Author Topic: Words and Grammar and Stuff  (Read 126289 times)

verbALs

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9446
  • Snort Life-DOR
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #970 on: November 16, 2016, 11:56:20 AM »
Grexit came first but Germany decided they could squeeze a bit more cash out of them instead of kicking them out.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

Teproc

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3529
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #971 on: November 16, 2016, 11:57:49 AM »
Heh, deja vu of truthiness being Merriam-Webster's word of the year almost a decade ago.

What year was Brexit garbled into existence?

pixote

I wasn't a big fan of The Colbert Report, but that truthiness bit never ceases to be relevant. And it's a much better word than "post-fact", urgh.
Legend: All-Time Favorite | Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Poor  |  Bad

Letterbox'd

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #972 on: November 16, 2016, 12:15:43 PM »
How can anyone not be a fan of the Report ?
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

IDrinkYourMilkshake

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1288
  • a souless automaton who can't feel any emotion
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #973 on: December 12, 2016, 08:34:11 AM »
I read this on the internet, and thought it hilarious. It was written in a letter regarding improving literacy standards in classrooms:

Quote from: TheInternet
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

 - Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.


I thought it was suitable for the 'Words and Grammar and Stuff' thread, because it's about Words and Grammar and Stuff.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2016, 08:36:21 AM by IDrinkYourMilkshake »
"What should have been an enjoyable 90 minutes of nubile, high-school flesh meeting a frenzy of blood-caked blades, becomes instead an exploitational and complex parable of the conflicting demands of agrarianism and artistry. I voted a miss."

pixote

  • Administrator
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 34237
  • Up with generosity!
    • yet more inanities!
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #974 on: December 12, 2016, 09:36:31 AM »
That's pretty great. "orxogrefkl" took me a second.

pixote
Great  |  Near Great  |  Very Good  |  Good  |  Fair  |  Mixed  |  Middling  |  Bad

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #975 on: December 12, 2016, 09:41:58 AM »
I read this on the internet, and thought it hilarious. It was written in a letter regarding improving literacy standards in classrooms:

Quote from: TheInternet
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

 - Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

By the end I was reading with a cockney accent. Burn them I say.
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

IDrinkYourMilkshake

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1288
  • a souless automaton who can't feel any emotion
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #976 on: December 13, 2016, 12:29:34 PM »
And then burn the ashes. Opinions lead to war.

I thought it sounded Afrikaner (?) by the end.

Made me chuckle, though.
"What should have been an enjoyable 90 minutes of nubile, high-school flesh meeting a frenzy of blood-caked blades, becomes instead an exploitational and complex parable of the conflicting demands of agrarianism and artistry. I voted a miss."

DarkeningHumour

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 10453
  • When not sure if sarcasm look at username.
    • Pretentiously Yours
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #977 on: December 13, 2016, 12:54:44 PM »
How bad is it to start a sentence with a preposition ?
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

https://pretensiouslyyours.wordpress.com/

oneaprilday

  • FAB
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 13746
  • "What we see and what we seem are but a dream."
    • A Journal of Film
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #978 on: December 13, 2016, 05:03:05 PM »
Grabbing a few novels off my shelf. First lines:

"Except for the Marabar Caves--and they were twenty miles off--the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary." A Passage to India, E. M. Forster

"During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the considerations which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession." Washington Square, Henry James

"In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark Bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in." Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens

"In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses--even great ladies, clothed in silk and threadlace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak--there might be seen, in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race." Silas Marner, George Eliot

So, not bad at all. :)

(Those Victorians and their lovely long sentence!)

Jeff Schroeck

  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 982
Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #979 on: December 13, 2016, 05:23:05 PM »
It's also not actually bad to END them with one, either!

 

love