Philosophy
Had a student ask yesterday about grammatical pet peeves. His was "irregardless." My big three are:
1) "Quote" used for "quotation." Quote is a verb. You quote someone. What you write down is not a quote, but a quotation. " are quotation marks, not quotes.
2) The death of the adverb. It seems the only times we hear "ly" these days is Bruce Lee and broccoli. the adjectival forms are used as adverbs. Come on people, did you never play MadLibs?
3) Less/fewer. Even on NPR, I'm hearing less used for discrete objects. You can have less butter, but you get fewer eggs.
What grammatical errors make you want to dangle your participle in public?
- Modern Mencken
Tomorrow is Mencken day at the Enoch Pratt Library, honoring one of the great intellects of Baltimore. Who would be the modern day version of H.L. Mencken? Is there a writer who is smart, ascerbic, conservative, and wry? P.J. O'Rourke? ...
- Fricking Fracking Fixtures
Two questions from Michael Schmidt. First, "Frack" a suitable substitute for the expletive "fuck," and "frickin'" (or "frikkin'") is a suitable substitute for the participle "fuckin'". Why, then, is "frick" rarely used as a substitute...
- The Nature Of Genius
What does it mean for one to be a genius? Is genius just the upper end of the really smart continuum? Is there a difference between genius and really, really, really, smart? Is it a difference of kind or degree? Is genius a matter of...
- Group E-mail Vs. Spam
Is there a difference between sending an e-mail to a group of people and spam? Is the difference based on the number of people contacted? If so, where is the dividing line between contacting a bunch of folks and sending spam? Or is it...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
Philosophy
Grammar Curmudeons
Had a student ask yesterday about grammatical pet peeves. His was "irregardless." My big three are:
1) "Quote" used for "quotation." Quote is a verb. You quote someone. What you write down is not a quote, but a quotation. " are quotation marks, not quotes.
2) The death of the adverb. It seems the only times we hear "ly" these days is Bruce Lee and broccoli. the adjectival forms are used as adverbs. Come on people, did you never play MadLibs?
3) Less/fewer. Even on NPR, I'm hearing less used for discrete objects. You can have less butter, but you get fewer eggs.
What grammatical errors make you want to dangle your participle in public?
- Modern Mencken
Tomorrow is Mencken day at the Enoch Pratt Library, honoring one of the great intellects of Baltimore. Who would be the modern day version of H.L. Mencken? Is there a writer who is smart, ascerbic, conservative, and wry? P.J. O'Rourke? ...
- Fricking Fracking Fixtures
Two questions from Michael Schmidt. First, "Frack" a suitable substitute for the expletive "fuck," and "frickin'" (or "frikkin'") is a suitable substitute for the participle "fuckin'". Why, then, is "frick" rarely used as a substitute...
- The Nature Of Genius
What does it mean for one to be a genius? Is genius just the upper end of the really smart continuum? Is there a difference between genius and really, really, really, smart? Is it a difference of kind or degree? Is genius a matter of...
- Group E-mail Vs. Spam
Is there a difference between sending an e-mail to a group of people and spam? Is the difference based on the number of people contacted? If so, where is the dividing line between contacting a bunch of folks and sending spam? Or is it...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...