May the Fourum be With You
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, May 4, 2024
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59 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Happy Star Wars day
Different take on the wave of protests:
CAMPUS PROTESTS SERVE ARAB NATIONALISM, NOT ANTISEMITISM OR CIVIL RIGHTS
And another one.
Notice both planes involved were B737 MAX. That’s a coincidence. The incident would have been the same had one or both planes been something else, all other things being equal. But the headline would have been, very likely, that two MAX jets collided on a runway; headline writers being what they are.
From there, one can easily see how Boeing would become the villain in the story, regardless of the fact the type of planes involved is not even relevant to this kind of incident.
Star Wars day?
@just nutha: May the 4th be with you.
@just nutha: May the Fourth be with you.
ETA: Jinx!
Somebody on Craigslist STL is unhappy:
@Jon: You were thiiiiiis close. Next time, don’t spell it out. 😉
@OzarkHillbilly: @Jon: [Eye roll]
I just need to give up on fewer vs. less, don’t I?
@Michael Reynolds: This is one of my pet peeves too. That and “centered around.” (Which is it? The center, or around it?)
Given today is May the Fourth, I’ll quote Obi Wan Kenobi on how I felt when “irregardless” was deemed to be okay:
@Jen:
“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis (Times change, and we change with them)”
@Jen:
People who don’t know the difference between who and whom.
Every once in a while, I’m a seeing glimmers of the weirdness that was Left Coast Portland in the early 80’s. Driving past a club proudly advertising Strip Karaoke. 3 blocks away they’re advertising gluten free lap dances. And let’s not forget the bar reminding us of national strippers history month! As Cracker would say, Wa!
If only people could get lay and lie correct. It’s my wife’s, the grammar Nazi, biggest peeve. It totally sets her off and I have to listen to her complain when i would much prefer to just lay on the couch and read,
Steve
@steve:
IIRC, Cracker had moments of success teaching conversational ESL in ROK. IIRC, it took a stack of 2x4s to wack students with. English (American) is tough, even for those of us who think we speak it.
@steve: While I feel your pain, I was married to her soulmate and also taught grammar at times, I have sympathy for the offenders, too. The handbook my school used had a formidable lie/lay grammar error entry in its “common errors” list. Took up almost half a page as I recall.
@Michael Reynolds: Language changes. I only mourn it when we lose uniquely useful words and there is no single word to replace them. Literally.
@just nutha:
I thought it was funny.
One more. I have myriad offers. I do not have a myriad of offers.
Also, a thing may be unique, but a thing cannot be more unique, or less unique, or kind of unique.
ETA: I am a word Nazi, but not a grammar or punctuation Nazi, as I consider grammar and punctuation to be a fiction writer’s tools which I may use as I like, so long as my meaning is clear.
@Michael Reynolds: How about this (from a student essay)?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Of all the myriad of unnoticeable buildings, this one stood out as literally being the least noticeable as it had less unique windows, as well as fewer ambiance.
“Big of a deal” rather than “as big a deal.”
“Equally as”
“The reason is because”
@Stormy Dragon: I understand that, but also I am under no obligation to like it when language changes in a way that inhibits communication by becoming less precise, rather than the opposite.
A Florida woman has been arrested for the 15th time on drug charges. Her name is…Crystal Methvin.
No joke.
This feels like Putin is behind it. (NYT gift link.)
@Jen:
Brava!
@steve: Lay and Lie are mashed together so badly in proper usage that one of them just needs to go, or they should just be synonyms that can mean either lie or lay. And that whole “lay is the past tense of lie” is an abomination. They currently exist as an affront to the idea that languages change and evolve.
On the other hand, anyone who is upset with the use of singular they for specific, known individuals (first recorded usage in this manner — OED pins it at a 2009 tweet) needs to learn the whole lay/lie crap and live by it. They are a particular form of Grammar Nazi that is much better at the Nazi part than the grammar part.
But the rest of us should be able to listen to Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” without a background thought about whether he is using the word correctly and the growing sense of inadequacy that comes from never quite being sure.
Less vs. Fewer should be defended forever, though.
Also, since we have “lessen” as a verb we need a verb for reducing the number. He fewered the cookies by eating one. Or They fewered their delinquent accounts by consolidating their debts, so they could now ignore 3 bills each month rather than 5
For something light yet relevant, adventures in iPhone repair in England
When I was in High School guys lied about getting laid…
This thread has gone straight to the pedants. I’m outta here before I misplace a comma,
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ha ha. I saw what you did there.
@Jen:
Smells like Putin to me, too.
@Kathy: Sure, two Boeing Max nearly colliding on a runway is a coincidence, but what about this?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/02/second-boeing-whistleblower-dies
He had the same lawyers as the first Boeing whistleblower who died, making me wonder if the lawyers are assassins working for Boeing. Probably not, and this one died of an infection, but maybe they’ve upped their game from “self-inflicted gunshot wounds” to biological weapons.
“Lie, Lady, Lie” would be a very different song than “Lay, Lady, Lay”
@Michael Reynolds:
FWIW, I agree with the first two but “kind of unique” to me means essentially “technically unique but not in any meaningful one valuable way”. It would be used in a disparaging way.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I actually think that is moderately clever way of emphasizing how mundane the building was.
@Michael Reynolds: Dig around the base of your goal post, it looks like you have to move it:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myriad
@MarkedMan: @MarkedMan:
How about “almost unique”? That’s correct.
@Gustopher:
I think that’s a deliciously ambiguous lyric.
I’ve been told that “the lay of the land” is correct in American English , but “the lie of the land” is correct in British English. Pfaugh.
May 4, 1970
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
In ancient Greece, myriad meant ten thousand. So think of it as the way we use million. In phrases such as “a couple of million troops,” “millions of dollars,” and so on, would be acceptable to substitute myriad for a lower unit.
So, a couple of myriad troops would mean 20,000 hoplites.
At some point in the sixties Asimov came with a system for large numbers he called T Formation. The T stood for trillion, and quickly seemed to run out of room. For example T-1 = 1 trillion, but T-2 equal one trillion trillion.
I bring this up, because in the essay called T Formation, Asimov mentions Archimedes used a system where he counted myriads in a similar fashion. This wasn’t quite right, but Archimedes did use the term myriad myriads
@Michael Reynolds:
I try very hard to not be the ‘Word Police’ but … I get my ticket book out every time a person on some show I’m watching says ‘very unique.’
It’s unique or it’s not, there are no degrees of uniqueness. Right?
Shouldn’t “layabouts” be “lieabouts”?
@CSK: The Devil made me do it!
@Mister Bluster: The fourth was not with him.
Also, not everyone appreciates clicking vaguely labeled links and seeing photos of dead bodies. I mean, I love that sort of thing, but others might not.
Please enjoy an innocuous looking link
How many times have news hounds in the field said: “reporting on the ground outside the courthouse in Capitol City…”
Just once I’d like to see them broadcast the news while sitting in a tree.
Gonna have to disagree with this because people quite often speak “unspecifically” (is that a word? if not I just made it one) in other words, one might say “kind of unique” meaning “I can’t quite put my finger on it” even if it “rings a bell” because “it is being used in a whole new way.”
Language, at least among us hoi polloi, is an imprecise, and fluid thing. I know it drives all of you word smiths over the edge but that just means it sucks to be you. Also, and this is what really grinds you, you don’t have any say in the matter.
Nya nah nyah nah nyah nah…
Hahahaha…..the late, great @Teve would’ve loved this thread. Just never know what you’re gonna get around here. 😉
@Jax: Kinda scary, ain’t it?
@Gustopher:
I read about that. I don’t know if it’s suspicious enough to rouse the interest of the police. In any case, even something like this requires actual evidence.
Late to the comments, but wanted to add one more grammar/vocabulary complaint:
The use of “comprised of” to mean “composed of”.
Whole comprises the parts, and the whole is composed of the parts.
I know language is defined ultimately how it is used, over time. But I hate ‘comprised of’.
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m still scared to use an apostrophe. I will re-phrase a whole-ass sentence to avoid it. 🙂
So the best thing about Covid is that most retailers have set up Curbside Pickup. It’s just….standard, I guess, in civilization?
I drove 7 hours to and from Idaho to pick up my branding groceries. And beer. Lots and lots of beer. I was in Idaho Falls for a grand total of 45 minutes. It was wonderful!
@Kathy: Every time a whistle blows, a Boeing employee gets their wings.
@Jax:..I’m still scared…
You’re not that scared or you would’ve written I am.
@Mister Bluster: Also, would’ve. I’m confident in that level of….cough cough….apostrophe usage? What’s the plural of apostrophe? Apostrophii? Apostrophe’s?! I just don’t know, man! 😉
@CSK:
True, but it sounds laudatory, whereas to me “kind of unique” sounds insulting, although I think you would need to frame that to make that plain.
A astronomical phenomena visible to the unaided human eye, you’d think a nova blowing up would rank high.
Now, this is a nova, not a supernova. The difference is much like that between seeing a very big bomb go off vs seeing a 10 megaton H bomb go off.
Worse yet, there’s no exact time when it will happen, except that it should be sometime this year. And then, all you’ll see is a bright star that wasn’t visible before. If you’re interested, here’s how to find it when/if it blows.
A supernova, in contrast, would be spectacular. Say if Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star about 650 light years away, were to blow up, it would be as bright as a half Moon, but concentrated in one point. At night it would cast a faint shadow, and it would also be visible in the daytime. It might stay up for about three months.
No idea when it will blow up. It may have already happened, or it could take a few million more years. If it happened 550 years ago, though, we wouldn’t know it until 2124.
@Robert in SF: Then don’t use “comprised of.” Captain Planet was right; “the power is in your hands.”