Poynter Institute, Language Log, Grammar
Discovered the Language Log few months ago, but only started to read it this week.
today's article: The Glamour of Grammar , by Mark Liberman. At http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2596
I don't think i like the Roy guy. Idiotic. All he got to say is how much he's respected.
The first other article i checked out is:
Slippery glamour by Mark Liberman. At http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=322
Very nice work.
I went to look at Mark's bio, (Source www.ling.upenn.edu) a professor of University of Pennsilvania. Departmet of lingusitics. NICE. No wonder he makes sense on english.
I felt eager to share my view of sides here, albeit only have read 2 articles above thus far, but at the moment i went on and read some more. This one:
Don't tell Sister Catherine William , by Mark Liberman. At http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=323
Is also very nice. This one, on matters of relations of linguistics, generative grammar, descriptive school of thought, even i, can catch with his pants down, if i were to see it first. (but then, if i were, i probably would have been swerved by the highness oozing out of “Poynter Institute.”.)
What infuriate me the most is the tendency to throw names, jargons, empty fluffs. (See: Politics and the English Language (George Orwell).)
What a idiot: “O! but i am respected i sell million copies of my writing book to journalists…”.
Maybe it's too quick to judge a man out of just 2 articles? I dunno, but i wonder how many thousands of journalists'n'writer wanna-be idiots have been suckered up into the writing establishment guilds.
For u writers out there, a lil' advice from the redoubtable Xah Lee: study mathematical logic, study linguistics, if you want to improve your writing. Don't, ever, think about anything “grammar”. Fuck it.