doclinkin wrote:[BTW fish. What's an "exepctation" ? Thanx...]
Might as well have a thread where we can mock and correct each others' grammar. Where frustrated school marms can underscore and strike words and so on and so forth. All in good fun.
I s'pect the true samurai of syntax may draw swords and do battle at times here. Duels of linguistical honor and all -- to prove who paid closest attention in 3rd and 4th grade. But all in the name of the public good, more than working out irks and pounding out peeves.
Any musings on language in general can land here. Consider the emoticon (especially sans gif or animation). Who ever thought that in our lifetimes we would experience a revolution in punctuation? Punctuation? What was the last revolution in written language? Secretarial shorthand?
Granted spelling has gone all to hell. Texting (terrible word) has made a virtue of brevity, where previously only court stenographers cared to circumsize the vowels out of words. The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince (TAFKATAFKAP) freely substituted numbers for words, thumbing his nose at first grade teachers everywhere, and thoroughly baffling future generations. With twitter etc we're now looking for the simplest rebus to convey a thought. I h8 tht sht. Yes I can diagram the sentence, but I'm not sure I can solve it's mathematical proof.
That said, any extraordinary relics of grammar can be parsed and untangled here in this venue, rather than interrupting the flow of conversation on the topic at hand. If someone drops a block text of untranslatable arblegarble we can drag drop it here to dissect it, for people who are amused by that sort of thing. Frustrated schoolmarms I say. I, for one, expect to actually learn something now and again. Develop mastery, such that I too can use a semi-colon like a six-gun.
Have at thee.
