EPTOn December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
First, this is pragmatics (study of how language is used), not punctuation (which I corrected earlier) and your post is more Nazi than mine in terms of scope.
First, this is pragmatics (study of how language is used), not punctuation (which I corrected earlier) and your post is more Nazi than mine in terms of scope.
I don't really consider myself a grammar Nazi, though. I'm just picking at you because, again, if you're going to say you're a grammar Nazi, then at least be a good one (i.e. "act like one"), and because criticizing someone's writing style (even a ghastly style riddled with grade school errors, like "their" for "there" or something) to expose flaws in their argument is generally somewhere between red herring and ad hominem. Just a poor rhetorical strategy.
i.e., If the only thing one can say about an argument is that it's written poorly, then one implies that the reasoning and thought belying the argument is sound.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
For example, you first say my employment of "to reverberate" is passive and rather weak, then I post a defense explaining it's used transitively and is a much more "passive" style of usage (as in Winston Churchill's that I quoted) then you go on a dissertation about how essentially you identified it is used as a transitive, thus proving my point from the OED definition originally.
For example, you first say my employment of "to reverberate" is passive and rather weak, then I post a defense explaining it's used transitively and is a much more "passive" style of usage (as in Winston Churchill's that I quoted) then you go on a dissertation about how essentially you identified it is used as a transitive, thus proving my point from the OED definition originally.
I mean passive in terms of the passive construction, where the subject and object positions are flipped using (to be) + (participle), e.g.
I misread the dictionary. =
The dictionary is misread by me.
The dictionary is misread.
The dictionary was misread by me.
The dictionary was misread..
Whether the passive voice makes a sentence weaker is open for debate, but if used improperly, it can obfuscate an otherwise simple sentence.
Additionally, your quoted OED definition in your previous post is for the intransitive:
Also, from the Oxford English Dictionary:
reverberate, v.
"intr. Of sound: to resound, re-echo. Also fig.: (of reputation, news, etc.) to be much mentioned or repeated; (also) to have consequential effects."
Both the examples listed involve intransitive use as well - the roar of the stream does not reverberate something, it merely reverberates. But your usage was transitive.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
(The boded words are problematic to your sentence structure and (possibly) make them weaker in terms of intention and delivery. NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase, etc.)
(The boded words are problematic to your sentence structure and (possibly) make them weaker in terms of intention and delivery. NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase, etc.)
The remainder of your post confuses grammatical error for personal stylistic bias and goes so loony with the "pragmatism" that you boil down and distort the paragraph to mean something other than what it means. Whatever I meant with this paragraph, I certainly did not mean
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
Pragmatism does not mean unsubtle and drab. I mean, come on.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
the prepositional phrase "of language", which is highly incoherent if you ask me because of the inconsistency of the agreement to the verb
the prepositional phrase "of language", which is highly incoherent if you ask me because of the inconsistency of the agreement to the verb
"Of language" is the objective genitive of the NP, not a prepositional phrase.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
The usage of "but claiming" is wrong, at least in tense. You either claim, claimed or will claim, since you have employed a "weaker" form of the future tense by the usage of "claiming". I would rewrite it to say "but I claim" to employ the correct tense, meaning the present (as in, you are sitting there writing the post at that time to make a claim).
The usage of "but claiming" is wrong, at least in tense. You either claim, claimed or will claim, since you have employed a "weaker" form of the future tense by the usage of "claiming". I would rewrite it to say "but I claim" to employ the correct tense, meaning the present (as in, you are sitting there writing the post at that time to make a claim).
It's a gerund: "but claiming... tends to aid..."
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote:
The use of "someone" implies a generality, which in the scope of pragmatics means essentially nothing, it is (at best) an empty word. I steer away from the usage (although it crops up for me all the time), and opt for a more interpersonal employment of "an individual" meaning, the person sitting and reading the screen is not a "someone" but THE "someone" who I am referring.
The use of "someone" implies a generality, which in the scope of pragmatics means essentially nothing, it is (at best) an empty word. I steer away from the usage (although it crops up for me all the time), and opt for a more interpersonal employment of "an individual" meaning, the person sitting and reading the screen is not a "someone" but THE "someone" who I am referring.
Yes, it's a generality, but I was making a general argument on TeamLiquid in the blog of a twelfth grade student writing a paper for his class about Starcraft. I was not referring to a particular, individual "someone." Even if there is something wrong with "someone" in academic writing, this is still a style issue; there isn't anything wrong with "someone" in academic writing, so it's essentially your personal bias.
I mean, it seems you looked as hard as possible for faults in my writing and went to town on our aesthetic differences (or preferences), and somehow you did miss an actual grammatical error: claiming that "literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage" tends to aid arguments accusing literature of uselessness and irrelevance more than dispute it. That's an agreement error. As for your pragmatism, de gustibus non est disputandum.
Just please don't be smug about your grammar. Please.
