Drunken hall talk
Two guys were just talking about a weekend barbeque in the hallway. They seemed more than a little out of it, with their talk laden with Spoonerisms. One of the better zingers:
"What kind of brarbeque do you have?"
"We've got a grass gill."
"Are you going to put skrewers on the grass gill?"
Friday, September 20, 2002
This might be fun... I'll try it for at least a while. I've avoided keeping one of these mostly in the belief that, not only do I not have much to say, I don't have much time to be saying it, either.
But as acts of bravery go, I guess that being out here, along with everyone else who has knowingly or unknowingly introduced this blogging thing to me, doesn't constitute anything that should give rise to apprehension. The fact that I wonder about it at all probably has more to do with being shy than anything else.
There'll probably be a lot of misinformed ramblings here, on things like justice, martial ethics, flower arranging, and tea. Things I have an appreciation for, but haven't gone to much trouble learning anything about :)
Oh, perfect example. I ended that last sentence with a preposition, which gives me something to ramble about! ("Oops, I did it again.")
So, of course, we're all told by our grade school/elementary school teachers that the act of ending a sentence with a preposition is tantamount to the commission of a Grammatical Sin. To which most of us, if given liberty to speak our mind at that age (depending on how repressed your childhood experience happened to be) would answer with something along the lines of, "As if!" Well, perhaps we're not all so wrong in the wish to defy the draconian traditions of Standard Written English. At least in this case ;)
Shakespeare wrote in english. But it's not the sort of english we use anymore, not just in the sense of vernacular speech, but also in the rules of of S.W.E.. That's an obvious thing to note - I think we've all probably noticed that, whether or not you personally happen to like Shakespeare. If you spoke or wrote Shakespeare-style today, you'd get one of several possible reactions, but I'm guessing they'd probably fall between the range of "how romantic!" to "how insufferably geeky." Language evolves, and sometimes regresses. Duh, right?
Which brings me to this article in the Cal Alumni Magazine... I really enjoyed reading it when I came across it last year. It's an interview with John McWhorter, who's an associate professor of linguistics at Berkeley. (last I checked.) One of the specific things he talks about in this article is the conflict between the common practice of ending sentences with prepositions and the (in my view) gratingly sophistic rule against it. It's nice to know that not only are there many people who'd agree with this opinion, there are people who have a good, plausible, rational explanation as to why this rule is as arbitrary as many of us may have thought all along. There's a certain utilitarian advocacy in his writing, as you'd expect, but hey, it's an interview, not a treatise.
I guess that I just personally have it in for some rules of grammar... but perhaps this is because they're closely associated with what I consider to be a traumatic childhood event. (Okay, so it was too trivial to be truly traumatic, but it's my blog and I can use melodramatic hyperbole anytime I want, right?) It was my first day in first grade, it's the first time I'd ever opened my grammar workbook... and on a whim I decide to start doing my fill-in-the-blank exercises in black crayon. At the end of the day, I got a reproving note from the teacher (who admittedly, was just doing her job in a way any normal person might expect) telling me that I should not fill out my workbooks in crayon.
I was stung. I was crushed. (Yes, I had a very fragile ego back then. It persists in being brittle to this day.) It was just black crayon! It wasn't intended to be an act of subversive rebellion or anything! Hmph. A little whimsy, a little creativity, with no intent to harm anyone, and *SMACK*. "No, little boy. You can't do that."
And with that, I journeyed into eight of the most miserable years of my life. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm maudlin. Sue me, and I'll sue you right back =P)
Ironic, then, that I now find myself in law school of all places.
But as acts of bravery go, I guess that being out here, along with everyone else who has knowingly or unknowingly introduced this blogging thing to me, doesn't constitute anything that should give rise to apprehension. The fact that I wonder about it at all probably has more to do with being shy than anything else.
There'll probably be a lot of misinformed ramblings here, on things like justice, martial ethics, flower arranging, and tea. Things I have an appreciation for, but haven't gone to much trouble learning anything about :)
Oh, perfect example. I ended that last sentence with a preposition, which gives me something to ramble about! ("Oops, I did it again.")
So, of course, we're all told by our grade school/elementary school teachers that the act of ending a sentence with a preposition is tantamount to the commission of a Grammatical Sin. To which most of us, if given liberty to speak our mind at that age (depending on how repressed your childhood experience happened to be) would answer with something along the lines of, "As if!" Well, perhaps we're not all so wrong in the wish to defy the draconian traditions of Standard Written English. At least in this case ;)
Shakespeare wrote in english. But it's not the sort of english we use anymore, not just in the sense of vernacular speech, but also in the rules of of S.W.E.. That's an obvious thing to note - I think we've all probably noticed that, whether or not you personally happen to like Shakespeare. If you spoke or wrote Shakespeare-style today, you'd get one of several possible reactions, but I'm guessing they'd probably fall between the range of "how romantic!" to "how insufferably geeky." Language evolves, and sometimes regresses. Duh, right?
Which brings me to this article in the Cal Alumni Magazine... I really enjoyed reading it when I came across it last year. It's an interview with John McWhorter, who's an associate professor of linguistics at Berkeley. (last I checked.) One of the specific things he talks about in this article is the conflict between the common practice of ending sentences with prepositions and the (in my view) gratingly sophistic rule against it. It's nice to know that not only are there many people who'd agree with this opinion, there are people who have a good, plausible, rational explanation as to why this rule is as arbitrary as many of us may have thought all along. There's a certain utilitarian advocacy in his writing, as you'd expect, but hey, it's an interview, not a treatise.
I guess that I just personally have it in for some rules of grammar... but perhaps this is because they're closely associated with what I consider to be a traumatic childhood event. (Okay, so it was too trivial to be truly traumatic, but it's my blog and I can use melodramatic hyperbole anytime I want, right?) It was my first day in first grade, it's the first time I'd ever opened my grammar workbook... and on a whim I decide to start doing my fill-in-the-blank exercises in black crayon. At the end of the day, I got a reproving note from the teacher (who admittedly, was just doing her job in a way any normal person might expect) telling me that I should not fill out my workbooks in crayon.
I was stung. I was crushed. (Yes, I had a very fragile ego back then. It persists in being brittle to this day.) It was just black crayon! It wasn't intended to be an act of subversive rebellion or anything! Hmph. A little whimsy, a little creativity, with no intent to harm anyone, and *SMACK*. "No, little boy. You can't do that."
And with that, I journeyed into eight of the most miserable years of my life. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm maudlin. Sue me, and I'll sue you right back =P)
Ironic, then, that I now find myself in law school of all places.
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