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DaveA wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:07 pm No, didn't go over any of that within the last few years, but I recall a certain clumsiness with language on my part, at several points.

It's worth noting that sometimes even top level grammarists have to look things up (in the Chicago Manual of Style, for example), because there are all kinds of weird rules in English. Like, when to or not to hyphenate--it's not as easy to predict or cut and dry as you would think.

Don't sweat it, dude. My grammar fluctuates all over depending on my mental state and concentration. And hey, I've taught students how to write papers for over a decade now. I actually didn't learn grammar in school until taking Latin in college.

DaveA wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:07 pm No, didn't go over any of that within the last few years, but I recall a certain clumsiness with language on my part, at several points.

It's worth noting that sometimes even top level grammarists have to look things up (in the Chicago Manual of Style, for example), because there are all kinds of weird rules in English. Like, when to or not to hyphenate--it's not as easy to predict or cut and dry as you would think.

I have a bachelor's degree in English, and I made it through a master's degree. I'm nearly bilingual. Like most people, I write several paragraphs a day about complicated things.

I still have tons of structural issues with my writing, in terms of syntax, clauses, punctuation etc. I still have to go back and fix dumb stuff like to, two and too, or there, they're and their. This language is a beast. Some people have a natural aptitude for the dry side of it, but most of us have to slog through it.

English is an illogical and frustrating construct. Languages in general are difficult, but I swear when people were putting this language together they threw some shit in just for fucking giggles.

English is a cool language. Beautiful in the right hands. Full of intrigue (especially if you delve into etymology). And still malleable all of these years later. But it seems to have been designed by finnicky nerds who might well have been making things up as they went along.

I am so glad I started learning English as a very young boy because doing it as an adult would have been an immense pain.

(Thank fuck I never had to learn Swedish. Swedish is a bit like if you took German but removed everything that makes German elegant and intuitive, and added English orthography.)

DaveA wrote: Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:07 pm No, didn't go over any of that within the last few years, but I recall a certain clumsiness with language on my part, at several points.

That's a pretty good memory you've got there.

WTF is wrong with people?

At Least 6 Republicans Who Were At The Jan. 6 Rally Just Got Elected To Office.

Curry Pervert wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:48 pm WTF is wrong with people?

At Least 6 Republicans Who Were At The Jan. 6 Rally Just Got Elected To Office.

Fear and anger is what's driving these people.

Hoping it will go away is probably not going to work. This isn't a trend, it's a movement.

It's so interesting reading the autopsies on the drubbing that the Dems took in Virginia. One media source will say that McCaullife lost because of his spineless centrism and another that it's because of the increasingly spendy Democratic agenda. My take is even more upsetting: What if it's both?

The American left is forced to shoehorn under the Dem tent next to moderates, because there isn't room to be a principled moderate in the Republican party. The big tent always seems to tear. Whether you're all for simply not rocking the boat, or actually trying to solve problems you have to somehow convince both halves of that quasi constituency that you're with them to win. Like how Obama was branded as a strong leftist candidate but only pushed pragmatically (and cautiously) leftward from the center, or how Biden represented old school, meat and potatoes blue party, even though he's been working with Bernie Sanders to pass more ambitious legislation than any Democrat has passed since FDR.

What a strange party.

I nearly threw my computer out the window when I saw Tim Kaine's take on last night. Yes, let's all listen to the loser VP candidate on what should have been the most winnable election ever and take notes..