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Grammar is Dead, Long Live Grammar

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:15 pm
by Slava
A rather fun column from The Atlantic, griping about how English is undergoing certain changes. I agree with all, except for the end of #7. I rather approve of this way of avoiding the awkward "he or she" formulation.

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:59 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Loved it! And read all the comments, which are hilarious! I think they may be funnie than we are! Should we invite them all in?

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 10:07 pm
by Slava
Loved it! And read all the comments, which are hilarious! I think they may be funnie than we are! Should we invite them all in?
Invite away, but please make sure you include the r. :wink:

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:15 am
by bnjtokyo
I'm sorry, but credibility disappeared after "First sentence we conjugated*"

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:18 pm
by Perry Lassiter
I wonder whether "conjugate" in some places equates our use of "diagramming." Someone in that discussion used"parsing" the same way. To me, you parse nouns. But my frosh yr in high school the teacher used "substantive" to refer to both nouns and adjectives, something I've never seen anywhere else. It did alert me that even grammar teachers varied among themselves.

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:31 pm
by Slava
The way I understand it, diagramming a sentence is the actual drawing of the lines showing how the sentence parses.

The author of the article has also posted an update, apologizing for the conjugation error. He was taken to task by several readers for that one.