Thuggish's picture
Thuggish from Vegas is reading Day of the Jackal April 28, 2016 - 8:55am

Jose F. Diaz's picture
Jose F. Diaz from Boston is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel April 28, 2016 - 9:56am

Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century does a really REALLY great job of putting up camp between these two groups and telling them to chill the fuck out, you're both right ... and wrong.

For instance, the argument for ending a sentence with a preposition, according to Dr. Pinker, ending a sentence with a preposition is fine because when it is placed there it is not acting like a preposition (the liberal grammarists cheer), however, Pinker goes on, the last word in a sentence gains the most inflection and thus has the most power in a sentence, and using a preposition, while fine, is just lazy writing because you give up so much because an unwillingness to restructure the sentence (the liberal grammarists go silent).

I think this idea is really important when it comes to these videos. Sure, the people who came up with these rules were part of the patriarchal privileged white system, and we can scrutinize what they say, but it doesn't mean that it's all rubbish because it came from that system.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami April 28, 2016 - 1:53pm

Well it is the guardian. I wouldnt take a website so click baity or conservatives as authorities on bigotry anyway.

But then CBS wouldnt write an article on grammer either.

jenkap's picture
jenkap from London is reading Bad Behaviour April 29, 2016 - 6:51am

Wait, what? The Guardian is the liberal rag here and generally well respected...unless you're conservative :) 

And now I'm wondering what the political bent of CBS is...

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami April 29, 2016 - 2:45pm

I'm also solid liberal. Click baity is the issue. So often it comes across as liberal parody.

Coffee party for years. (The opposite of tea.)

Yea anyone who knows me knows I wont date anyone if they have even a sniff of resistance to change.

TheScrivener's picture
TheScrivener from Seattle is reading short stories May 3, 2016 - 8:55am

Though isn't the Guardian famous for its typos? :-o  

Jose--I have that book sitting in my to read stack---is it good? By good, I mean, is it engaging and a nice way to spend an afternoon? 

Jose F. Diaz's picture
Jose F. Diaz from Boston is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel May 3, 2016 - 9:47am

@ The Scrivener

It is really good, well, the first half is brilliant, but he isn't as engaging toward the end. The back half feels like him data-dumping. It's good, but a little dense for an afternoon breeze. The first half, though, is great for enlightenment. Hope that helps.