Elements of Style in English
Xah Lee
• Elements of Style in English
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/elements_of_style.html
plain text version follows.
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Elements of Style in English
Xah Lee, 2010-05-02
Was reading Wikipedia on The Elements of Style. Here's a interesting
quote:
«
Edinburgh University linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum has
criticized The Elements of Style, saying:
The book’s toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal
eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English
grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to
notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules . . . It’s sad.
Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the
uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation
of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure
whenever they write 'however' or 'than me' or 'was' or 'which,' but
can’t tell you why.[9]
Specifically, Pullum says Strunk and White were misguided in
identifying the passive voice as incorrect, and in proscribing
established usages such as the split infinitive and the use of "which"
in a restrictive relative clause.[9] He also frequently criticizes
Elements on Language Log, a linguists' blog focusing on portrayals of
language in the popular media, for promoting linguistic prescriptivism
and hypercorrection among English speakers,[10] referring to it as
"the book that ate America's brain".[11]
The Boston Globe's review of the 2005 illustrated edition
describes it as an "aging zombie of a book ... a hodgepodge, its now-
antiquated pet peeves jostling for space with 1970s taboos and 1990s
computer advice."[12]
»
Quite funny, and i'd agree. Much of the mouthings of the writing
establishment is shit.
But also, from this i learned the word Atavism. Also, the term
Hypercorrection. It is great to know the word hypercorrection, because
that gives me another embellished artillery against the grammarian and
pendant sophomorons.
Also, from Wikipedia's citation and references, i learned of Language
Log. Yay. A blog dedicated to fucking with pedantic idiots, which i've
been doing for the past decade. The blog itself is here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/.
I kept on reading a bit on Wikipedia about the various style guides.
Fowler's Modern English Usage, seems like one i can endorse. There's
also The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, MLA. Actually, i think
most of these so-called style “guides” are much ado about nothing. The
only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic
grammar and spelling, is: Study logic and critical thinking, obtain a
analytical mind. This, will improve your writing by far, than a
writing “style” per se. As to a writing guide, the only i can firmly
recommend is: Simplified English. This is far more effective than any
established style guides. Of course, all these style talk about how to
form your words and punctuations into cogent sentences are in the
context of formal writing, in science, journal, reports,
documentations, tutorials, textbooks, as opposed to literary
tomfoolery as in essaying, novels, poetry, of which, pigs fly.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Tim Bradshaw
> I kept on reading a bit on Wikipedia about the various style guides.
> Fowler's Modern English Usage, seems like one i can endorse. There's
> also The Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, MLA. Actually, i think
> othing. The
> only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic
> grammar and spelling, is: Study logic and critical thinking, obtain a
> analytical mind. This, will improve your writing by far, than a
> an firmly
> recommend is: Simplified English. This is far more effective than any
> established style guides. Of course, all these style talk about how to
> form your words and punctuations into cogent sentences are in the
> context of formal writing, in science, journal, reports,
> documentations, tutorials, textbooks, as opposed to literary
> tomfoolery as in essaying, novels, poetry, of which, pigs fly.
!
Raffael Cavallaro
> The
> only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic
> grammar and spelling, is
What you don't seem to realize, or possibly wilfully ignore, is that no
native speaker would want your advice on writing because almost every
post of yours betrays a faulty grasp of elementary english grammar. You
have to know the rules before you can creatively break them, and you
don't know the rules yet.
For example, your final verbal eruction, which I hesitate to call a
sentence, approaches word salad in its infelicitous disregard of
elementary grammar.
"Of course, all these style talk about how to
form your words and punctuations into cogent sentences are in the
context of formal writing, in science, journal, reports,
documentations, tutorials, textbooks, as opposed to literary
tomfoolery as in essaying, novels, poetry, of which, pigs fly."
Specifically:
two incorrect uses of the singular-plural distinction ("these style"
should be "these sytles" and "punctuations" shoud be "punctuation"),
and two verbs without a relative pronoun in:
"all these style talk about how to form your words and punctuations
into cogent sentences are in the context of formal writing"
This is not a set of powerpoint bullet items:
"all of these styles:
* talk about how to form your words and punctuation into cogent sentences
* are in the context of formal writing"
This is a prose sentece, so of course it should be:
"all of these styles, which talk about how to form your words and
punctuation into cogent sentences, are in the context of formal
writing..."
and the final, nearly incomprehensible:
"of which, pigs fly."
where the only possible formal grammatical and stylistic critique is:
WTF?!?
Simple things like this are a red flag to readers that you yourself
haven't mastered english, which is why no native speaker would seek
your advice on writing style.
At the end of the day, methinks the poster doth protest too much. If
you really feel that standard grammar and usage are an unnecessary
restriction on your expressive freedom, then write in your own
non-standard poetic style without feeling the need to justify it. The
fact that you simultaneously decry existing standards, while advising
others to learn "basic grammar" suggests that you recognize your own
failings in this regard, and rather that deal with the problem at its
source (i.e., your own failure to learn english grammar) you lash out
at some straw man of unnecessaryily restrictive style guides. I, and
others here, bend and break the rules all the time, but that is because
we already know the rules to begin with.
warmest regards,
Ralph
--
Raffael Cavallaro
Don Phillipson
news:55c53d08-3d4b-4186...@g1g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
. . .
> Was reading Wikipedia on The Elements of Style. Here's a interesting
quote:
> � Edinburgh University linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum has
> criticized The Elements of Style, saying:
> The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal
> eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar.
Pullum's polemic appeared a year ago, perhaps more, and was then
discussed in some detail. His main complaint is that American
colleges use Strunk & White as a source for grammar (despite
the title's indicating that it is about style, not grammar.) Prof. Pullum
taught linguistics in US colleges for 20 years before returning to
Britain but has no special reputation in his professional field (says
my brother, who has some eminence in the same field.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Xah Lee
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2010-05-02 08:50:48 -0400, Xah Lee said:
>
> > The
> > only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic
> > grammar and spelling, is
>
> What you don't seem to realize, or possibly wilfully ignore, is that no
> native speaker would want your advice on writing because almost every
> post of yours betrays a faulty grasp of elementary english grammar. You
> have to know the rules before you can creatively break them, and you
> don't know the rules yet.
What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing
serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of
writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to
feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing
is successful. More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader,
tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is
great.
now, my little ditty of “Elements of Style in English” is a little
essay. As you can see, the target audience are people concerned about
writing and have read one or two of the mentioned styled guides. In
general, they are college graduates, or involved in the writing
profession.
Now, consider the sentence you criticized:
«Of course, all these style talk about how to form your words and
punctuations into cogent sentences are in the context of formal
writing, in science, journal, reports, documentations, tutorials,
textbooks, as opposed to literary tomfoolery as in essaying, novels,
poetry, of which, pigs fly.»
would any in the audience have problem understanding the above
perfectly and fluently? In particular, when the “pigs fly” part hits
them?
you not only understood it perfectly, so well, in fact, you took the
time to criticize how it is ungrammatical, and accuse me of no basic
understanding of grammar. This, is the communicative success of my
little piece.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
His kennyness
Ah, Boston, that pinnacle of wicked shahhhp eleocution.
Forest. Trees. Please note order. All I remember from S&W was that it
was well-written itself and the bit about simplify, simplify, simplify.
Good advice for writing code, think to come of it.
> »
>
> Quite funny, and i'd agree. Much of the mouthings of the writing
> establishment is shit.
>
> But also, from this i learned the word Atavism. Also, the term
> Hypercorrection. It is great to know the word hypercorrection, because
> that gives me another embellished artillery against the grammarian and
> pendant sophomorons.
>
> Also, from Wikipedia's citation and references, i learned of Language
> Log. Yay. A blog dedicated to fucking with pedantic idiots, which i've
> been doing for the past decade. The blog itself is here:
> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/.
>
> I kept on reading a bit on Wikipedia about the various style guides.
> Fowler's Modern English Usage, seems like one i can endorse.
"[Fowler] opposed all pedantry, and notably ridiculed artificial
grammatical rules without warrant in natural English usage — such as
bans on split infinitives and ending a sentence with a preposition,
rules on the placement of the word only, and distinctions between which
and that. "
Ewwww. Wrong, wrong, and wronger.
kt
Raffael Cavallaro
> What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing
> serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of
> writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to
> feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing
> is successful.
To the ear of a native speaker, your writing is filled with hiccups.
You don't realize this because you haven't internalized english grammar
and usage sufficiently to hear it. You think you're communicating in an
unimpeded flow, but a native speaker cringes when reading your posts
because of the numerous gaffes, errors that one would never hear from a
native speaker.
If you don't want to adhere to english grammar because it's too much of
an effort for you to learn its byzantine norms (and they are in large
part arbitrary and irregular), fine. There are thousands of posters on
the internet whose english is far from perfect.
> would any in the audience have problem understanding the above
> perfectly and fluently? In particular, when the "pigs fly" part hits
> them?
It isn't at all clear what you mean. "When pigs fly" means "that will
never happen." Do you mean that essays and novels will never happen? Do
you mean that poetic license makes the impossible happen? Your usage of
the phrase makes no sense in the context in which you use it. You can't
repurpose long accepted idioms and expect that readers will magically
read your mind and intuit your intended meaning. We don't live in your
head.
One problem with english being widespread is that it is a language in
which is easy to attain understandability, but very difficult to attain
comprehensive mastery of the huge laundry list of often arbitrary
grammatical and usage norms. As a result, non-native speakers often
fall into the trap of believing that it is easy to master. It is not.
Such people my go for years repeating errors without realizing it
because native speakers will understand their intended meaning, but not
correct their grammar and/or usage.
Please stop trumpeting your broken english as some sort of stylistic
choice. It's not. It's obvious to native speakers that it's not. You
don't *choose* to write "punctuations" instead of "punctuation," or
write sentences with two verbs and no relative pronoun. You just don't
know any better.
Spanish is a language with relatively few phonemes. As a result,
spanish speakers often speak other languages that have phonemes absent
from spanish with a quite noticeable accent. My brother was acquainted
with a spanish diplomat who, because of his profession, needed to be
proficient in a number of languages. He once told my brother "I espeak
eseven languages - all of them in espanish!"
There is no shame in not having mastered english grammar and usage (or
pronunciation) - I speak some spanish, french and german, but I would
never claim to have mastery of the grammar and usage of any of these.
At the same time, I don't write screeds condemning the authorities on
the standard grammar and usage of these languages.
Just be yourself without apology. At the same time, stop trying to
denigrate accepted, widely used, english grammar and style just because
you haven't mastered it. It just makes you look foolish.
Xah Lee
are a sea of them.
But is there a way to resolve our argument in a definitive way?
Yes. One simple way, is to ask expert writers, say, those who are
widely recognized as expert writers, make a judgment of my writings.
Say, my very little essay here, or others on my website. Ask them, is
these writings, clear, conveys the writer's thoughts well, fluent,
creative, and in short, rather expertly done?
You see, we can even carry this out. The question, of whether my
writings are above average among professional writers, is absolutely a
question that can be answered with a definitive yes or no. But the
question is, as with most arguments in online forums, there is no
incentive to actually resolve arguments. In the past years, i've
suggested concrete and practical ways to raise funds by both parties
to resolve questions about computer language debates. Wrote at least
twice with some 500 or so words on this that describes how this can be
done. (search google group of my post with terms paypal, argument,
expert, you'll probably find them) The closest case is someone paid me
$20 usd to resolve a argument i had with another guy. (documented
here: http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/Mathematica_optimization.html
)
So, what am i gonna do with u? what CAN i do with another online
netizen who i barely know? do i, honestly, spend the next 4 hours
digging my heart out with sincerity about a proposal to resolve a
argument, that i know, will result in nothing other than another bout
of word fight? And consider you as a person, do i really, want to go
to all this trouble that effectively in the end makes you look bad?
hum? y'know, my persona, isn't the type to be kind with words about
matters of truth or the size of my cock.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
On May 2, 7:31 pm, Raffael Cavallaro
D Herring
On 05/02/2010 06:57 PM, Xah Lee wrote:
> What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing
> serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of
> writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to
> feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing
> is successful. More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader,
> tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is
> great.
Like most pedants, you don't realize that writing is a tool for
communication. When a written piece accurately communicates the
writer's thoughts and feelings without confounding the reader, it has
been successfully executed. Moreover, a writing style that catches
the reader's fancy, excites the mind, or stirs intense emotion may be
considered to be great.
While I am no wordsmith, I think most of your other writings could use
a similar rewrite. Your pragmatism is worthy; but a fluent, precisely
written text is a helpful prerequisite for your stated aims.
- Daniel
P.S. On a meta note, your works frequently indicate good ideas; but
these ideas are often overshadowed by a lack of example
implementations, difficulty communicating, narrow focus, or a bit of
hubris.
Raffael Cavallaro
> The question, of whether my
> writings are above average among professional writers, is absolutely a
> question that can be answered with a definitive yes or no
OK then, definitively no; they're quite amateurish, and well below the
quality produced by most professional writers.
warmest regards,
Ralph
P.S. I don't have time to keep up with your seemingly endless
outpourings of inchoate verbiage, so I'll likely make this my last
response.
--
Raffael Cavallaro
Captain Obvious
RC> You don't realize this because you haven't internalized english grammar
RC> and usage sufficiently to hear it. You think you're communicating in an
RC> unimpeded flow, but a native speaker cringes when reading your posts
RC> because of the numerous gaffes, errors that one would never hear from a
RC> native speaker.
Have you ever seen comments on Youtube?
"i was doing this when i was tired of waiting my girlfriend to arrive to
park,so i was on park road i started to paly this song from my cellphone and
started to dance then when i surely wasen't expecting...there she was right
behind me i noticed that when i made turn around move and jeesus christ she
lolled hard "
"ahah? hes a nerdd"
Or Yahoo! Answers:
"I beg you to answer. I m so desparate?"
Tim Bradshaw
> you not only understood it perfectly, so well, in fact, you took the
> time to criticize how it is ungrammatical, and accuse me of no basic
> understanding of grammar. This, is the communicative success of my
> little piece.
I didn't understand the last bit at all
Stan Brown
<raffaelc...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>:
[addressing Xah Lee]
> Please stop trumpeting your broken english as some sort of stylistic
> choice. It's not. It's obvious to native speakers that it's not. You
> don't *choose* to write "punctuations" instead of "punctuation," or
> write sentences with two verbs and no relative pronoun. You just don't
> know any better.
I think you're being too charitable. These kinds of errors are not
matters of idiom or failing to master strange exceptions; they are
failure to master basic grammar. The difference between singular ad
plural, and the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
stuff in any European language.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
Tim Bradshaw
> "[Fowler] opposed all pedantry, and notably ridiculed artificial
> grammatical rules without warrant in natural English usage — such as
> bans on split infinitives and ending a sentence with a preposition,
> rules on the placement of the word only, and distinctions between which
> and that. "
>
> Ewwww. Wrong, wrong, and wronger.
I have to agree with Xah here. Fowler was quite a smart person, and
he's well worth reading on split infinitives, for instance (to
mindlessly ban which is clearly silly)
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| One problem with english being widespread is that it is a language in
| which is easy to attain understandability, but very difficult to attain
| comprehensive mastery of the huge laundry list of often arbitrary
| grammatical and usage norms. As a result, non-native speakers often
| fall into the trap of believing that it is easy to master. It is not.
| Such people my go for years repeating errors without realizing it
| because native speakers will understand their intended meaning, but not
| correct their grammar and/or usage.
Heh. Sounds a lot like Common Lisp... ;-} ;-}
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
James Hogg
> Sun, 2 May 2010 22:31:36 -0400 from Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelc...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>:
> [addressing Xah Lee]
>> Please stop trumpeting your broken english as some sort of stylistic
>> choice. It's not. It's obvious to native speakers that it's not. You
>> don't *choose* to write "punctuations" instead of "punctuation," or
>> write sentences with two verbs and no relative pronoun. You just don't
>> know any better.
>
> I think you're being too charitable. These kinds of errors are not
> matters of idiom or failing to master strange exceptions; they are
> failure to master basic grammar. The difference between singular ad
> plural, and the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
> stuff in any European language.
And in later semesters, students go on to learn that many languages have
subjectless verbs.
--
James
Nick
writes:
> On 2010-05-02 23:05:05 -0400, Xah Lee said:
>
>> The question, of whether my
>> writings are above average among professional writers, is absolutely a
>> question that can be answered with a definitive yes or no
>
> OK then, definitively no; they're quite amateurish, and well below the
> quality produced by most professional writers.
Agreed. OTOH if he's the same Xah Lee who wrote the web pages about
adding new major modes to Emacs, they are more than good enough to make
his pages entirely comprehensible and very useful.
> warmest regards,
>
> Ralph
>
> P.S. I don't have time to keep up with your seemingly endless
> outpourings of inchoate verbiage, so I'll likely make this my last
> response.
If "seemingly endless outpourings of inchoate verbiage" are your warmest
regards, I'd hate to be frozen out by you.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Xah Lee
Amethyst Deceiver
wrote:
>On May 2, 9:06�am, Raffael Cavallaro
><raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>> On 2010-05-02 08:50:48 -0400, Xah Lee said:
>>
>> > The
>> > only firm advice i can give about writing, besides knowing basic
>> > grammar and spelling, is
>>
>> What you don't seem to realize, or possibly wilfully ignore, is that no
>> native speaker would want your advice on writing because almost every
>> post of yours betrays a faulty grasp of elementary english grammar. You
>> have to know the rules before you can creatively break them, and you
>> don't know the rules yet.
>
>What you don't seem to realize, as with most pedants, is that writing
>serves a purpose, a purpose of communication, and when a piece of
>writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to
>feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing
>is successful. More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader,
>tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is
>great.
By that definition, you fail.
Marius Hancu
> More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader,
> tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is
> great.
At Google Books:
410 on "that made his blood boil".
28 on "that boiled his blood"
is the 2nd strange only to me?
Marius Hancu
Marius Hancu
> More over, if the style per se, persuaded the reader,
> tickled his mind, hit her brain, or boiled his blood, that writing is
> great.
Also, I think that:
- "more over" should be "Moreover"
- there definitely shouldn't be a comma after "per se," as it
definitely breaks the communication
Marius Hancu
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
It is strange to me. It appears that the standard indomatic phrase has
been rearranged to mimic the structure of "tickled his mind" -
<verb>ed <personal adjective[1]> <noun>.
[1] Or whatever the technical term is.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Marius Hancu
> «Of course, all these style talk about how to form your words and
> punctuations into cogent sentences are in the context of formal
> writing, in science, journal, reports, documentations, tutorials,
> textbooks, as opposed to literary tomfoolery as in essaying, novels,
> poetry, of which, pigs fly.»
I think one should use instead:
"all this style talk ... is/exists in the context"
as "talk" is singular.
Or:
"all these style fights/conversation/disputes/(even "talks") ... exist/
take place in the context"
if a plural is wanted.
Marius Hancu
Marius Hancu
> when a piece of
> writing, communicated exactly what the writer wants the reader to
> feel, understand, with no hiccups in the reading process, that writing
> is successful.
No comma after "writing," IMO, as it breaks the flow.
Also, "communicated" should be changed to the present perfect "has
communicated," as the reference is made to events leading to the
present.
Marius Hancu
Marius Hancu
>As you can see, the target audience are people concerned about
> writing and have read one or two of the mentioned styled guides.
A relative "who" is needed:
"and _who_ have read"
or in a non-restrictive format:
", who have read ..."
> In
> general, they are college graduates, or involved in the writing
> profession.
Lack of symmetry:
"or _people_ involved in the writing profession,"
is what is needed, IMO.
"styles guides mentioned"
would flow better.
Marius Hancu
Marius Hancu
> «Of course, all these style talk about how to form your words and
> punctuations into cogent sentences are in the context of formal
> writing, in science, journal, reports, documentations, tutorials,
> textbooks, as opposed to literary tomfoolery as in essaying, novels,
> poetry, of which, pigs fly.»
>
> would any in the audience have problem understanding the above
> perfectly and fluently? In particular, when the “pigs fly” part hits
> them?
I do, in fact, have a problem with that part.
Normally, one would expect:
"of/about which one could say "pigs fly."
Your phrasing is confusing.
The quotation marks are important in order to indicate a popular
saying.
The even more confusing part is that you're using an inappropriate
idiom:
"when pigs fly" means "never" as shown here:
---
Alice's adventures in Wonderland: and, Through the looking-glass and
what ... - Page 316
Lewis Carroll - Fiction - 2003 - 356 pages
'When pigs fly' is a slang idiom meaning 'never', just as 'pigs might
fly' means
'perhaps' (Partridge, A Dictionary of Historical Slang, London, 1937).
http://tinyurl.com/24z89qt
---
One can't pop in any idiom, without regard to its recognized meaning,
in a context, and expect that it would fly, that is that it would be
accepted or understood, by readers.
Marius Hancu
Raffael Cavallaro
> If "seemingly endless outpourings of inchoate verbiage" are your warmest
> regards, I'd hate to be frozen out by you.
Not wishing you to feel frozen out by my silence, I'll reply.
;^)
He's a craftsman much of whose output is complaints about his primary
tool, complaints he wouldn't have if he took the time to master that
tool first. These frequent, ill-conceived complaints are what I
characterized, perhaps a bit uncharitably, as "seemingly endless
outpourings of inchoate verbiage." I think he would be happier, his
screeds fewer, and these fora more pleasant if he dropped his
defensiveness about his imperfect english and accepted that established
grammar and usage are facilitators of clear communication, not
impediments.
I don't hate him. I think he's creative and bright in his own way. If I
didn't care about him at all, if I thought he were beyond hope, I
wouldn't take the time to try to get him to see how he's sabotaging
himself and to change.
His kennyness
Who gets more attention than The Mighty Xah, wherever his pen treads?
hth, kxo
Tim Bradshaw
> is the 2nd strange only to me?
No: the first one is a saying, basically. I don't think it's an issue
of grammar but of recognition of that specific phrase or very minor
variants.
Tim Bradshaw
> And that is the heart of Xah's issues with everything in my experience
> going back way too many years. He is driven enough to learn quite a bit
> about a topic, but at the point where most people have an epiphany that
> this is something they really want to know well, Xah has a moment where
> he decides he is now an expert and doesn't need to learn anything else.
Since we're doing psychiatry now, this is exactly the impression I get
from Mathematica as well. That may not be coincidence.
His kennyness
The most deadly time for a motorcyclist is when they have not five miles
experience but five hundred.
hth, kzo
Tim Bradshaw
> The most deadly time for a motorcyclist is when they have not five
> miles experience but five hundred.
Most mountaineering accidents happen on the way down
Aleksej Saushev
> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
> stuff in any European language.
Obviously, you don't know European languages.
Let's see. Search engine brings this: http://learningrussian.net/
Lessons are here: http://learningrussian.net/russian-lessons/
First lesson is about alphabet and pronounciation, nothing to look there,
the second one is about greetings:
http://learningrussian.net/hello_in_russian_greetings.php
Let's skip first trivial greetings and jump to "how are you?" section.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?"
Surprise! A sentence without verb.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?"
Surprise! Another sentence without verb.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?"
Surprise! The verb without subject.
Do you think this is exception? Alright, let's go on and find another
chapter with sentences. The next one is this:
http://learningrussian.net/hello_in_russian_greetings_grammar2.php
"О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?" - No verb.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?" - Verb without subject.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?" - No verb.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫?" - No verb.
"О©╫сё О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫." - No verb.
Maybe that's because they propose simplified language for beginners.
Alright, let's see what they propose in literature section:
http://learningrussian.net/russian-literature/
"Notes from the Underground."
"О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫..." - No verb.
"О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫." - Again no verb.
"О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫." - And again no verb.
"О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫, О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫." - Only the fourth sentence brings
subject and verb you expect.
Oh, "Anna Karenina." This one you don't need to read at all since the
first sentence is known by heart:
"О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫..." - No verb.
"...О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫-О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫." - No verb again.
--
HE CE3OH...
Peter Moylan
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
>> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
>> stuff in any European language.
>
> Obviously, you don't know European languages.
In fact, Stan's claim is easily refuted [*] by translating the English
"It's raining" into a few other languages.
*In the traditional meaning of "refuted". I haven't yet caught up with
our news reporters, who believe that "refute" means "deny".
Still, we have to remember that Stan was addressing Xah Lee's claim to
be fluent in English. In that context, he makes sense.
> Alright, let's see what they propose in literature section:
>
> http://learningrussian.net/russian-literature/
>
> "Notes from the Underground."
>
> "О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫ О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫О©╫..." - No verb.
Although I take the rest of your point, I don't think this is a good
example. It doesn't take long for the learner of any second language to
discover that his/her intuition about the verb "to be" can never be
transported from one language to another. It's an exception to the rules
about verbs in just about any language.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Don Phillipson
> > stuff in any European language.
>
> Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>
> Let's see. Search engine brings this: http://learningrussian.net/
> Lessons are here: http://learningrussian.net/russian-lessons/
> First lesson is about alphabet and pronounciation, nothing to look there,
> the second one is about greetings:
> http://learningrussian.net/hello_in_russian_greetings.php
> Let's skip first trivial greetings and jump to "how are you?" section.
>
>
> Surprise! A sentence without verb.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Cor
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
>> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
>> stuff in any European language.
>
> Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>
> Let's see. Search engine brings this: http://learningrussian.net/
> Lessons are here: http://learningrussian.net/russian-lessons/
> First lesson is about alphabet and pronounciation, nothing to look there,
> the second one is about greetings:
> http://learningrussian.net/hello_in_russian_greetings.php
>
> Let's skip first trivial greetings and jump to "how are you?" section.
>
> "Как дела ?"
>
> Surprise! A sentence without verb.
oooops ....
Just to pick a nit : делаetb : is doing something,
which surely is a verb. ;-)
The standard translation is often "how are you", but "How do you do" would
be a good translation too, but I think it depends on social surrounding
and tradition etc.
But let us not forget that russian & polish are slavic languages which
do not compare with western-european like german, english and dutch from
anglo-germanic descent.
And that the southern-european like french, spanish
and italian are from a romanic descent.
All this makes europe a real heaven for multiple luanguage afficionados
(as I am), plays havoc with your style and grammar.
So, all in all, not all european languages are equal .. some are
more equal than others. ;-)
But on a lighter note, as a student in the russian-for-beginners
course once said:
I read two books , War and Peace ...
Cor
--
Join us and live in peace or face obliteration
If you hate to see my gun consider a non criminal line of work
I never threathen but merely state the consequences of your choice
Geavanceerde politieke correctheid is niet te onderscheiden van sarcasme
Peter Moylan
> But on a lighter note, as a student in the russian-for-beginners
> course once said:
> I read two books , War and Peace ...
I like both kinds of music.
James Hogg
> Some entity, AKA Aleksej Saushev <as...@inbox.ru>,
> wrote this mindboggling stuff:
> (selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
>
>> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>>
>>> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
>>> stuff in any European language.
>> Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>>
>> Let's see. Search engine brings this: http://learningrussian.net/
>> Lessons are here: http://learningrussian.net/russian-lessons/
>> First lesson is about alphabet and pronounciation, nothing to look there,
>> the second one is about greetings:
>> http://learningrussian.net/hello_in_russian_greetings.php
>>
>> Let's skip first trivial greetings and jump to "how are you?" section.
>>
>> "Как дела ?"
>>
>> Surprise! A sentence without verb.
>
> oooops ....
> Just to pick a nit : делаetb : is doing something,
> which surely is a verb. ;-)
Just to pick an even bigger nit:
The word дела is a neuter plural noun meaning "affairs". The question
means "How [are] things?"
--
James
Stan Brown
<gro.nalyomp@retep>:
>
> Aleksej Saushev wrote:
> > Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
> >
> >> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
> >> stuff in any European language.
> >
> > Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>
> In fact, Stan's claim is easily refuted [*] by translating the English
> "It's raining" into a few other languages.
>
> *In the traditional meaning of "refuted". I haven't yet caught up with
> our news reporters, who believe that "refute" means "deny".
:-)
Granted, I oversimplified. Out of curiosity, though, which languages
are you thinking of?
> Still, we have to remember that Stan was addressing Xah Lee's claim to
> be fluent in English. In that context, he makes sense.
>
> > Alright, let's see what they propose in literature section:
> >
> > http://learningrussian.net/russian-literature/
> >
> > "Notes from the Underground."
> >
> > "? ??????? ???????..." - No verb.
>
> Although I take the rest of your point, I don't think this is a good
> example. It doesn't take long for the learner of any second language to
> discover that his/her intuition about the verb "to be" can never be
> transported from one language to another. It's an exception to the rules
> about verbs in just about any language.
It seems other people can see actual text -- all I see is a series of
question marks. It may be my newsreader, which occasionally shows
its age.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
Tim Bradshaw
> You may have misunderstood modern English
> linguistics, which starts with the basic distinction between
> (1) Sentences = Grammatical constructions with verbs
> (2)�Other things written or said, which have no verb and
> need no verb.
and then (3): almost nothing that people actually say is an instance of (1).
(Though actually, they don't teach it like that at all of course.)
Cor
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
>>> "Как дела ?"
>>>
>>> Surprise! A sentence without verb.
>>
>> oooops ....
>> Just to pick a nit : делаetb : is doing something,
>> which surely is a verb. ;-)
>
> Just to pick an even bigger nit:
> The word дела is a neuter plural noun meaning "affairs". The question
> means "How [are] things?"
Yes, that too.
or, how are your 'affairs' doing ?
but which type of affair is it now ?
with te lady nextdoor, the state of your bankaccount or in general.
Like in some 'circles' in france one says: 'ca boule ?' one responds
with 'en frites', and it really has nothing to do with throwing
steel balls while munching on freedom fries. ;-)
It's context and idioms etc that drives true meaning of words in any
language wich makes translations a real hassle to get it right.
Just look at the funny/poor results of computer-translations
even we people can not get a simple greeting right in one go. ;-)
Lars Enderin
> Thu, 13 May 2010 08:56:59 +1000 from Peter Moylan
> <gro.nalyomp@retep>:
>>
>> Aleksej Saushev wrote:
>>
> It seems other people can see actual text -- all I see is a series of
> question marks. It may be my newsreader, which occasionally shows
> its age.
>
Aleksej's post has Mime headers:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
The followups respected that.
Your reader is apparently unable to cope, since it uses 7bit us-ascii. I
suggest you try Thunderbird, for example.
Peter Moylan
> Thu, 13 May 2010 08:56:59 +1000 from Peter Moylan
> <gro.nalyomp@retep>:
>> Aleksej Saushev wrote:
>>> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>>>
>>>> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
>>>> stuff in any European language.
>>> Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>> In fact, Stan's claim is easily refuted [*] by translating the English
>> "It's raining" into a few other languages.
>>
>> *In the traditional meaning of "refuted". I haven't yet caught up with
>> our news reporters, who believe that "refute" means "deny".
>
> :-)
>
> Granted, I oversimplified. Out of curiosity, though, which languages
> are you thinking of?
To be honest, I made the comment without thinking very hard. It's
possible that I was thinking of Esperanto, with Russian as a close second.
>>> Alright, let's see what they propose in literature section:
>>>
>>> http://learningrussian.net/russian-literature/
>>>
>>> "Notes from the Underground."
>>>
>>> "? ??????? ???????..." - No verb.
>> Although I take the rest of your point, I don't think this is a good
>> example. It doesn't take long for the learner of any second language to
>> discover that his/her intuition about the verb "to be" can never be
>> transported from one language to another. It's an exception to the rules
>> about verbs in just about any language.
>
> It seems other people can see actual text -- all I see is a series of
> question marks. It may be my newsreader, which occasionally shows
> its age.
>
I see that you are using Microplanet Gravity, about which I know almost
nothing. It seems to be using a 7-bit character encoding, which rules
out just about everything except US-ASCII. Aleksej was using Gnus, which
Windows users tend to dismiss as hopelessly old-fashioned, but which
does a much better job of understanding MIME encoding. For some reason,
the popular Windows newsreaders don't seem to be good at handling
non-USA traffic.
(The question marks were actually Cyrillic text, but I guess you've
already figured that out from Alexey's address.)
Jerry Friedman
> Thu, 13 May 2010 08:56:59 +1000 from Peter Moylan
> <gro.nalyomp@retep>:
>
>
>
> > Aleksej Saushev wrote:
>
> > >> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
> > >> stuff in any European language.
>
> > > Obviously, you don't know European languages.
>
> > In fact, Stan's claim is easily refuted [*] by translating the English
> > "It's raining" into a few other languages.
>
> > *In the traditional meaning of "refuted". I haven't yet caught up with
> > our news reporters, who believe that "refute" means "deny".
>
> :-)
>
> Granted, I oversimplified. Out of curiosity, though, which languages
> are you thinking of?
"It's raining" in Spanish is "Llueve" (literally "Rains") or "Esta
lloviendo" (literally "Is raining").
Personal-pronoun subjects are optional in Spanish, and more often than
not are suppressed, but in expressions for weather, there's no
optional subject you can put in. Unless you hear differently from one
of the many people around who know Spanish better than I do.
--
Jerry Friedman
Pascal J. Bourguignon
Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> writes:
The fact that you don't write the subject doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
It's the water droplets who are raining.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
The verb is singular.
For another example, when the Spanish verb "haber" corresponds to
English "there is", it has no subject, at least in standard Spanish.
The thing whose existence is exerted is the direct object. However,
it's common but non-standard to conjugate the verb to agree in number
with the thing, as if were the subject.
I'm hoping to meet a bilingual person here in New Mexico who uses the
opposite non-standard forms--"There was five frogs" and "Hubieron
cinco ranas." (Plural "hubieron" would be singular "hubo" in standard
Spanish.)
--
Jerry Friedman
Tim Bradshaw
> The verb is singular.
As in English: "it rains", "it is raining". Clearly not the droplets.
Christian Weisgerber
> > > >> the need for a verb to have a subject, are first-semester
> > > >> stuff in any European language.
> >
> > > > Obviously, you don't know European languages.
> >
> > > In fact, Stan's claim is easily refuted [*] by translating the English
> > > "It's raining" into a few other languages.
>