tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post115224509545616296..comments2012-05-07T11:10:56.435+10:00Comments on Divrei ben Abuya: A New Hebrew GrammarUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1160058852293520092006-10-06T00:34:00.000+10:002006-10-06T00:34:00.000+10:00A good quotation indeed, though its attribution to...A good quotation indeed, though its attribution to Churchill is apocryphal.<BR/><BR/>Here's a genuine Churchillism, his response in the House to claims that the position of certain laborers of Indian descent in Uganda was little better than slavery: "It is the opinion of His Majesty's Government that the use of the word 'slavery' in the fullest sense of the term would be a <I>terminological inexactitude</I>."<BR/>This reflects the fact that the word "lie" is unparliamentary, and if used will cause the Speaker to silence the speaker for that day.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1152427999219769792006-07-09T16:53:00.000+10:002006-07-09T16:53:00.000+10:00Nice one! Added to my links :-)(And thanks for the...Nice one! Added to my links :-)<BR/><BR/>(And thanks for the Churchill quote: that's priceless)SFHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09549983078343070107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1152408353598372432006-07-09T11:25:00.000+10:002006-07-09T11:25:00.000+10:00Btw, I thought you might want to know that I've jo...Btw, I thought you might want to know that I've joined the blogosphere. I'll only have a little bit of Hebrew/Semitics in it, but also a bit of travel-blogging and anything else that catches my interest. <A HREF="http://www.joelnothman.com" REL="nofollow">www.joelnothman.com</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1152379681543472532006-07-09T03:28:00.000+10:002006-07-09T03:28:00.000+10:00The nonsense of not ending sentences with preposit...The nonsense of not ending sentences with prepositions may be something you do in essays, or while being a grammar Nazi, but are certainly not standard English grammar. It is a relic of people trying to force Latin grammar rules onto English- and it simply doesn't work well, as Winston Churchill pointed out, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." See for instance http://www.listeninglib.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991013<BR/><BR/>As to your final issue of no one knowing what Aussie English really sounded like - well, we've finally found a use for reality TV!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1152322085511150782006-07-08T11:28:00.000+10:002006-07-08T11:28:00.000+10:00But not every phrasal verb can be rearranged aroun...But not every phrasal verb can be rearranged around the object: the example you gave ("turn off [the light]") happened to be transitive. My example ("[he just] cut in") happened to be intransitive. Maybe I need to think of another example, actually, because the origin of "cut in" is probably "cut in front (of me)", in which case the preposition was initially serving as the head of a prepositional phrase...<BR/><BR/>The alarm in our house went off a while ago due to having been tampered with (long story). My sister was the only person home at the time and it stressed her out, causing her to forget the combination and thus extend its incessant screeching by the time it took for one of our kindlier neighbours to come over and fix the problem. Afterwards, I made reference (in her presence) to the fact that our alarm had gone off that day. She looked truly baffled:<BR/><BR/>"No... the alarm went ON!"<BR/>And she's quite right.SFHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09549983078343070107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27798951.post-1152285581224481212006-07-08T01:19:00.000+10:002006-07-08T01:19:00.000+10:00Your article looked so forlorn that I though I wou...Your article looked so forlorn that I though I would leave a comment. I don't have much to contribute to the topic, except that you're right, in a sense, about the fact that "cut in" acts like a verb. Linguists call it a "phrasal verb", and it's very common. Consider the difference between: "I moved into the right line in order to turn off the road"; and "I moved toward the bathroom in order to turn off the light". In the first, "turn off" is a verb and a preposition (in fact, "off" heads the prepositional phrase "off the road"). In the second, "turn off" is a phrasal verb. An indicating test sometimes used is whether you can play with word order - if you can, it's probably a phrasal verb. As such, you can turn the light off, but you can't turn the road off. Phrasal verbs are also the source of many an (otherwise inexplicable) anomaly of language - for instance, you've got to cut the tree down before you can cut the tree up. Ah, language. Ain't it grand?Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17160896328588600394noreply@blogger.com