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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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 Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Adventurer wrote: |
| Alyallen wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| That is one point to consider in response to Alyallen: no you are not in public office; but you are [i]professional, English-language educators , no?[/i] I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Alyallen. |
Seriously, if you are going to talk about professionalism and education, at least get the sentence right.
Looks like someone should step away from the forum and hit the books again. |
Aly, you are right, Gopher's paragraph sounded strange. It does happen in forums. It is not a big deal. However, since he was saying many of the people who were criticizing the president for his mangling of his native tongue by saying they used English grammar poorly as well. I am sure Gopher can write well. This is a forum, after all.
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It didn't sound strange to me. And when Alyallen questioned it, I went through it carefully and couldn't find an error (and I have a fairly good eye for that kind of thing). And I understood it on first reading exactly how Gopher later explained it.
And it was two sentences.  |
[quote="Big_Bird"][quote="Adventurer"][quote="Alyallen"]
| Gopher wrote: |
| That is one point to consider in response to Alyallen: no you are not in public office; but you are [i]professional, English-language educators , no?[/i] I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Alyallen. |
Big_Bird, I am not looking to dissect Gopher's writing. That is not my thing on a forum, because that is almost like getting personal. However, that is something he commenced.
It sounds strange to write the following: "I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Allyallen."
Here is how it should have been written: "I think that your students are merely on par with the president, then, Alyallen."
You also are not supposed to capitalize the word president. It can only be capitalized if it is followed by the name of president. I can capitalized the word president if it is followed by the proper name Bush. It is not in this case. However, I only bring this up, because Alyallen brought it up.
I, actually, didn't pay attention to Gopher's errors. I am sure we all make errors, at any rate; I am not picking on Gopher. The first sentence is okay since the use of the subject you can refer to teachers and not Alyallen. The other one just didn't sound right at all. It happens...
Let's just deal with the issue of how politicians should sound in public which is what this thread is about. Does it matter? If not, why not?
If so, why? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject: |
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Adventurer: for reasons of space -- not to mention, I lack the time to educate you properly, even if I think you have real grounds for complaining to someone about your education -- I will not get into why it is stylistically fine and standard in some cases to refer to a sitting President of the United States as "the President" with a capital "P."
| Adventurer wrote: |
It sounds strange to write the following: "I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Allyallen."
Here is how it should have been written: "I think that your students are merely on par with the president, then, Alyallen." |
What???
Adventurer: your rewrite of my words completely destroys the meaning I intended to, and then successfully did, convey. Secondly, what errors are you talking about? Please be specific and cite grammatical rules and/or correct spellings.
I think you are just dense. And self-righteous. Terrible combination. But, this notwithstanding, a typical one. (Was that Hemmingway enough to get my point across to you? ) |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
Big_Bird, I am not looking to dissect Gopher's writing. That is not my thing on a forum, because that is almost like getting personal. However, that is something he commenced.
It sounds strange to write the following: "I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Allyallen."
Here is how it should have been written: "I think that your students are merely on par with the president, then, Alyallen." |
Adventurer, do you realise those two sentences differ semantically? You've written a sentence that now differs in meaning from Gopher's original. Read them carefully again, and I think you'll see what I mean.
I will, however, point out to Gopher and Alyallen, that I think it is quite naughty to criticise grammar and spelling on an internet forum used for casual discussion. |
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Alyallen
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Location: The 4th Greatest Place on Earth = Jeonju!!!
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| Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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The power of reading in between classes after getting 4 hours of sleep.
I made an error. I'll admit that.... 
Does that count as an Alyism?  |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:11 am Post subject: ... |
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| HAS DRAGGED ON IN THE PRESS ON IN FORA LIKE THESE |
Careful there, professor.
Had to fish that outta your rambling spew.
What's more, look at how much you had to write to try and explain away your ambiguous use of "you". That's indicative of poor writing.
Finally, your left-baiting antics are shrill and petty. This thread is still around because of you. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:24 am Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
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| HAS DRAGGED ON IN THE PRESS ON IN FORA LIKE THESE |
Careful there, professor.
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Careful there, Nowhere Man. You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.
To be fair to Gopher, he wasn't trying to say "Look at me, I'm Prince Grammer 2007 of the CE forum." Rather he was saying "Look at you, sneering at Bush's grammar, when you yourselves are making plenty of mistakes AND you are English teachers!"
He did kind of have a point.
Myself, I'm careful about making fun of someone's language difficulties. It's not indicative of their intelligence. My sister is very bright and was accepted into uni early. She did one of the most difficult courses offered and passed with excellent grades. Yet she is a poor writer, and regularly fluffs her lines. I nicknamed her Ms Malaprop.
So Bush's language 'hiccups' don't necessarly point to him being a nitwit. Anyway, there's plenty of other evidence out there to show that he is. 
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| What's more, look at how much you had to write to try and explain away your ambiguous use of "you". That's indicative of poor writing. |
That's an interesting thing to say. I'm not sure how that follows? I took a linguistic subject not so long ago where we'd write whole paragraphs analysing a single sentence. Anyway, whether or not it was ambiguous (and I'm not certain it was as I had understood it pretty much as he later explained it), it was grammatically correct. That's one drawback of the English language, the use of You for both the 2nd person singular and 2nd person plural. In the dialect in which I was reared we still use the 2nd person singular - thee and thy - which is much much better! [Although we toowik proppa wi' strangers, lahk]
Anyway, this is how I understood that apparently controversial linguistic nugget:
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| That is one point to consider in response to Alyallen: |
Here Mr G is refering to a point he's just made, and indicating that he is now responding to Alyallen
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| no you are not in public office; but you are professional, English-language educators, no? |
It's clear he's using the 2nd person plural, because of the plural noun to which 'you' refers (see the s at the end of educator). It's also understood that Alyallen is included as one of these educators.
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| I think more than merely your students are on par with the President, then, Alyallen. |
Here it is ambiguous as to whether 'you' is singular or plural, but either way, it's still inclusive of Alyallen and, further more, it's really not important here if the 'you' is plural or not. It could mean Alyallen, or Alyallen and the other educators to which Gopher has already refered, but it's neither 'here nor there' as it doesn't alter Gopher's point.
Sorry - I love discussions on writing and grammar etc. Now you can all get back to discussing the OP.  |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject: ... |
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To be fair to Gopher, he wasn't trying to say "Look at me, I'm Prince Grammer 2007 of the CE forum." Rather he was saying "Look at you, sneering at Bush's grammar, when you yourselves are making plenty of mistakes AND you are English teachers!"
He did kind of have a point. |
Fair enough. He was also obsessing about people obsessing about Bush. I was saying, "Look at you, sneering at people obsessing, when you yourself are obsessing!"
I might have a point.
By the way, you should have a comma before your quotations.
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Quote:
That is one point to consider in response to Alyallen:
Here Mr G is refering to a point he's just made, and indicating that he is now responding to Alyallen
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Refering?
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Quote:
no you are not in public office; but you are professional, English-language educators, no?
It's clear he's using the 2nd person plural, because of the plural noun to which 'you' refers (see the s at the end of educator). It's also understood that Alyallen is included as one of these educators. |
It's bad form for the same pronoun to have 2 different referents in the same sentence. Of course, Gopher suggests that he is using the 2nd person plural in both cases. He refers to Alyallen, then leads off with 'you'. The antecedent in this case is Alyallen, not Alyallen's point. The very fact that Gopher has to explain that what he means demonstrates that this statement is poorly written. As long as we're getting pedantic, I think that's crap use of a coordinating conjunction, too.
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| Here it is ambiguous as to whether 'you' is singular or plural, but either way, it's still inclusive of Alyallen and, further more, it's really not important here if the 'you' is plural or not. It could mean Alyallen, or Alyallen and the other educators to which Gopher has already refered, but it's neither 'here nor there' as it doesn't alter Gopher's point. |
Gopher's larger point is that, although he thinks Bush is terrible, no one should talk about it. Talking about it leads to his appearance on a thread. From there, he will eventually spin whatever's been said into the most extreme form he can come up with:
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| so pedantically if not self-righteously coming down on the President for each and every error he might make as if the world's fate were hanging in the balance. |
It's a simple message he repeats over and over and over: You're an extremist for criticizing Bush. You've come unhinged obsessing about him. Apparently, this doesn't apply to his own obsession with "the left" although he does appear to be going through some phases of cognitive dissonance as he metmorphoses from a Democrat into a full-blooded Republican.
Then, he'll show up elsewhere and speak loftily of how debate on this forum ought to be elevated. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
By the way, you should have a comma before your quotations.
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Bugger. OK Referring! On this thread I should have paid a bit more attention, eh? 
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It's bad form for the same pronoun to have 2 different referents in the same sentence. Of course, Gopher suggests that he is using the 2nd person plural in both cases. He refers to Alyallen, then leads off with 'you'. The antecedent in this case is Alyallen, not Alyallen's point. The very fact that Gopher has to explain that what he means demonstrates that this statement is poorly written. As long as we're getting pedantic, I think that's crap use of a coordinating conjunction, too. |
This may be so in a more formal setting (where we'd all tend to give our writing more thought anyway), but since ths is a message board, it was perfectly adequate. It wasn't really that hard to understand what he was on about in the context of this thread. It's bad form to criticise writing in the context of a message board. I've already scolded Gopher and Alyallen for their naughtiness in that respect!
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| Then, he'll show up elsewhere and speak loftily of how debate on this forum ought to be elevated. |
I think many of us here are guilty of that particular example of hypocricy! |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:50 am Post subject: ... |
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It's "hypocrisy".
I seem to have missed the part where you scolded [sic]-boy.
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Then, he'll show up elsewhere and speak loftily of how debate on this forum ought to be elevated.
I think many of us here are guilty of that particular example of hypocricy! Wink |
That's an interesting POV. However, I have to disagree. I don't see many people here pining for Socratic explorations of the human condition on this board. Moreover, if anyone else had such designs, I doubt you'd find them on another thread chiding someone to commit suicide. The real humdinger is that that's really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to said individual's self-contradictions. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| It's "hypocrisy". |
And yoo deedunt hav ehnee diffukulty undastandin wot it ment, didju? Witch is awl that reely matturs in thuh end.
| Jeremy The Nowhere Man wrote: |
| I seem to have missed the part where you scolded [sic]-boy. |
Somewhere on this thread. It's one of my pet peeves in fact - people getting picky about writing on a casual message board. I got very bored of people whinging about DD, whose style I rather liked anyway. But to be fair to Gopher, he was only making the point that we are guilty of what Bush is doing, and Alyallen was making the point that he in turn was guilty of what she was doing, and so on. But I'm not sure what your point is concerning this? You'd better watch your spelling and grammar forever and ever from this day forth Nowhere Man, or we will be on your case before you can say "Oh buggery!"
Last edited by Big_Bird on Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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I left the screen on this thread, and my two year old has just been chattering away about the avatars on this page.
"It's a king. A king of pirates!!"
"It's monsters! It's a scary!! Another man. Monsters!" <I'm still a bit puzzled about that one....>
"It's a bird! Bird singing. Yellow! I wanna Cookie Monster!" *points at black space* "See Cookie Monster over here!"
Elephant! It's elephant! <???>
He looked in disgust at that one! Clearly not impressive to a 2 year old... |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| But I'm not sure what your point is concerning this? |
Another twisted poster who follows me around from thread to thread to pick apart whatever I might say, play crude baiting games, put words into my mouth, whatever.
Nowhere Man, the Sandwich Man/Keane, and Gang ah jee. My own personal prosecutor(s), judges, and juries. Probably all the same poster...
Shrug.
In any case, if Nowhere Man means to suggest that people in glass houses should not throw rocks -- and that, in this case especially, that is, seven years of non-stop mocking...well, then I will thank Nowhere Man for coming onto this thread and reinforcing my own point. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:24 am Post subject: ... |
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| Quote: |
| But to be fair to Gopher, he was only making the point that we are guilty of what Bush is doing, and Alyallen was making the point that he in turn was guilty of what she was doing, and so on. But I'm not sure what your point is concerning this? |
I'm objecting to what I find objectionable. If Gopher wants to "educate" people, it's fair game to comment on the quality of his "education".
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He looked in disgust at that one! Clearly not impressive to a 2 year old...
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That explains why some posters don't like me much.
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Another twisted poster who follows me around from thread to thread to pick apart whatever I might say, play crude baiting games, put words into my mouth, whatever.
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"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:32 am Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
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He looked in disgust at that one! Clearly not impressive to a 2 year old...
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That explains why some posters don't like me much. |
Perhaps you would be much more loveable with one like this? You'd certainly be viewed more favourably by little_bird, at any rate. 
Actually, this is the avatar for you
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The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject: Re: ... |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| . Moreover, if anyone else had such designs, I doubt you'd find them on another thread chiding someone to commit suicide. . |
I doubt you'd find that many people chiding someone to commit suicide. Simply because chide means to scold or reprimand someone. |
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