Reading Barbara’s lovely discussion about “how local to go”, I was blindsided by this amazing sentence: Cornmeal, we know from, but millet — to most Appalachians, that stuff is birdseed. The “we know from” construction is fairly familiar to me from informal speech and writing. It’s a favorite of Sars. A few examples from her: […]
Category Archives: Linguistics
Vegan WTF coordination
I saw an example in the wild world of vegan blogging today of what Language Log calls WTF coordination (aka syllepsis): With a dough hook and the mixer running, add remaining flour and knead another 5 minutes. If this sentence doesn’t strike you as strange, note that “a dough hook” and “the mixer running” are […]
Working on a weekend: with wine
I think wine should always accompany weekend work. Loosens up the synapses, and makes one care less that one is not relaxing, because one is relaxed, anyway. I enjoyed this interesting linguistic slipup: “Pullum, however, doesn’t really take Gelernter’s argument seriously, presumably because it’s absurd and ignorant and doesn’t deserve to be.” Parts of this […]
Does justice have anything to do with a disobedient whale?
I can’t resist: Now consider again Skinner’s sentence: Justice is not a frivolous thing, Simpson. It has little if anything to do with a disobedient whale. This seems amenable to a quantificational analysis: the set of situations in which justice has anything to do with a disobedient whale is a subset of the set of […]