Grammar

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I gave myself a Masters in Grammar, and I'm here to answer questions. Let's push the boundaries, people. 

Grammar just hasn't been the same since Grampa passed away.

If my participle is dangling, should I use a truss to shore it up?

Ummm...

What's up with the semi-colon ? When, where, how ?

Outside the quotation marks, damn it!

 

Grammar is ear-relevant.

 

Language does what language does and grammarians observe and collate those things.

Hey now, r n Terrapin. Greetings. New Zoner, or new handle? Thank you for the excellent question. The semi-colon history is in Wikipedia, and it's a good page - and I'll rehash it, if you want me to - but let's stick to the current uses. 

1. to separate items in a list that themselves need commas. But, you can get creative like I just did in that close to run-on sentence. 

2. to indicate cause and effect in either order. "I was hungry; I ate lunch." Stylistically, it's punchier than using a comma and a conjunction, or two sentences. It depends on the rhythm of the piece. 

I don't do programming, so sorry to disappoint you if you were looking forward to that. Maybe someday. Do you know?

Any more? Anyone? I'm only a Masters, after all. I have an idea for the disser-tation, but not quite there yet. I'm thinking of calling it "The Grammar Machine (Fuck All You Linguists)." I'll keep yall updated. 

 

Good fun. 

 

 

 

Mike E knows what a Serial Comma is, and still uses it. I'm not sure I trust him. What say you, Mike? Wanna come at me? 

Aaaaaaaaand... If I fuck up, I'll admit it, and give you bonus points on your final grade. Now it's 22:46 (colon for ratio of hours to minutes), so I'm hittin' the sheets. Good night, good people (~);-}

I fluctuate on the Oxford Comma, Floops. I'd say I use it about 80% of the time but then I go on jags where I do away with commas altogether.

Oh, well, me too. Trying shit out differently now and then is essential. Okay, I'll trust you. So, I'd disagree with "...observe and collate..." and say they're almost universally lost in Latin Brain, so they try to force northern grammars into southern metaphors. Thus they're tyrants as well. What say you? 

> I'd disagree with "...observe and collate..." and say they're almost universally lost in Latin Brain

I didn't say when the observations and collations took place, Floops. So you agree with "Language does what language does" even though it has the form of a tautology?

No, the next point is that they push the language in their ways, so language doesn't always do what it does. 

Small example: decree of no split infinitives.

Huge example: the Received Shall/Will system.

 

Yes, I edited. I'll stay up a bit. 

Grammar evolves and strict adherents can't usually handle it. 

I'll agree with that, fishcane. Hi. Good to see you. 

Grammarians may push the language, but language always wins. We're just megaphones who mouth the things that need to be said.

The longevity of the aforementioned rules and patterns say otherwise. There's nothing so big in English grammar that is so obviously constructed as the need to say "I shall," but "you will." 

Where language grasps for a future? It's aspirational, I'll grant you that, but the present tense is always where it is at.

Lol! Nice poetry. 

Not the Future Tense per se, but the forced construction and the slavish adherence to it...

Sorry. I am tired. I am crashing. See yas tomorrow. 

And that's my domain, man. Don't burden me with your rules, or I'll reject them. Just. Like. That.

Fuck! Lol. Gotta answer... That's not the point either. I can get that. I'm discussing proper analyses, not eternal truths. 

Okay, sweet dreams. 

Fun playing with you, Floops, as always. Come back soon, and don't forget to send me your mailing address.

Anyone else use Grammarly?

It's a great tool!

 

In Part 2 we could graduate to diagramming sentences.

Good to see you here, floops 

I love and use both plain old commas and Oxford commas, and I use a lot of semi-colons when they make sense to me; I don't need any stinking rules of use.

I tend to structure sentences as I think, not according to the way it's supposed to be done. I might communicate more clearly if I did, but I don't. I try my best.

I feel self-conscious about my writing at times. 

The end.

> Anyone else use Grammarly?

Nope. Many of my students use it, but they don't seem to learn anything from it. They're just letting software fix their writing.

But here's the thing: You can have a grammatically correct sentence than makes no sense at all. In fact, Noam Chomsky composed a sentence to prove this point--Colorless green ideas sleep furiously--whose grammar is perfect, but whose sense is missing entirely. In my comp classes, I read a lot of sentences with Grammarly-checked proper grammar that read just like Chomsky's nonsensical example.

Yo, Face. Hi! Yes, Grammarly is pretty good. It helped my kids through English class here in Holland. Of course it's not always correct, especially with homonyms and reflexives. And as Mike implied, it's the easy way out. I don't think it's a hinderance to learning because curious people learn from the back of a cereal box, and non-curious people don't, and it will always be so. 

If you really want to learn a language via an app, then I suggest DuoLingo. My youngest, Lola (16 now!), learned a shit-ton of proper Spanish in a few months. No, I'm not sponsored. But, try it if you haven't.

As for Chomsky's nonsensical example, yes, that is something to look out for. It's just normal, though: don't talk nonsense. It's our job to correct those. And yes, people should be aware of that weakness. 

Can you imagine an app that corrected our reasoning? Wow, if only. 

r n, we will not be using tree diagrams in this thread; they are made for Synthetic sentence structures (which use Noun Cases and Subject>Predicate), and are quite inappropriate for modern Germanic grammars, which are Analytic structures (use Word Order and Topic>Details). 

I realize that I'm using new language here. We're moving into my new material. I don't think you'll find this argument anywhere but here. I'll explain. 

I'm not a Linguist. I've didn't study Linguistics at the University. I call myself a Grammarian. I'm self-taught. I'm an independent, if you will. I've been teaching Business English to Dutch business and military professionals for almost thirteen years now, and my approach must be practical. I'm very lucky to have Dutch as the comparative language because it's English's little sister in a way (Frisian being the twin sister who stayed home), thus it's really close, so the differences show the greater grammatical flows, which then show us what's really happening. Also, I took American Studies for my Bachelors and Masters, so I have that deconstructive tendency coupled with a will towards interdisciplinarity, that is, I try to consider the Wheel of Disciplines, if you will again - I just made up that term. So, when a student asks me, "How does that work?", or "How did it get that way?", I really have to know... not only for them, but for myself. 

So, I took the grammar apart and put it back together again and found a system that has nothing to do with the way that Linguists analyze and teach it. I found that they don't even consider that their system is only a metaphor, and that others are available. That Latin metaphor was based on a grammatical system that has all but died in Europe, especially in the north, and English doesn't use it at all. With our utter lack of Noun Cases and with our Word Order system, it's actually simply wrong to continue to talk about Nominitive Cases and Predicates. We don't have them. So when Linguists use those terms while analyzing current English, they're using old models that just don't fit anymore. You could say that that's why we have so many exceptions. If the clothes are made for you, they will fit. And, in that way, Tree Diagrams don't fit English structures anymore. Today we think in blocks laid out one after another. Remember, Word Order is almost irrelevant to Latin and her daughters. Tree Diagrams are appropriate for them. German languages need a new metaphor, not Verbs and their Arguments, but Topics and their Details... not a singer belting opera (Subject>Predicate), but something bureaucratic, like a Grammar Machine (Topic> Detail).  I can show you that, if you like. 

 

 

Dear Judit, your grammar is fine. I wouldn't worry. Again, I'm not looking for perfection here; I want to talk about certain ways of looking at grammar, and of course, a new way. Thank you for letting me throw these toys into the sandbox. 

We could talk about Soft Grammar. You're using soft, and it's fine. It's appropriate. Only the real nerds and teachers really need to know and use this Solid, academic, Grammar. 

Well... I've been reading through and can definitely find portions to edit. If you have a section of anything I wrote that you feel is wrong or clumsy that you'd like me to reconsider, please ask. 

>>>>>Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

 

Yes they do.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I couldn't begin to explain.

But, Surfdead, if something is colorless, it's not green, and if it's green, it's not colorless. And don't even get me started on ideas sleeping, or what it is to sleep furiously.

> curious people learn from the back of a cereal box, and non-curious people don't, and it will always be so.

Floops speaks the truth, and it's clear to me from your 6:50 AM post, which I only partially understood because I'm not a linguist or a grammarian, that you've read a lot of cereal boxes too.

Oh, and I love the working title of your dissertation: The Grammar Machine. It makes me think of William Burroughs, and Terence McKenna, who says that culture "invites people to diminish themselves, and dehumanize themselves, by behaving like machines, meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue and Hollywood" in his Culture is Not Your Friend talk.

Nope. Many of my students use it, but they don't seem to learn anything from it. They're just letting software fix their writing.

But here's the thing: You can have a grammatically correct sentence than makes no sense at all. <<<<

I see what you're saying about the value of having an understanding of grammar in order to be able to craft language without aid.    I often overrule Grammarly's suggestions and go with my own "voicing", but at the same time, I don't have an issue with using it in a manner akin to a spell checker to help proof my writing.   Likewise, if I'm struggling to determine the proper grammar to employ, it's very convenient.

Yo, Face. Hi! Yes, Grammarly is pretty good. It helped my kids through English class here in Holland. Of course it's not always correct, especially with homonyms and reflexives. And as Mike implied, it's the easy way out. I don't think it's a hinderance to learning because curious people learn from the back of a cereal box, and non-curious people don't, and it will always be so. 

If you really want to learn a language via an app, then I suggest DuoLingo. My youngest, Lola (16 now!), learned a shit-ton of proper Spanish in a few months. No, I'm not sponsored. But, try it if you haven't.<<<<

I can see how one might view it as an "easy way out"; however, as you've alluded to, one doesn't have to be an automaton while using it.  Ultimately, the decision of how to construct language is up to me.   I try to absorb what it might be trying to do in various instances and learn from it, but mostly use it as a "line of defense" for proofing.   It can be a challenge to transfer abstract thoughts to the written word, and sometimes it helps to write as fast as possible without getting bogged down with grammar during the process.  In this light, it can both on the fly and as a tool to help proof the material.

Thanks for the suggestion about DuoLingo.  I haven't seen it, so will check out!

Face, it sounds like you use Grammarly to help you learn (I'm guessing you're another one of Floops' cereal box readers because you seem to be very curious about the world), and, for me, that's a proper use of technology. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, many of the young people in my classes seem to use technology as a replacement for learning.

In a similar way, I joke at times that I don't have to remember things anymore because I carry my memory in my pocket now, but the truth of the matter is I'd have become something much less than human if I should stop remembering things without the aid of technology.

> Today we think in blocks laid out one after another...German languages need a new metaphor, not Verbs and their Arguments, but Topics and their Details...not a singer belting opera (Subject>Predicate), but something bureaucratic, like a Grammar Machine (Topic> Detail).

Floops, are you familiar with the thinking of Max Weber? What you've described here seems to fit squarely within his ideas about rationalization: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/

Grammar?  Uh, English is like a 2nd language 2 me.
 I'm way better at jibberish cheeky


The kid can't read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene
But it's alright...

It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright...

It's a lesson to me
The Ables and the Bakers and the C's
The ABC's
We all must face
And try to keep a little grace...

The shoe is on the hand, it fits
There's really nothing much to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit
'Cause it's alright...

I see you got your list out
Say your piece and get out
Yes, I get the gist of it
But it's alright

cool

 

>  I'm way better at jibberish

Some would say it's all gibberish, Noodler. Shakespeare seemed to understand this, that's for sure.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

..........Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 24–28)

That really is perfect, Dave. It really is a coherent statement. I knew it, but seeing it like that really locked it in for me. Thanks!

 

Mike, 'signify'... does it mean 'meaning' or 'pointing to' here? Because I'm thinking that the former at least leaves a subject. 

 

Face, it is totally up to you, of course. We each have our way, our art... ideally. Not many really care. And I use the word 'absorb' all the time in my classes. Remember, they're adults. It's a lot of information. Unfortunately, Grammar has never really joined pop culture in it's own right. I hope to change that. But it's gonna take time. Absorb. Ask questions. I say it all the time. 

Face, it sounds like you use Grammarly to help you learn (I'm guessing you're another one of Floops' cereal box readers because you seem to be very curious about the world), and, for me, that's a proper use of technology. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, many of the young people in my classes seem to use technology as a replacement for learning.

In a similar way, I joke at times that I don't have to remember things anymore because I carry my memory in my pocket now, but the truth of the matter is I'd have become something much less than human if I should stop remembering things without the aid of technology.<<<<

Actually, I have a small obsession with "entertaining myself" while eating; whether it's scouring a cereal box, watching tv, reading, court jesters, etc.   It's part curiosity, but also part anti-social, lol.

Aside from all of that, I get the difference you're alluding to and can imagine how it might be frustrating to see in the classroom nowadays.  Still, I wonder if once a person "learns how to learn", then it's ok to use technology as more of an interface to a giant repository / memory bank?  My suspicion is that it's a bit of a continuing balancing act of keeping one's critical thinking / learning skills honed vs knowing when it's not necessary or counter-productive.  When was the last time you performed long division (assuming you're not a math teacher!)?

Zappa:

"The crux of the biscuit is the Apostrophe...

Woah, Mike, thanks for the compliments. I appreciate it. Grammar Machine stuff is fun. My students get it after about five or six lessons and then fly with it. Most are satisfied when they're done. 

Weber I know from C. Wright Mills, and their work together, but it's been a long time since I read it all. I think Weber's ideas about the connection between Protestantism and Capitalism still hold water. Thanks for the reminder. That kinda stuff is exactly why I'm here. Muchos appreciados, homber. ...Iron cage... Right?! But I'd have to read it again to say whether we're really sympatico or not. 

And as for McKenna's fear of culture, I get it. He's prolly correct about a lot, but I think there's more to culture. It's a tool for all of us. Cultural Work is being done all around us: memes have exploded. It's all good imo. If we survive nature, I have a good feeling about the chances for real democracy. This is what the Culture Wars are, and imo they started with the left, from the Black Power Struggle to Feminism to New Left to Hippies and Counterculturalists. Of course the right fought back. Enter Reagan and the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation. And Clinton joined the Royalists. And today, Tucker fucking Carlson can mourn the death of the fucking British queen. This is all good. Sides are clear imo. I'm not sure everyone sees that lol. But reality is slowly getting clearer. Woke is good. It's working. I'm optimistic. 

Does Terry come around anymore? 

short tangent

I've started to use the caption option on my TV when watching shows where the English is confusing like BBC telecasts (British-Scottish-Welsh etc is like a foreign language) and shows with immigrants using pidgin-english

 

carry on

> 'signify'... does it mean 'meaning' or 'pointing to' here?

Floops, that seems like a distinction without a difference, and the history of the word would seem to indicate that as well. I don't have access to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the Online Etymology Dictionary seems to indicate that "signify" has long meant both "meaning" and "pointing out", and most likely meant both in Shakespeare's time.

signify (v.)

late 13c., "be a sign of, indicate, mean," from Old French signifier (12c.), from Latin significare "to make signs, show by signs, point out, express; mean, signify; foreshadow, portend," from significus (adj.), from signum "identifying mark, sign" (see sign (n.)) + combining form of facere "to make, to do" (from PIE root *dhe- "to set, put"). Intransitive sense of "to be of importance" is attested from 1660s. Meaning "engage in mock-hostile banter" is African-American vernacular, by 1932.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/signify

Ha

I had to memorize that Macbeth quote in grammar school.

anxiety moment...

Face, I am not a math teacher, and it makes me shudder to even think of that. Math doesn't really lend itself to creativity. One plus one always equals two. I teach English composition mostly, and while writing essays is mostly formulaic, there's a ton of wiggle room. I used to tell my students that working with language is like trying to nail Jello to a wall, until one of my students pointed out that it's more like trying to nail Jello to the ceiling. Which brings me to learning to learn. That student was one of those, and while every class always has a few of those, a big part of my job is trying to get the other students interested in things other than their phones and the latest trends.

> Iron cage... Right?!

Yep, Floops. That's Weber's central metaphor, and it still fits, and, in fact, the cage is getting snugger and snugger moment by moment. What I'm getting from your abstract above is that the trend toward more and more rationality has exerted itself on the language in the poetic ways you describe (a singer belting opera > a Grammar Machine). [I'll respond to your ideas about culture vis a vis McKenna in another post later.]

Walstib, that's crazy teaching that passage from Macbeth to grammar school kids, and by crazy I mean they're teaching nihilism, which pretty much undercuts the goals of education. But I'm guessing you could still recite it from memory if you had to, no?

>>> That really is perfect, Dave. It really is a coherent statement. I knew it, but seeing it like that really locked it in for me. Thanks

Hello Floops, & if the above quote is 4 me, thx.  

Not sure U remember me. Many moons ago we worked together in the coat room at the PhilZoneBar. 
I'm not sure we talked much, but there was a whole lot of smiling goin' (oops I mean going) down (or on).

Fun times! 
Be well. 
smiley

^ yes and I was re-traumatized...

 

 

Dave, I need to apologize. For some reason my brain saw Noodler as the author of your "jibberish" post. I blame my Sunday morning wake and bake. Mea culpa.

I smiled at the mention of Weber and C. Wright Mills.

Maybe there is hope.

Nah...

>>. Dave, I need to apologize. For some reason my brain saw Noodler as the author of your "jibberish" post. I blame my Sunday morning wake and bake. Mea culpa
 

No worries Mike. All good in the hood. All cool in the car pool. 

yes

Here's a first look at the Table of Contents pages of my guide. There's a lot to say, but I'll get there. Deeds are Actions, and I'm going back to that. I thought Deeds would clear up some confusion, but Action is fine, even consistent with Subject and Object (all French). I thought that I could have Deeds and then make the distinction between feelings and actions, but Deeds just isn't as intuitive as Actions, imo. Please let me know what you think. I have added a lot of stuff. Thanks. 

Noel Stafford 2022.jpeg

 

 

 

 

Oh! Btw, I forgot a Category until just recently that must be added to this. Does anyone know what it is? I'm not even sure if anyone's interested, but I need data. Of course this is also a field run for me. I would explain everything now, but I also want first reactions. Anyway, there it is. 

>>>I've started to use the caption option on my TV when watching shows where the English is confusing like BBC telecasts (British-Scottish-Welsh etc is like a foreign language) and shows with immigrants using pidgin-english

Cool. Have you noticed anything cool, any patterns or weird words or phrases? 

>>>Floops, that seems like a distinction without a difference

Well, does Life mean something, or does Life not really exist? Yeah, it must be the former because they wouldn't be there were it the latter. duh. Thank you. But that doesn't mean that the distinction doesn't exist fruitfully. MAGAs signify shit all the time that is sometimes just meaningless (such as chemtrails and fashions like clothing, devil music, etc.), but also shit that just isn't there, so there's nothing to point at and no meaning possible at all (anything from Joe God to pedos under pizza joints to hordes of invading illegals). Just saying...  

>>> the Online Etymology Dictionary

Right on. Ever talk with that guy? I haven't yet, but I have a list that I'm going to eventually offer him. He deserves socialism for his work; he has contributed that much.  

>>>Face, I am not a math teacher, and it makes me shudder to even think of that. Math doesn't really lend itself to creativity. One plus one always equals two.

Oh my, we are alike. I don't agree about math and creativity, though. Math is music frequencies and rhythms and color wavelengths and patterns that go from chaos to form and back to chaos again, and dance. The multiplication table of Nine up to ten places shows the numbers going in a circle, and that's fucking nuts. Why do September, October, November, and December not live up to their names? Math. There's a lot of creativity there. Vitruvian Man! Mandelbrot sets! 

And there's this: Math is not the core of it all, as so many think. Number distinctions are not first. Why? One needs Grammar to make sense of it. Math is subject to Grammar. 

Subject Action Subject Compliment
One plus one equals two. 

It's Linking Voice, descriptive, copular. 

>>>What I'm getting from your abstract above is that the trend toward more and more rationality has exerted itself on the language in the poetic ways you describe (a singer belting opera > a Grammar Machine). [I'll respond to your ideas about culture vis a vis McKenna in another post later.]

I wouldn't say "poetic ways," but rather "Latinate ways." Their (Linguists) whole understanding of Grammar came chiefly from Latin ideals, and they arranged their analyses of every language in that same way. That why we have those fake rules about split-infinitives and dangling modifiers, and labels like Subject and Object Pronouns (which don't really work when we get down to it). This is known. Fowler embraced it. Gowers passed it down. We're still dealing with it. I aim to change that. 

As for the metaphors, I wasn't immediately clear on what those were. Let's make them Trees and Blocks. rnTerrapin mentioned those crazy tree diagrams. I never understood those for English, and so I thought they were just a waste of time, but then I came to realize that Latin works that way, and prolly French does too, and Greek, so the trees are not a waste of time entirely, just for English. Of course the entirety of Linguistics is against me on that one, so I just let it be for years. And then I came to needing a practical way to show how English really works, and I started drawing Blocks... one after the other... and it didn't stop. I kept playing with Blocks. I kept looking for the Predicate and how to arrange that, but it wasn't what was happening. 

Okay, for the Trees, Linguists use a Subject>Predicate structure. The Verb is the Predicator, and the rest of the Predicate is every word afterwards. It could be the Object, if needed, or whatever details are present - usually in the form of prepositional phrases. They even call everything an argument of the Verb, which I find confusingly absurd. English does not work this way. We think in blocks... and they're all equal - democratic, lol!

Blocks use... well... blocks, like you see in the table in the post above. Here's the basic Active Voice block set: 

Active Voice block set
TOPIC     DETAILS      
Subject Action Object Place  Time Reason Manner
I bake  pies at home on Monday nights for the orphans down the block.    -----

You know this. It's Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. 

Trees will never show English as well as this. Wait til we get further in, like with the Raising Voice, or with really long and complicated Action blocks. 

But this post is about metaphors, and this example is only a very small part of the chief metaphor, the Grammar Machine. So the idea is that we each have a grammar machine inside of us that organizes our statements for us instinctually. It can be nurtured, of course, but for better instincts, hopefully. (Can I do this?...) It looks something like this. 

THE GRAMMAR MACHINE
ACTIVE  TOPIC (Voice)     DETAILS      
  Subject Action Object Place  Time Reason Manner
(Aspect)              
STATIVE              
Simple I bake  pies        
(with HV) do bake pies        
Perfect I have baked pies        
DYNAMIC              
Continuous I am baking pies        

Perfect-Continuous

I have been baking  pies        

 

So there lol. 

Oh, and Mike E, can't wait for that McKenna bit. 

>>>Not sure U remember me. Many moons ago we worked together in the coat room at the PhilZoneBar. 

Well, Dave, I guess that was a fun night. I remember you a bit, but it has been years. Aren't you a trouble maker? 

>>>Maybe there is hope.

Nah...

 

lol! Hi, Aiq! 

This is fun. I'm so happy for the formatting! Let's try another one. 

Passive Voice block set
TOPIC     DETAILS      
Object Action Subject Place Time Reason Manner
You  should have been being helped  (by someone)    --- by now.    ---    ---

This example is in the Perfect-Continuous Aspect, Present Tense, Subjunctive Mood (we'll get to that shortly). The placement of "by" in the Subject block is up for debate. If you like it in between the boxes, I'm down for discussing that. 

The Action block close up looks like this:

ACTION        
should have been being helped
MHV HV1 HV2 HV3 MV

HV = Helping Verb, MV = Main Verb, MHV = Modal Helping Verb

Of course, most Europeans have never thought this kind of statement is possible. They tend to revert to either the Simple or Continuous forms. 

Absorb... Ask questions... Argue against the ideas... please. 

 

 

And I have to go soon, so let's try a bigger one.

Active Raising Voice block set
RAISING TOPIC   RAISED TOPIC     DETAILS      
Raising Subject Raising Action Raised Subject Raised Action Raised Object Place Time Reason Manner
I asked you to bake the pies at work yesterday.    ---    ---
   You  told me  to go fuck myself    ----    ----     ----  on a steel rod. 

Okay, that was just for fun. I can't publish shit like that anywhere else. Thanks. 

And if you wanna put "on a steel rod" under Place, I'm fine with that. 

Anyway... do I deserve a Masters yet? Should I start a blog? 

>>>Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

I think of the Green New Deal, and that it hasn't been codified yet, and it's frustrated. We're frustrated. That's why they're still colorless and sleeping furiously... as are we....

imo.

>>> Well, Dave... I remember you a bit, but it has been years. Aren't you a trouble maker? 

The last time I was called a troublemaker was in grade school, which I attended in the mid 60's. 
By the time I started high school (the later 60's) I was over that phase of my life. 
By Zoner standards? The one disagreement I've had here (or in the original PhilZone) which I have no interest in re-litigating (either here, now or ever) had to do with Rodger Waters. If that is what led to your curios question, then I understand and will proceed to exit stage left. Other then that, I'm clueless about your concern. YMMV. 
In any case, while I appreciate the reminder of my ill spent youth, perhaps dropping out of this class / thread would make sense. 

Ain't no time to hate.

Peace out. 
 

I wasn't hating. You don't have to leave. I guess I was thinking of somebody else. Sorry that I mistook you for someone else. That coat room bit, though... You're not actually referring to a real evening, on the chat, maybe. Are you? 

And Roger Waters... I think he's a prick sometimes, and I don't need his WW2 regrets as much as he does, but I like him otherwise. What did he do?

And Mike, I finally get your view of my title and how you connected it to McKenna's somewhat-warrented diatribe. Not realizing that I was describing a new way to model grammar (while dissing the orthodoxy), you saw the "machine" as something out of Kafka that I was blaming them for. I think? Is that right? 

If so, in a way that could be true, but it really wasn't my focus... blame... I'm not out to make them feel bad as much as to just throw over the whole gameboard. But I do get triggered. Sometimes I feel like der Steppenwolf snarling at chauvenism and complacency, laziness... tradition. I recently found an amazing YouTuber who is drenched in this Latin Brain tendency. He's a very good Linguist and teacher. I am learning a lot in opposition to him, in trying to understand his concepts. BUT, grrrrrrr... And I've gotta watch myself. I'm a professional, and I want a market. I can't just go off on him in his comment section. But, yeah. 

There was also this Doctor of Linguistics with great experience and standing who put me in my place on FB when I said, "'I' can be an Object Pronoun." My example was "I was carried away by Zombies." He lost his shit on me, lol. It was glorious. He didn't listen to a thing I said; he just lectured, and I loved it. I learned a lot. Captain Personal Pronoun... lol. 

If any of you wanna argue that, I'm game. 

Floops, I'm in class this morning, but will get back here this afternoon.

Here's one I've been thinking about since the mid '70s, Floops

"To lay me down, once more" [to put or place]

or

"To lie me down, once more" [to rest or recline]

>>Not realizing that I was describing a new way to model

 

Let's talk about the word, "that." I, like you, use it in the way you did there. Interestingly, my boss (editor) takes it out. As she signs the checks I don't argue. I think that she's wrong to do so.

Is it needed? In my sentence above it can be removed, but is it wrong to have it?

Cool, Mike. See you later.

 

HurtsMeToo, that is one of the few correct uses of that pair in major rock music. Both Lay, Lady, Lay and Lay Down Sally are wrong. 

 

Brian, either way - with or without - is fine. It's not wrong for it to be there. I'd say it depends on rhythm more than anything, followed by an occasional need for clarity in a dense sentence. I'd say if she's paying the bill, go with it. 

> I think there's more to culture. It's a tool for all of us.

We benefit from culture is some ways, no doubt, but I think McKenna's point is that we serve culture more than culture serves us, and, ultimately, what's worse is culture represses and suppresses us. Culture shapes us much more than we shape culture. It tells us what's okay, and what's not okay, and draws lines we must live our lives within. And how does it do this? Through taboos and laws, for sure, but also at a lower level like values and preferences.

>  Not realizing that I was describing a new way to model grammar (while dissing the orthodoxy), you saw the "machine" as something out of Kafka that I was blaming them for. I think? Is that right? 

Yes, that's the way I was seeing your title, and, in a way, I think you see it that way too because of your statement about dissing the orthodoxy. Going back to Weber, our orthodoxy has become much more rational, and machine-like, I would say. Joni Mitchell seems to have glimpsed this, or something like it, when she wrote the song Woodstock: We've got to get ourselves back to the garden. She's suggesting movement away from the rational and its machines, and she's sure not telling us we need to become more robotic.

Here's a quick afterthought to tie those two paragraphs together. I want to rewrite my last sentence thusly: Mitchell's suggesting movement away from rational culture and its machines, and she's sure not telling us we need to become more robotic.

More later.

 >>>>>we serve culture more than culture serves us, and, ultimately, what's worse is culture represses and suppresses us. Culture shapes us much more than we shape culture

 

Well, whatever cultures we participate in were created by other folks "just like us". Obviously the culture affects us more than we, individually, affect the culture because it represents the cultural appetites of thousands or millions of people.

On a related but tangential issue, IMO one of the most important benefits of taking psychedelics is that they allow you to step away from cultural influences, even if they are lifelong, and realize you and a few like-minded folks can create your own culture.

Def. High   Surfdead on Sunday, September 18, 2022 – 08:24 am

>>>>>>>>>Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

 

>>>Yes they do.

>>>Makes perfect sense to me.

>>>I couldn't begin to explain.

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>MIKE-drop  mikeedwardsetc on Sunday, September 18, 2022 – 10:41 am

>>>>>>>>>>But, Surfdead, if something is colorless, it's not green, and if it's green, it's not colorless. And don't even get me started on ideas sleeping, or what it is to sleep furiously.

 

 

"Comic book colors on a violin river cryin' Leonardo
Words from out a silk trombone"

 

 

 

 

Mostly primary colors, perhaps pixelated, in a riparian setting with eddies that resemble the curves of a stringed instrument, wailing words backwards from a trombone whose slide and notes glide smooth as silk. Simple. Next?

Correct:

To Lay Me Down

Lay It On The Line 

Lay Down Your Weary Tune

 

Incorrect:

Lay, Lady, Lay 

Lay Down Sally 

 

 

 

Can we keep this going? 

Guys, I answered that question already. It's all about the Green New Deal. 

>>>Most primary colors...

Very nice. 

 

>>>[All the cultural stuff]...

I'll have to tackle this when I can pull my laptop out. It's 23:43 here now, and I'm not getting that precise right now. Also, please notice the time discrepancy between my time and that posted above. I don't know what yours says, but mine says 5:58. This struck me earlier when Mike mentioned a very early post by me. I didn't post early, it was this weird difference. @Judit? 

But having said that, I'll prolly poke here and there at it. I was in Vlaardingen earlier teaching a group incompany. It's a fun project that includes a total of four groups rotating biweekly every Tuesday and Thursday. I didn't create this situation; I was given it. Greenhouses and stuff. It's fun. They're all conversational, from upper-intermediate to middling advanced, and classes are a breeze, actually. I'm running them all through this Grammar Machine thing at their pace, of course. Again, it's so fun. The C1 group is totally eating it up and have even added info - mostly good confirmation. They get to see the performance. You guys only get tables against blackness, like a close up of an old school chalk board. 

But that Kafkaesque machine...

"Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders"

Hmm. Zimmy at his most impenetrable perhaps. There's little concrete imagery, and slippery pronoun references too. Give me a minute or two while I have a smoke and chew on this a bit.

That title, of course, was for the disser-tation, and the parenthetical addendum was just as tongue-in-cheek, but you're correct, it has roots in a Kafkaesque machine. I didn't think it so severe, but sure. I can't and wouldn't argue against that. 

On the other hand, the Kafkaesque machine isn't mine; it's the Linguist's, with its trees and predicators and Subject Pronouns. If mine is the Grammar Machine, then theirs is the Synthetic Opera... or Latin Mind... or, actually... Linguistics.

I'm claiming that I have found almost no - no - evidence that that field has considered Germanic grammars from their own feel and logic. I'm also claiming that English grammar very much, very badly, needs a reanalysis. Alone among all her sisters, English has never had a language institute. This means everything. It means that while they have been retarded, we have developed. It's been noticed sure, but then these scientists go back to their southern tool box and miss so much of what's really happening. It's unimaginative. I'm offering a northern tool box.

I can do this. My lack of Linguistic processing kept me clear of their axioms, and so I lack their assumptions. I've always been skeptical of their ideas. In the third grade, already, I knew that [Brian] Predicates were bunk. And do you know how, why? Because she just got down with drilling us with Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. And that IS how current English sentence structures work. That's Word Order. That's Analytic Syntax. That's correct. And then to say that our parade of Relative Pronouns fit into a Subject> Predicate model just perplexed me. Eight years old, the only brown kid in the class at St. Joe's, the only poor kid, too smart for my own good, sitting there stunned and with no idea why, but it always stuck with me: I don't trust it. And I still don't. And in fact, I know it's wrong. 

I didn't know it then, but the Subject> Predicate model was how Synthetic Syntax systems worked. They're mostly gone now. Their Nouns had Case endings synthesized onto them that assigned to them their roles (Subject, Indirect and Direct Objects, etc.), and with their roles pretty-much pinned to their chests, it didn't matter where in the sentence they appeared, you knew who was acting, who was being acted upon. It doesn't make sense in English, but to them, it didn't matter if you said Bob-s killed Bill-o or Bill-o killed Bob-s; in each case, Bob was dead. Once those endings fell off, it did matter what order the Nouns were in. Roles couldn't be assigned per case endings anymore, so each block in the Word Order started to take on a role. Today, the first block in an Active Voice sentence endows the role of Subject. The third block endows the role of Object. The order of Place, Time, Reason, Manner eventually worked itself out, and I call them the Details. They can move around a bit, but not like they can in Synthetic sentences. This is Analytic sentence structure, Word Order. The Role-giver moved from special suffixes to placement patterns. That's what's going on. All Old forms of the European languages were Synthetic. Tell me, how many still use a full Synthetic system? Answer: none, not even German... And they go on and on as if they do... So what's really happening, then? Well... 

Soooooo.... I've been working on this, and I think I'm going in the correct direction. Thank you for letting me ramble.

Shit!

It didn't matter if Bob-s killed Bill-o or Bill-o killed Bob-s, in each case, BILL was dead.

Oops. That's what I get for doing this on my phone. 

 

> "Then they bring them to the factory / Where the heart-attack machine / Is strapped across their shoulders"

Again, there's not much concrete imagery here, which is really the only place to gain purchase with something like this. So I have factory, machine, and shoulders to work with.

My first impression of the heart-attack machine is an electrocardiogram, which would make the factory a hospital, or perhaps doctor's office, but the strap doesn't seem to fit there. Because of that my second impression of the heart-attack machine is a strapped Thompson submachine gun, but then the factory left me stumped so I looked up the lyrics for some greater context. Here's the stanza they appear in:

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

The idea that the heart-attack machine is a strapped Thompson submachine gun could fit into this context, mostly. Agents rounding up everyone at midnight could be a police force, in which case the factory then becomes a police station, and the insurance men who check to see that nobody is escaping could fit in this interpretation as well.

That leaves the kerosene brought down from castles though, and that has me stumped once more. Castles were once lit with torches, which could have been fueled with kerosene, I'm guessing, but, like in dreams, the thing we see is not what thing represents, so the castle is not really a castle, in other words. But maybe the castle corresponds to the factory, in which case a courthouse would correspond to a police station, and a courthouse is a place of illumination, of sorts; it's where there truth, and justice, is brought to light, and we're back to the kerosene as a source of light.

So, a scene of a police state? That's the best I've got, and it wasn't nearly as fun to parse out as the China Cat snippet.

And sorry, Floops, but explication always comes before matters of grammar in my house. The heart of a poet, and all that, doncha know.

Edit: Oh, and those slippery pronouns. "Then they bring them to the factory / Where the heart-attack machine / Is strapped across their shoulders." Whose shoulders is the heart-attack machine strapped across. They's or them's? Technically, it should be them's due to placement (their referring back to them), but really, it's pretty much impossible to say with any certainty.

At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew...

... check to see that [Brian] nobody is escaping to Desolation Row. 

 

For some reason I see Adam Smith looking out over America and getting his first good look at the division of labor. The heart-attack machine *is* the work in those situations. The kerosene is a rich man's luxury, and it's being used to spy on workers debauching out in the middle of the night. It's at midnight just to add that weight of doom on the situation.

But that's not quite right. Maybe it does matter that it's midnight. So what is the kerosene for? Is it for lighting the torches, for running the machine, or for something else? Maybe it's just literal torture, and there's nothing metaphorical about it. Or maybe it's a scene in a police precinct, and the heart-attack machine is the interrogation. 

Also, "...everyone that knows more than they do"... They the agents and superhuman crew, or they the people themselves? If the latter, could this be war-time apprehension to talk while occupied? Who knows. I wish Bob were a Zoner. 

Oooo, cereal! Thanks for teaching explication. Nice. Do you do requests? Please do Harlequin, by Genesis, sometime. No research, just that unpacking with your imagination you do so well. 

[Brian, I didn't put it there because rhythm.]

To me it means that, from birth, society is preparing everyone for an empty, consumeristic life and lifestyle  where nothing awaits but the inevitable heart attack.

Dunno 'bout that kerosene.

 

"I asked for water and she gave me gasoline".

> Dunno 'bout that kerosene.

How about this? If Desolation Row was (Or is it "were"? Help me out here, Floops; I need a grammarian, everyday) a Hitchcock film, kerosene would be a MacGuffin.

I say it's "were".

In the dark ages we were taught "if it's a statement contrary to fact", it's were.

About Viva time, we're on EDT til Nov. 6th. And we do seem to observe am and pm.

I think you're right, judit. This one doesn't really pass the sounds-right test, and I know I left "was" in there, but after "were" occurred to me, it left me with some nagging doubt.

> For some reason I see Adam Smith looking out over America and getting his first good look at the division of labor.

We see what we see, but damn, dude. That's frigging deep.

Good morning, good people (~);-}

It's "were." And it's pretty much for the reason Judit said. I'll explain later, but it's a Subjunctive without Modal Verbs. Now I've got an online student for three hours, then two online oral exams for an hour each. Sleep well, my pretties. 

... Okay, quickly. The rule is, if you have a Present Tense context, but a Past Tense form, that's Subjunctive Mood, hypothetical. "If I was you" is correct enough, but it really should be "if I were you." Cheers. 

Nycdave asked me to drop this in here. I love me some Calvin and Hobbes.

That's a great one, NycDave, thanks, Mike.

^^^ agree, if the emoji menu had that green vomit emoji, I would've used that as my comment about that comic.

This thread and the Grammar Machine are fascinating. 

 I learned far more English grammar while studying French in France than in my U.S. schooling. 

That's fascinating, Llollo. What do you remember? What struck you? I'm fascinated because I'm just learning how the French perceive grammar, and the assumptions and troubles they have, and also the cool tricks. 

And thank you for the kind words. Do you have a specific comment or question? 

I think Seattle Steve is needed here as well. He even uses the Blue Murphy. Does he still come around... St. Stephen? 

Okay, I've got the laptop out again.

>>>^^^ agree, if the emoji menu had that green vomit emoji, I would've used that as my comment about that comic. 

I was confused about the positive "agree" and then the need to vomit, and I think I see it. You agree that Calvin and Hobbes was a great comic strip, but that that particular strip was gross. And so I looked at it, and I realize that he's dissing that particular topic. And I sit here with a huge grin on my face none-the-less. I don't think that he was dissing academic writing styles, or Trans-focused topics, as much as roasting them. He obviously knew what he was talking about, and he did write that title himself, after all. And it was in the '80s! I think it was my first exposure to the idea as such. ... I guess I'd understand if someone was hurt by this, though. Der Steppenwolf... not so much. 

I could grasp a lot about grammar, my problem being dyslexic, is still reading and writing words, letters and numbers out of order. Math was easier and I had good grades. In math there were only a few numbers and I good repeatedly, rework problems to verify, look at them and tell when I mixed them up, if I put enough time in. In written word there are too many characters in a sentence and with them jumping around I could not put in enough time to comprehend well. I am just glad that I was able to grasp the superior skill.

 

 

Team Math!

 

 

 

great having you around again, Floops

That session yesterday was a lot of fun. I enjoy the oral exams as well, but a one-on-one with someone who wants to learn is always a joy, and three hours is a nice amount of time, imo. I showed him the Parts of Speech and how to use them while considering vocabulary. I split them up into Things, Actions, and Grammar Parts (or Bits), and then talk about how Nouns are names and Verbs are words (that's how important actions were to them), how Adjectives and Adverbs are the descriptors, and how the rest of the words are Grammar Bits to help direct the sentence. I didn't get too specific with him then; I moved into the idea of using these Parts of Speech to think about vocabulary. If you have a word like 'Institute,' then first ask "which Part of Speech is it?" It's a Noun. What other Nouns do we have with that word? We have "Institution," "Institutor," and "Instituting." The original is an organized intellectual center, then we have another option for that word,and then the agent (one who institutes), and then the Gerund (the act of Instituting). So we have not just one word, but four, so far. We also have the Verbs "To Institute" and "To Institutionalize." Oh! Add the Gerund "Institutionalizing." That's seven words from one, and we haven't even begun to talk about descriptive forms.

I don't ask them to memorize the terms, and they don't have to immediately use them in discussion; they just need to think about what I said when they're writing or preparing a presentation. My student yesterday was ready and open to the lesson and loved it. We only have to get a bit deep about it the first time. After that it's pretty simple to sit and think about other forms of the words we use every day. In many ways, I am brainwashing them. I'm talking to their brains more than the people themselves. And I'm there to give them advice on the grammar, but also to show them how to go forwards on their own, if needed. They will use it if they need proper English badly enough.      

So the Parts of Speech are more or less the same in every language, as far I know, and the Parts of a Sentence (the Roles) are as well, but Categories of Grammar can be hugely different in their details. I will move there next. If you look at the Table of Contents in the picture I posted above, I have a lot of brand new subcategories. I'll explain them. To do that, I want to go through the changes that English has gone through since 1100. So, yes - yay! - a History of Grammar segment is coming soon. 

Hey, thanks, fabes. Good to be around. How fierce is your dyslexia? Obviously you can read and write coherently. 

I would say it had a hand in me not finishing college, but it was not the only reason. I did take a technical writing class and even though I did not do great in the class, it taught me better editing skills when it comes to my own writing. In technical writing you have to be precise with words and phrases, and writing things like manuals is boring as hell. I settled in the construction industry where they show you how to do something and that is the way I learn the most. I quickly worked my way into management, and my writing skills only need to pertain to short emails for the most part. I did email the owner a game plan on how to change the ways we do our work, and I did not hear right back. But I did get a meeting invite yesterday to present my plan to upper management. I will be working on a big outline of my ideas to go along with my presentation. The verbal part of the presentation will be easy for me, I am just glad construction people like bullet points. 

"These people do good cultural work. I bet Gramsci would've appreciated them." 

I wrote this in the Majority Report thread, and the second sentence is a pretty cool example of the Subjunctive Mood. It's not about the past, but a hypothetical nowness where we can all exist together. 

 

I'm prolly not going to get into the explanation I promised tonight, but it's coming. I got way busy this weekend. I was hoping to write here this weekend. Zo is 't zoms. 

Damn, fabes, technical writing with dyslexia?! lol. You live on the edge, man. I'd love to get some facetime with you about that in a kinda formal way. I'm interested in more details and hope it gives me more insight into the dyslexic mind for my approach to my students. I know that's kind of a silly term, sorry, but I think you know what I mean. If you're into that I'll send my details. If not, that's cool, man. I search for data everywhere. I hear 'no' a lot, actually. I'd get into it now, but I'm gonna chill the mind tonight. It's almost eight-thirty p.m. here and I'm chatty, but wanna stay away from analysis at the moment. 

Ideas, though...

I was thinking that I'd like to go back and read all my college books again with this new focus I have on Grammar as a main study. It started because the density of the Cyborg Manifesto popped into my mind. I need to try that one again. And Anselm and Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and Kant's Inquiries and the like, as they say. I'm searching for a Grammatical Analysis of matters, a way to look at any writing and know what's going on, but for real. It won't work alone, but it is interdisciplinary, so there's that. It's... the leader of the disciplines? It's the core of all communication. Mickey H's god, Sound, is a sibling. Sound invokes waves, and the waves must be interpreted. Everything written and discussed, be it the Social Sciences, actual Science, and even Mathematics, must all look to Grammar first. ... I'm just in love I guess. And I get to actually practice it. I'm so lucky... So where is this capital-A Analysis? In the examples. That's why I would like to go back to those books. Will Grammar Analysis really help? Sometimes it'll be the only method. I'll have to keep track. 

Interestingly to me, neither university I attended focused on Grammar in the least. I took the required writing test at Columbia in NY, and he had a great train analogy for ideas that certainly fit right into my growing Block Head. [...to be fair; I call them Latin Minds, after all. Cool. Better than a pin head lol] But the adjunct professor corrected grammar, and focused on analysis. That was his job and he did it well; I'm not knocking that. I want to add a new class, I guess. ... ... ... Just call it Grammar 101. Again, we weren't offered it in my two experiences. I am admittedly working with that. But I could offer a good uni-level first year class. I certainly have enough material to last a year without ever getting into the Analytical angle, but I can pepper the ideas throughout the lectures and discussions.

As I said, it's just a dream so far, but it's coming into focus. I'm psyched!! Grammar is just a precision tool - I know that - but it. Is. Fascinating. Who can answer my riddle about the months up there? That's a good one. I can make that lesson last a good thirty minutes, if the student is into it. I've called it Thinking Outside the Box, and I could subtitle that: (Seeing What's There). ... This is good. 

Ideas ... Imagine. 

Hey, Floops!

Can you help to end the "would of" scourge?  Thanks in advance.

 

B.

Hey, Brian! Hope yer well. I'll do my best. And I have been trying with my ESL students, at least. I use the lesson to illustrate the benefits of reading. 

Pies do get moldy. 

Just around here would be great.

smiley