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Grammar Nazi Alert! “They” versus “he or she” as a singular article.

http://blog.oup.com/2008/10/anatolyliberman-plurals/ :

In the first edition of Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1966), the entry they occupies eight lines and is trivial. In the second edition (1993), a long section on usage was added, which I will reproduce in full: “Long before the use of generic he was condemned as sexist, the pronouns they, their, and them were used in educated speech and in all but the most formal writing to refer to indefinite pronouns and to single nouns of general personal reference, probably because such nouns are not felt to be exclusively singular: If anyone calls, tell them I’ll be back at six. Everybody began looking at their books at once. Such use is not a recent development, nor is it a mark of ignorance. Shakespeare, Swift, Shelley, Scott, and Dickens, as well as many other English and American writers, have used they and its forms to refer to singular antecedents. Already widespread in the language (though still rejected as ungrammatical by some), this use of they, their, and them is increasing in all but the most conservatively edited American English. This increased use is partly impelled by the desire to avoid the sexist implications of he as a pronoun of general reference.”

The author then proceeds to rip these progressive dictionary fellows a new one.  Archaic thinking?  Or pragmatist against grammar anarchy?

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Categories: Uncategorized

Too soon?

September 11, 2008 Leave a comment

Sites that theoretically have boomed in 2008.

September 5, 2008 Leave a comment

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/17/youporn-were-coming-up-behind-you/

Funfact:  Many of Bush’s rebate checks contributed to the spike in the business of online porn sites.  Turns out the economy wasn’t the only thing Bush was stimulating. har har.

Our ignorant children.

August 2, 2008 1 comment

From: Attenborough alarmed as children are left flummoxed by test on natural world.

Children have lost touch with the natural world and are unable to identify common animals and plants, according to a survey.

Half of youngsters aged nine to 11 were unable to identify a daddy-long-legs, oak tree, blue tit or bluebell, in the poll by BBC Wildlife Magazine.

We have failed! Oh public education, we have failed. Our children are not connoisseurs in ornithology. It is indeed a sad day when little Susie cannot indentify the passerine bird in the tit family Paridae, the resident of temperate and subarctic Europe and western Asia’s deciduous or mixed woodlands.

For shame.

Bob Saget!

it’s official: Uncle Jesse is going to be the roastmaster of the roast of Bob Saget!

Comedy central. Sunday, August 17 2008. 10:00 PM.

For those of you unfamiliar with the illustrious Bob Saget beyond Full House. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PssBnDoexJA

and then go download his HBO special.

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Torrents made easy thanks to google

Enter the following text into the search box:

filetype:torrent “keywords here”

handy trick.

Categories: Uncategorized

Quote of the Month Guess Who #1

Since no one reads this blog enough for me to do a weekly theme, I’ll do a monthly one for now.

Quote:

“The pride of man makes him love to domineer and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors.”

Guess Who

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