Language & Grammar discussion

Deus ex machina, and I hope this solves the problem!

Thanks, NE! I'm glad you realize that we have, in fact, formed a cult to deify you, but we really think you can manage even without industrial machinery. :) :)

Thanks , NE! I concur with Mark about a cult.

Thanks NE....Ruth and I were still trying to figure out how to do this! You are a bit like the Lone Ranger....."Who was that masked man!"

Ah yes, whole lotta room for persaflage in this new thread. Bout time the kitchen got a remodel!

Been catching up on TV lately and saw two things that kinda sorta touched on the same topic. I thought I'd bring it up here to see what you all think.

The first dealt with a creationist who was buying paleolithic artifacts in order to destroy them. He was trying to cover up the evidence of things that challenged his faith.

The second dealt with an old jewish man who was collecting (and shredding) the paintings of Hitler. He wanted to see that all traces of the man were wiped out but this was the area that he was fixated on.

Question... What rights does society have to interfere in such activities. Should someone with the means be able to keep these types of things from others?

I think the biggest shock was the Taliban destroying the Buddha's in Afganistan.

You pose an interesting question, I really don't know . The creationist is being silly. He can't destroy all the evidence of evolution, because he would destroy himself and defeat his purpose of God's will. The Jewish man I can understand. The paintings represent evil and horror, so why should Hitler be immortalized in paintings.

I don't think we should stop these two, because of the reason's stated, but the Taliban should have been stopped, because the statues were a thing of beauty and holiness for a large number of people. It showed lack of respect for other religions. Who said "If you take an eye for an eye , the whole world goes blind". I want to know and I respect others rights to know also.

I'd agree that the Taliban is being unenlightened in the extreme. As far back as the 1400's when Mehmed the Conqueror captured Constantinople several of the churches were re-purposed but much of the original artwork was covered up but not destroyed.

Of course zealots appear in all religions. It was the Eastern Orthodox Church that had troubles with the original "iconoclasts."

Really, I didn't know that about the Eastern Orthodox Church. The golden rule still applies in my book, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"

Carol, that line about eye and blindness is by Gandhiji. Recently an ex- student who loves travelling showed photos she had taken of the killing fields of the Pol Pot,the schools which had been turned into concentration camps, in fact all the terrible reminders of man's viciousness to fellowmen.It struck me that I know more about Hitler and the holocaust than I do about the horrors perpetrated nearer home. Also recently I read 'The last Mughal' and read about the cruelty of the Indian sepoys but the greater ones by the British.The world doesn't change.But I suppose because of the nameless ordinary common people,conscience keepers so to say,that the world keeps on working.

And I totally concur with Mark and Carol about the 'cult'.:-)

Thanks Sonali, I didn't know who said it , but I think it speaks volumes. I know what you mean , no one remembers the 20 or so million deaths , the Stalin and Lenin's regime's perputated on the Russian people, or the millions now being killed all over Africa. When will the world's people ever learn?

Carol wrote: "Thanks Sonali, I didn't know who said it , but I think it speaks volumes. I know what you mean , no one remembers the 20 or so million deaths , the Stalin and Lenin's regime's perputated on the Ru..."

I don't think the problem is that people won't learn, Carol, but that the very worst, most hateful, murderous and malevolent sociopaths among us seem always to ascend to the top of the social pyramid -- and then proceed to inflict maximal harm on everyone else. Saints, generally speaking, don't seek temporal power: only monsters do. Most people are innocuous enough, and generally well-intentioned, but also powerless, ignorant, and incapable of mounting a counteroffensive.

So I guess the answer, regrettably, is that they won't. Ever. Besides, for the past forty years, the Republicans have been doing everything inhumanly possible to savage the American educational system and propagate massive ignorance and a wholly delusional view of the world.

If you're concerned about education in the U.S. Watch this woman's TED talk. It will give you a bit of hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTH...

Stephen wrote: "If you're concerned about education in the U.S. Watch this woman's TED talk. It will give you a bit of hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTH..."

She's impressive, and I've made the same arguments to colleagues and at faculty meetings. Students absolutely DO NOT LEARN from teachers (or professors) they think don't like them, and moreover, an absolute sine qua non for learning is that the students remain conscious. It seemed to me, therefore, that the ability to teach effectively ought to be a criterion in hiring new faculty members and retaining existing ones. These arguments fell on deaf ears, generally, and invited opprobrium, since obviously, the only relevant credential for a college professor was the ability to churn out reams of vacuous, duplicative drivel while applying incessantly for grants in the manner of the Energizer Bunny. (This isn't personal acrimony, by the way; I did earn tenure and promotion, and I refused to neglect my students, but I had to work 125 hours a week for about ten years to achieve that objective.)

Now, if this is the view of the importance of effective teaching at colleges and universities, what do you suppose is the view among public school administrators who are constrained to make ever more savage budgetary cuts? Well, I'm retired, now, and no longer engaged in the hopeless fray at any level, but I'm afraid Rita Pierson only moves me to despair, in that her cause is just... and therefore utterly doomed. First, they come for the Piersons. The ptb is ruthlessly and irrevocably committed to the further lobotomization of the American public, and the obliteration of effective education -- except in prep schools for the wealthy.

Gabi wrote: "This looks like a nice place - who's in charge of the decor?
Has anyone done the catering? What's to eat around here?

Now Trev can walk properly again, we are going to be exercising together!

..."

I'm never around during the daytime. Who's in charge of the nightcor?

Extremely glad to hear of Trev's improved condition.

Been reading Skellig in my "intermittent reading room" (you know the one with the porcelain reading chair) and it's really a pretty remarkable book. The narrative is evocative but ambiguous at the same time. It has the feel of a Neil Gaiman story but as many details are left out as are included.

For those of you with some influence over what reluctant readers read, you might want to check this one out.

I actually own(ed) an old copy of Skellig, from when it first came out. Whether it is still in the depths of my classroom library (now as out of control as kudzu), remains to be seen. Or found. Or something.

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this group although I've been on Goodreads since 2009. I have a question to throw out to all of you: In a manuscript, is it considered proper to write out the word of a number eg eleven or to write the numeral eg 11? I'd appreciate hearing from you. The people in my writing critique group each have heard different rules on this subject.

Hi, Lisa.

My usage book says numbers of one or two words are spelled out, three or more words are written as numerals.

In Garner's Modern American Usage, Garner writes, "Generally, it is acceptable to simply spell out the number rather than using a numeral. That's no problem with smaller numbers -- most styles call for spelling out small numbers anyway. The trouble comes with larger numbers, and the larger the number the more troubling it can be. But the rule of reason applies here. When the number can be expressed briefly, or when precision is not an issue, simply write out the number."

The other rule is never to start a sentence with a numeral. Bad, bad, bad.

And sundry other rules related to votes, scores, decades, etc.

70 times 7 is the # of times you should avoid starting a sentence with a numeral, and 10-digit numbers (that was in binary, so I actually meant 2) should certainly be spelt out rather than written in Arabic numerals (or spelt out explicitly in العربية), so I hope that 4closes any further possibility of confusion on these important .'s (by which I mean "points" and not "periods," with a deliberately supererogatory apostrophe) of usage, and that hereinafter all instances of x such that sentence(x) can be as clear and felicitous as this 1 has been, at least IV illustrative purposes, because it would be awful if I had written 1 (and specifically, the one you're reading) that might be considered autologous.

My only rule on numbers is to do what seems best in the circumstances.

Personally I'd go with spelling out the smaller ones.

"A Tale of Two Cities" and "Twelve Angry Men" as well as "Three Tall Women" Even O'Henry's "The Four Million" looks better written out to me.

But when the written out version gets unwieldy or doesn't convey what you want, then by all means use the digits.

1984 seems better to me than spelling it out. And "6 RMS RIV VU" wouldn't be the same if it were spelled out.

Also in the book I just finished, Skellig the author used digits for 27 and 53 as he wanted to convey that they were numbers from a Chinese takeaway menu.

Course my standard was also shaped by reading such things as 101 Uses for a Dead Cat and despite Mark's admonition about starting sentences (and titles?) with numbers, I'd recommend reading it.

Totally useless bit of trivia about expressing numbers in written form... ever notice the number of times 40 appears in the Bible? Seems the scribes has a symbol for a number that meant "a whole lotta" that has since been translated as 40.

No statement containing 62 characters can be expressed in English, though.

And btw, Lisa, welcome to L&G! (Nice to see you in a different venue.) No one has been ranting incoherently in LP for at least several hours, though, so I suppose I'd better go rectify the situation.

Hi Mark, Thanks for the welcome. I never start sentences with numbers. Anyway, I thought I had learned that for numbers up to 20 it should be spelled out but for numbers higher than that it's better to write the numerals. Everyone seems to have their own version of that proving that there probably is no hard and fast rule on the matter. So thanks everyone for your imput.

Mark wrote: "...and 10-digit numbers (that was in binary, so I actually meant 2) should certainly be spelt out rather than written ..."

But Mark, remember there are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary numbers and those who don't.

My apologies to the non-digi-nerds among us.

Just discovered that HBO has put all of season 1 of The Newsroom back on-line on their "on demand" system prior to their premiering season 2 in July.

If you haven't checked the show out and you have the opportunity, I'd recommend that you do it. This is a great new series created by Aaron Sorkin (the guy that create The West Wing) and deals with the issues surrounding what passes for news reporting in the U.S.

It goes behind the scenes and suggests well-reasoned, tough questions that we all should be aware of and thinking about. And it does it in an entertaining way.

The first season covers, among other things, tragedy porn like the Casey Anthony trial coverage, the Wiener sexting debacle, the B.P. gulf oil spill, the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Tea Party and the debt ceiling crisis, and a host of others.

Just watch this clip for a taste of what you can expect...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpn0vh...

Stephen wrote: "Mark wrote: "...and 10-digit numbers (that was in binary, so I actually meant 2) should certainly be spelt out rather than written ..."

But Mark, remember there are 10 kinds of people in the world..."

I love that! I've also heard that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who tend to dichotomize, and those who don't. :)

My Imponderable of the Day...

Why when I Google images of "Goat reading a Book" do I get so many images of George W. Bush reading to kids on the morning of 9/11?

Could it be because of this quote? http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10256...

Stephen wrote: "My Imponderable of the Day...

Why when I Google images of "Goat reading a Book" do I get so many images of George W. Bush reading to kids on the morning of 9/11?

Could it be because of this quot..."

When W was informed (or perhaps reminded on schedule) of the circumstance of planes crashing into the WTC, he was in the process of reading a book about a goat (one with great pictures, no doubt) to schoolchildren in a classroom in Florida. That's why the keywords, "reading goat book" would have summoned forth those images. He naturally immediately sprung into commanding presidential action by doing nothing whatever and continuing to read about the goat for the next 7 minutes or so. Iconographically, too, a goat is often used to represent Satan or great evil, so that may have had something to do with it, too.

Giles Goat Boy... is there a connection?

Newengland wrote: "Giles Goat Boy... is there a connection?"

All things are holistically interconnected (just ask Dirk Gently), so doubtless there is, but I think Barth's child raised as a goat claimed to be the Messiah -- or maybe it was the Decider, I'm not sure -- and to have special numinous insights (though I can't recall whether they had to do with WMD's), so "a connection?" Nah, hard to see.

Asynchronicity, then -- one precinct over.

asynchronicity, semaphores, mutual exclusion, dekker's algorithm: I'm having nightmares about having to teach op systems again. Perhaps it is the fault of Giles Goat-Boy, but I had been under the impression that Giles had given up on the Goat-Boy and taken to watching Buffy. Is no one on all of GR talking, by the way, or have notifications just been off for the last 12 hours?

Fourth doldrums....

Just caught this guy on Youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qouLVb...

Sombody should take his copy of On the Road away.

Still, some of it's good.

Was that a poem? He kind of lost me there....

That's sort of what I was saying. Some of it is great stuff (He's stolen from the BEST) but he's a bit Jack Kerouac'd or maybe just wacked out.

I've yet to succumb to Kerouac Mania. Twice I've ventured One the Road and twice I've taken an early exit....

Newengland wrote: "I've yet to succumb to Kerouac Mania. Twice I've ventured One the Road and twice I've taken an early exit...."

Me, too.

Ditto. I'm with Robert Frost and while I've looked down it a ways, it's still On the Road not taken.

Personally, I'm on the road-that-does-not-exist, and am seriously contemplating an embrace of solipsism (on the recommendation of an imaginary friend). Kerouac, by the way, is nuts.

P.S. Don't believe anything the immediately preceding poster (the author of message #44) has to say.

I have travel on the road and not taken it also.

How about ?

Kerouac is Lowell's only claim to fame. Lowell, Mass., I mean.

So... not the Lowell Observatory? (Flagstaff isn't that far off....)

Maybe Jack motored through it. Too bad he wouldn't remember it.

He stopped off to have some electric kool-aid with a friend.

I'm glad to hear that none of you liked it. I read it a couple of years ago and couldn't figure out what the hoopla was all about.