I loved are still with me, mostly. Today, when I write my stories, I go over the material dozens of times, until it flows according to my senses. Rules of grammar are only kept in tow to the extent they do not interfere with my wishes.

I only watched the Superbowl in bits and pieces. The commercial that featured a kiss offended my senses. Not that I think an overweight guy should not be allowed to smooch good looking women. It was all in the presentation.

That is why you see the word "bump" around here so often, Edgar!

I agree about the presentation being the issue that was offputting. Editorially, just who/whom is the appeal of the ad directed towards? Pre and post-pubescent 14-yr-olds? Anyone recall what the ad was for and whatever did this have to do with the product? What does an ad like this tell a young audience?

In this you are no different than any of the great writers of English, Edgar. Or, for that matter, any one of your fellow English native speakers.



No one does, no one has ever learned those "rules", because they weren't rules. At best, we can memorize them. They were prescriptions, Ed, made up rules, rules that are "alien to the natural working of language". Language science has described this many times. I've also described this many times here at A2K. But it's hard to eradicate these old canards people hold about anything.



Essentially you were lied to, Edgar. Those that taught you were ignorant of the history of these made up rules. Pick any one of the rules you do remember being taught and in all likelihood it'll be one of these false rules.



That's what everyone has to do in order to pass these nonsense tests. Those rules aren't rules; they never were rules. Keep this one thought in mind: they are "alien to the natural workings of language".

People operating naturally in language don't follow these prescriptions. They can't, because, again, these prescriptions are alien to the natural workings of language.

Scientists studying language find that those who scream loudest about those breaking the rules often do so themselves, sometimes in the same text wherein they chastise others for breaking the "rules".

Since you were roughly five years of age, you knew pretty much all the rules of the English language. Don't think that the conventions we all learn for writing are the gold standard for language for writing is an artificial part of language.

Also, don't fall into that false trap that most everyone believes, that the conventions used for writing describe the rules for correct English. That is the biggest lie of all.

The rules for speech and the conventions we follow for writing are very different. Neither one is the gold standard for language use. Each has its place, and in actual fact, there are more than two standards.

You've hit on one of the biggest paradoxes of language, a couple of them actually, and they are intertwined. People think that they learn language, learn to use language correctly by being taught about it in school. This is such patent nonsense. As I noted above, by age five, you knew millions of structural rules about your language, virtually everything you needed to function in language.

When one considers these millions of natural rules, the complexity of these natural rules you learned by age five, it makes the severely limited number of the silly rules/prescriptions you were taught in school look absolutely ridiculous.

See what I mean, Ed, about the number of ignorant people there are, and how wedded they are to the nonsense, when it comes to language. Not just language either.

I agree with much of what you posted. I once spent some time examining the paragraphs of men like Dickens and Maugham, to see if I could learn anything from them. I realized that only they could be Dickens and Maugham. I was left to seek my own voice, for good or ill.

Anybody penning tautologies is performing nonsense JT. The real thing.

It usually derives from having a complacent attitude to personal excellence.

I Thimk thread shall lay fallow this morning.

There's some real blockheads about, Spendi, who are in dire need of repetition.

It be gonna rain all day, so they say.

Vegas is one of those TV shows that has me watching, but not as a loyal viewer. I like the cast, but all the plot twists may fray my attention span. The relationship of the marshal's brother with the daughter of a man he just killed is a story line I would not have pursued, as a writer.

I wonder are there any new authors out there that a person absolutely must not miss? I have cut myself off from such pursuits to a point that I have no idea what's what's worthwhile anymore.

I don't know any ed. I think there are too many people who want to write before they can read and too much corruption in the book industry.

They had forecast some extreme weather for yesterday. What we got instead was slow steady rain, the best kind. Today will warm to about eighty degrees and be drying out.

In the argument about drone usage, I would agree to their deployment in some narrow cases, but not to include so-called collateral damage. And if an American abandons this country to make war against us, I no longer consider the person a citizen. To kill said ex American seems to me to be a necessity.

Tired this morning. After working hard on the job yesterday I came home and moved a bunch of siding and washed it down with bleach to kill mold that had started on many pieces. Hardy Plank gets heavy.

I have always been one to look benevolently on a porous border, as most of those coming this way have been poor working people and I have had opportunity to work alongside of many. I knew one who ran his own crew, building apartment complexes. He owned a house in Houston and one in Corpus Christi. The girl I dated, when we both were twenty, came from Mexico. We would have gotten married, except our differences regarding religion and how many children to have prevented it. I once had a capable man working for me, who used his own crew to frame houses. It was, to us, comical that he used to get picked up by immigration two or three times per year, for he always brought back with him two or more new illegals. My only objection now is the failed drug war that empowers gangs and makes the border more dangerous. Changing drug policy might lessen the criminals need to act across our borders. I don't pretend this would kill the gangs. As organized crime groups they would morph and pursue other illegal activities, likely. But, we have got to start making changes, somewhere.

Crapola, says I. The weather report mentioned an 80% chance for rain tomorrow. I better not tear off that last section of siding today. Fortunately, or not, there are other tasks needing attention.

While I feel for those caught in yesterday's blizzard, it does not keep me from feeling dissatisfied to know that next week's Houston area weather will return to highs in the sixties, rather than the seventies, which I had gotten used to. One man's ideal well may be the other's bleh.

Daily I read calls to impeach Pelosi and Obama on the internet. Is it time to form moves to impeach Boehner? Grounds? We don't need no stinking grounds.

I bought volume two of the seventh season of Gunsmoke yester evening. I had forgotten that at that time, many prime time shows lasted 90 minutes. Each episode is an entire movie. This has to be when that program began centering the stories around non cast characters. Likely a decision that prevented the stars from overwork and demanding more pay.

The search for LA's rogue exlawman is taking longer than I had anticipated. He seems more concerned with eluding capture just now, rather than attacking his stated targets. He likely hopes to get away and then return to the task later on.

Rain to continue through Tuesday.

We went to the flea market yesterday. We walked countless stalls and dealers, but I saw nothing I genuinely have to have. One man had some beautiful turntables, but the cheapest was almost $400. He also had an Elvis Presley record for $200. I saw DeWalt cordless drills for $100. But if I could pay that much for possibly near wore out I would pay the extra for a new one. Puppies for sale.

I never sit through the Grammys. Janis Ian posted on facebook that she got one. I did not dig to find out for what. One picture of her also depicts the cover of her autobiography, Society's Child.

A CNN commentator has said global warming is possibly the cause of an asteroid that is claimed by scientists to be on a trajectory that brings it very near to Earth. Zzzzzzzz.

I decided to quit trapping the neighborhood squirrels. I don't know when they have babies, so I better hold off, at least until and if they become nuisances again.

I hope the president does not give in further to those who would cut funding for the most vulnerable citizens while resisting cutting military and taxing the rich more. Likewise gun control. I hope he pushes strongly for effective measures. I find it confusing following his actions from week to week.

It's meant to be confusing ed. A free people have to be confused because its better for them to be prevented from doing what they want to do by confusing them rather than by whipping them.

The restrictions I have heard proposed will do little to alter the attrition rate. They will cause massacre shooters to refine their logistics.

Confusion on this issue would end if guns were banned or the cops withdrew and allowed the population to shift for itself as evolution intended. The latter would have the obvious advantage of sending gun business shares soaring.

I suspect we ultimately will be faced with cuts in both areas, Edgar.

The system is the problem...unbridled capitalism will be the death of us.