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What's wrong with the above example? The only thing that seems a bit off to me is the lack of a comma after Yesterday. Using the past perfect is fine and makes sense especially if used as part of a continuing narrative of yesterday's events.Quote:
Originally Posted by WW243
You know, nothing is wrong with it...I could not quickly think of a good example. What I should have said is, Yesterday I had went home around 5:00. Thanks broQuote:
Originally Posted by hoglahoo
The odd part of this discussion is that some of the scariest and loathsome people I have known have had the trappings of being cultured. They have had good linguistic abilities and manners yet under it all have been the most bigoted, ruthless and vicious SOBs I have had the pleasure to know.
The opposite has also been true. I have met people who could be considered linguistically challenged and lacking in social graces yet were some of the kindest, most generous and helpful people I have had the pleasure to know.
Bob
Go figure.
I guess that you can't always judge a book by it's cover.
Bob
Absolutely Bob - many well educated and cultured know how to smile as they deceive and then slip the knife in - usually in your back, "nothing personal you know, just business" - reminds me of a classic song:Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c03d0NAK3vk
I agree with this. One explanation for this IMO is that people often expect that a well spoken person with the manners of a so called gentleman will also be honest and have "good morals" as well. This is not necessarily the case. In regard to morality, of which varies in definition, I've found that socioeconomic, linguistic, and social mannerisms etc etc do not have so much of an affect on morality. I've met just as many people with great language skills and great manners that would stab me in the back. The number is more equal than people on either side of the fence would claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
That's why I left that bit out.
Now whether or not one person from either group would stab people in the back from the other group more or less... I don't know.
*itsQuote:
Originally Posted by BobH
:tameshigiri:
And the use of apostrophes to make things plural. :rofl2: (sorry, couldn't resist!)Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeB52
Also - great movie!
The best gift you can give yourself is a good education.
One of my favorites: Let's eat gramma vs. Let's eat, gramma.
We now have more university educated people per capita than at any prior period in our history. I don't know if that has done us much good so far.Quote:
Originally Posted by nipper
Bob
Back when I was teaching undergraduates, I was shocked at how poor the standard of writing was when viewed as a whole. There were of course brilliant individuals in the mix, but the mean level of writing ability was very poor. These were all at least high school graduates, and I found the the problem extended into more senior undergrads too. I.e. 3rd and 4th-year students who really should have been able to express themselves clearly and coherently in writing were unable to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
Some of these were people with specific learning disabilities that made writing very difficult, all of whom were more than capable of conveying ideas very well verbally. These are not the students I am thinking of here. The majority were students who simply had never been taught to write. I always saw a large part of my job as a history prof as teaching students how to 'do' research: finding and analyzing sources, thinking critically about them, arriving at one's own conclusions, then backing up those conclusions in a well-written, clear, and concise essay. I have always enjoyed doing that. But what shocked me was how many times I had to explain to university students what a paragraph was, what made a complete sentence, etc. Knowledge of the basic building blocks of communication was sometimes entirely absent.
These were not stupid people. Well, at least most of them were not stupid - there were a few clear exceptions! :) They were people let down by the education they had received. Unfortunately 'educated' and 'well educated' are not synonymous.
So much has changed in the Canadian education system in the last 40 years that it is getting ridiculous. The grade school and high school part has been so "streamlined" that students arrive at university without the basic underpinnings of how to read and write.
No they are not stupid, well some are, but they just have not been taught properly at the lower educational institutions.
I think that standards overall have been lowered to allow more people to qualify for university entrance. Seems that is in keeping with turning education into more of a business proposition at the university level.
Bob
I believe you've unfortunately hit the nail on the head there Bob. Unis are increasingly about bums on seats, recruiting overseas students (who bring with them overseas tuition fees - full disclosure: I was one myself when I was a postgrad in Scotland), and a sharply increased focus on programs that are seen to bring profit and recognition from the business world to the university. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that per se, but it should not be the point of a university. Unis are also increasingly top-heavy with the number of administrators and vice-presidents skyrocketing while the number of faculty - particularly tenured faculty - falling. As someone who values learning and education for the sake of learning and education, and who believes that society as a whole benefits from *good* education at all levels, it is a slightly depressing time. Many of my friends who are profs and lecturers in the UK are considering jumping ship because so much of what they are required to do has nothing to do with teaching or research, and everything to do with keeping assorted bean-counters and management 'experts' happy. The same trends seem to be picking up steam here and in the US as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobH
I am feeling very curmudgeonly today. :rant:
Time to go to the workshop and make something...
We had an NDP candidate - an MA in education I believe, and the Superintendent of a School District, who got in trouble for taking a selfie at Auschwitz, of one of the electrified concrete fence columns and comparing it to a phallic symbol.
When she got called on the callous lack of respect for, a) taking the "selfie" in a concentration camp, and b) comparing it to a phallic symbol, she claimed she didn't know what Auschwitz was, she'd never heard of it or the concentration camp. She was running for Parliament! Lots of excuses were made for her, but the fact remains, she's an idiot. A buffoon who should have resigned immediately.
This is why I sometimes get the feeling we're doomed.
University is to instill a firm foundation of basic intellectual skills, through critical thought, analysis and broadening the mind to ideas outside your own comfort zone. Most don't teach that anymore, they teach ridiculous courses, and anything that may frighten or disturb these poor "kids", is littered with, "trigger" warnings now, whitewashed, or rewritten to suit various political agendas. It's ridiculous, and the "progressive left" on many campuses now, are in fact a type of politically correct thought police, squashing anything outside their little comfort zones.
And we wonder why, when they're out in the real world, they are completely incapable of dealing with conflict or adversity - or anyone challenging their "rote" taught ideas.
Universities are run on a corporate model. Top heavy in management (admin/VPs) and fewer profs with tenure (union) .Quote:
Originally Posted by Cangooner
Bums in seats serve another purpose too. As long as you are student you are not an unemployment statistic.
Enjoy the workshop.
Bob
Why does that not surprise me in the least. Must have slept through a few high school history classes. Well at least they taught that 40 years ago in high school history.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrank
Bob
Who was that famous philosopher who said, "I vent, therefore I am."
I've always felt the average H.S Graduate who was college bound back in the 50s was better educated as a whole than present day College Graduates.
I think this is derived from the fact that the older people are the more perfect the past.Quote:
Originally Posted by hoglahoo
Here are a bunch of commas to sprinkle above ,,,,,,,, :)
To be fair to her, it wasn't a selfie but rather she commented on a photo that someone else had posted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrank
That having been said, her comment was bafflingly stupid. And as bad as that was, her attempt to explain away the comment by saying that she didn't know what Auschwitz was or what had happened there was even worse. That an idiot like that was in any way responsible for the education of our next generation beggars belief.
But then, we were spoiled for choice when it came to idiot candidates having to withdraw from the recent election, weren't we?. At times I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I fall comfortably into the progressive left end of the spectrum and I totally share your concern re coddling students, political correctness, and all of that jazz that caters to the helicopter parents and their desperately unprepared (adult) children. Luckily there are plenty of us on all sides of the political divide who can't stand that crap, so there's still hope. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrank
Yes - the Conservative candidate who was also a appliance repair guy peeing into the homeowners coffee mug was a splendid example of stupidity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cangooner
I had some great day's at Trent University, W.O. Mitchell's son, Orm, head of the English Department, some great Profs, in the history department as well, some real hard nose, cranky types who wouldn't let you get away with anything.
Personally, it was during this period in the mid-80's, as the feminist influence started casting it's grey cloud over thought that it began. I remember in a Medieval Literature class, having to listen to several women spout their modern day theory on literature and a time hundreds of years in the past - spoke out about it as well, that this wasn't the subject of the class, and the Professor agreed with me, she was one of my favourites there.
Now, you wouldn't get away with a complaint like that, you'd be branded and shamed from a buffet of new words to silence thought - if you could even find a course like that to begin with.
What a great day for ranting this has been! :D
Here is an expression which really annoys me "the xxxx wants out" as opposed to the xxxx wants to/ would like to go outside".
Language is a living thing. Always has been. Words come and go. Slang is funny like that, some expressions end up as accepted vocabulary, while others just fade away. I have a English to Finnish slang dictionary from 1974 that contains a whole bunch of expressions that are in regular use e.g. 'cop-out', but also things I have never heard of in studying English for more than half of my life e.g. 'foozle'. A fun little book, that.
And text speak is a great example of the principle of least effort in linguistics (or less effort, anyway), as is spoken Finnish (when compared to written Finnish). However, for text speak it mostly is a reduction of characters loosely based around phonetic spelling. Contracted auxiliaries also can be explained according to the same principle, although are funny in their own right, as they seem (to me) to be rather natural in speech and accordingly modified in written language, rather than the other way around. But maybe that is due me thinking of language in essence as a verbal tool rather than a written one.
That being said, I do think that people are getting lazier in their writing, mainly due to spell checkers diminishing the need for accurate spelling. All of my Dutch teachers in secondary school made us write essays by hand and would deduct points for spelling mistakes. Remarkably enough, some of them got complaints from parents for being too strict in this.
About the connection between language and etiquette: Naturally they are connected, they are both part of human interaction. I do believe language is more of a profound communicative tool than etiquette, and etiquette more of an additional tool for getting along. However, I prefer to judge people on the insight of their utterances rather than how they say it or if they were chewing while they did so. That being said, I hate it when people chew with their mouths open, let alone talk while eating.
I don't use profanity constantly, but definitely quite regularly. Even though I'm not a big George Carlin fan, he did have a point when he said "They're just words, too." True, they are marked words and throwing them around constantly for no apparent reason is just silly, but they definitely have their uses. For instance, they can emphasise the speaker's point, underline their emotion, be used for comical effect and take the edge off in certain social situations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Utopian
I always found constantly correcting other people's grammar in a conversation without adding any insight to the conversation to be a sign of a weak mind (not a stab at you Ron, just a general pet peeve). Just as I really dislike talking to people who pretty much exclusively talk a) about their own achievements/merits and b) in snippets of trivia or facts ('Well, technically...') without the faintest intention of turning it into an original thought that may even apply to the situation or could be put into a larger perspective.
tl;dr Absolute syntactical awfulness aside, I worry much more about what people say than about how they say it. Language changes. People don't, really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAe_w9a_IN8Quote:
Originally Posted by nipper
Funny you bring up eating with your mouth open, it amazes me how many guys (and some girls too) on site do it, I thought it was a fairly fundamental piece of etiquette, aside from being disgusting it also causes your eating to be noisy. I have left the lunch room before now when a noisy eater comes in.
the one that absolutely does my head in is" impordant " even news readers on tv are pronouncing important as impordant ....lol...its becoming so common its making me sick it should be a jail able offense
Apologies for editing out so many excellent points. I just want to start the campaign to re-introduce foozle to the world and return it to its proper place in English usage. What a great word! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pithor
I'm going to have to look up foozle.
Apparently foozle is a bungled play in a game, especially in golf. I have never played golf. Maybe foozle is still in use.
It's the split infinitives that get me. "To boldly go..." really? REALLY?? WTF!!!!????!!
Excuse me, I need to go sit down and have a cup of tea and get my blood pressure back to normal.
James.
Yes, we can!
You are welcome :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
A foozler and his golf betting money are soon parted!
Are you saying there's no foozler like an old foozler ? ............. :rofl2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Geezer
The translations for 'foozle' my little book gives , roughly translated back into English: (1) v. to get mixed up into something, to make a mistake (2) n. a fossile, sth./somebody outdated, a conservative person and - my favourite - a 'chalk head' (kalkkipää); I think this means 'an old and largely irrelevant person/fossile, but even in Finnish it's very uncommon. It's probably only used by irrelevant people over 95.
Oh, completely unrelated, a 'bust-out joint': a gambling house of ill reputation.
Damn, now I'm just listing trivia. Oh, the humanity!
But really, if you want hours of cheap entertainment and an (albeit moderate) insight in how language changes, get old dictionaries. Second-hand book stores are your best bet, of course.
One of the many (I was recently told the number was 17240--but by the end of the conversation it was 17242) things that annoys me is the utter laziness of people who write with text shorthand.
I have no problem with it in a text message from phone to phone; and I confess that I OCCASIONALLY skip an apostrophe or a capitalization or a period while texting when I am in a rush. However, in a forum such as this, I consider such writing to be utterly disrespectful to the other members of the forum.
leav if u cant rit good
(clarification: I absolutely in no way mean to suggest any criticism of anyone participating in this forum who is writing in their non-native language.)
And the occasional paragraph break goes a long way to being easier on the eyes and separating the ideas...Quote:
Originally Posted by Utopian
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Phrank
I tend to skip posts that are a mile long and jump from one subject to another.
Whenever I hired a new manager I immediately sent him/her to a tech writing school in order to make MY life a little less frustrating.
LOL - I started my career as a Technical Writer....Quote:
Originally Posted by rolodave
"I can like to speak the language deliciously" is a typical phrase, mockingly used against those South Africans that don't have a great command of the Queen's English in both the written and verbal form.
Where are we supposed to think it originated from if not England?Quote:
Originally Posted by rhensley
And yes, people have all kinds of different accents and dialects in the UK - far more apparently than in the USA. I've yet to come across an explanation for that. Bill Bryson wrote a book called 'Mother Tongue' that compares the numbers of accents in the UK and USA - it's well worth a read.