Search options (Page 34 of 43)

color'd belch’d learn’d the USA'd answer to
William
McGonagall

I'll be looking for Toni Morrison, thanks for that.

The great thing is that novels inspire the movie makers. When a good film comes along, the inspirational book is likely to be good too. I recommend the 'Child 44' movie very highly. It delivers a strong insight into the internal conflict of values and justice within Russian officials and their families  during this period when every thought exposed or emotion shown could be extremely dangerous. Much like the 'literary fiction' of the movie world, we feel these characters very deeply.

I saw another movie and it has wrecked me for a while.   Called '96 Minutes' it essentially centres around a 'carjacking' incident in Atlanta Georgia. It shocked me to the core. I've been around the world, to armed conflicts within Europe, Africa and the Middle East but none of that prepared me for this. I don't know how accurately this movie portrays the truth about the culture, morality and values of some of the characters portrayed, but it depicts a bleak and harrowing insight into the hip-hop gangbanger culture. People with such a perverted sense of morality that it has made me despair about the human race and where we are going. I've seen people within the most destitute and dire situations possible, refugee camps in war-torn Africa and there is more hope, honour, dignity and humanity there, than within these beer swilling, drug cultured video gaming, gun toting animals. Sickened to the core at how little these people value their own lives and community, let alone the lives of other innocent people. The ultimate 'feel bad' movie that make me feel disgusted to be human. If there's a book, I'll never read it for the bleak and depressing insight that it portrays upsets me to the core. How have we come to this?

Perhaps it was the sheer volume of diversity within the forming US that necessitated holding-on to the common language so tightly; lest it meltdown into a melded multilingual chaos on a page for which no structure could possibly exist? Grammar as concept would have had to be scrapped and completely reinvented.

Hi Charles

I am open-minded and prepared to evaluate positions beyond my current assumptions and understanding; but isn't the above simply confusing grammar with language?

Where grammar is the language law of the day and language is how we communicate today.

I mean, when the North Americans change the English language from the English of the British and Australians, New Zealanders and to an extent Canadians wherever they feel they'd like to  i.e. substituting 'Z' for 'S'  in industrialise, industrialize etc. And dropping the the 'U' within labour, labor etc. And the 'double L words' i.e. marvellous, marvellous etc. The 'ow for 'ough' words like, plough, plow. And the numerical and scientific re-wording i.e. milliard to billion etc. And the 'ea' words, paediatric, pediatric etc. and the re-phrased or alternate wording, spelled, spelt etc. ...

...none of this changes punctuation, it is only spelling (or is that spelting over there?). But spelling is still grammar, isn't it? Who made these changes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia … g_variants

Societies change beyond nationality and alternate spelling. Society's views, attitudes, tolerances, understanding and interpretations are dynamic and shift with each generation or even within each generation.  Surely "the Corras' and their womyn of the '90' are a reflection of this? They seek to amend the grammar of the past to fit the language of today. The language driven by society or needing to change in order to articulate our lives within current society in a manner that will be understood by said current society.

That said; the prescriptivist and descriptivist are an irrelevant categorisation and despite being full of self-importance, they don't really influence the evolution of a language to any more extent than plastic surgeons and snappy dressers influence the evolution of human biology. 

Or is this exactly what you were saying when rather than categorise a 'prescriptivist' and a 'descriptivist' you categorise a 'corra' and a 'grammarian?'

Regards, Dill

Waterloo

I've knocked some up.

http://www.penn.museum/cgi/cuneiform.ph … e=inscribe

It's live and learn here for me. Try the 'cuneiform creator' http://www.penn.museum/cgi/cuneiform.php

Well, Esperanto and Klingon have. But that's the advantage of a constructed language.

(Sorry, just fiddling with your balls in the bucket)

Do you think that; 

"...the scientist puts his little balls in the bucket, counts them, and declares the end of the research."

will ever change to;

...the scientist places their little balls into the bucket, counts them, and declares the end of the research.

It is rhetorical of course, because as society and civilization evolve, such change must be reflected within language else how would we continue to communicate accurately?

Amusing, yes; but if he counts more or less than two there is something wrong.

It's a good job scientists are always he's not she's or they'd be none. Research it all she likes. Zilch.

...said the Calvinist Baptist from the Association of Fundamental Baptist Churches of Northern California to the Lutheran Baptist of the New England Evangelical Baptist Fellowship.

"I don't know what that is, but I sure as hell do know that I'm not one." interjected the Evangelical Free Baptist from the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship Association.

Nice; striking and professional looking with high impact and the 'house trademark' look of a series. Impressed!

That's over estimating the packaging!   

And the first ever that didn't got a trademark 'Take Care...' 

So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”

Roald Dahl

I've always loved this passage. The metaphor of books pushed out into the ocean like little ships and books befriending people who discover, or run into them (we are their passengers as we read or listen to their story), has always struck me as a poignant thought. Whenever I hear the phrase 'book launch' I suffer the wry smile inside and I know this passage resonates forever.

I have three kids and I used to love reading to them as pups, at bedtime. Roald Dahl was a staple and I must of read 'Matilda' to each, in turn five of six (maybe more, but not less) times over;  such was its favour in their eyes. Sometimes, I'd continue reading long after they were asleep, reading for me and not wanting the 'bedtime story' activity curtailed. The Hobbit by Tolkien was another such favourite of theirs.

As the kids aged, so the bedtime story duty waned and I really miss it. At random moments my children will often quote back to me passages from their favourite bedtime stories in the mimicked voice I used to enunciate the character as I read it to them. The Baggins voice, or Miss Trunchball...

So, yesterday my youngest daughter, an unbelievable seventeen years old and learning to drive a car, quoted "...nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea." to herself as she drove precariously into the aggressive urban traffic, like a lamb creeping past the wolf pack. I didn't ask her why she recited it, for I knew it was her comfort. If I'd had churched her it might have been the 'Yea, though I walk... Psalm 23:4. But I'd  Roald Dahl'd her instead, and she finds her comfort in quotes as she would prayers. I assumed that the quote was in relevant context, that her driving the car for the first time was her story and she felt as isolated and vulnerable as a little ship launching into the wild ocean; yet full of hope and not alone.

Or she may just as well have been mumbling familiar tripe due to nervousness. I didn't ask, lest I break her concentration.

Save to say, I love that passage.