For some reason I wanted to know in French the expression “town and gown,” maybe because I’m reading a book in French discussing the university (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
What Conservatives Think
02/10/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentHere’s how conservatives see the country. Minorities of color vote for Democrats b/c they give them free stuff – that’s the conservatives’ term for it: (Continue Reading)
Urban = Black
02/01/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentAgain I heard a speaker use the term “urban” as a synonym for Black in the ethnic sense. Earlier, the mayor of Memphis had responded (Continue Reading)
An example of words retaining old meanings
01/30/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen a word retains an older meaning along with a newer one, the resulting coincidence can be confusing. When on of the meanings is actually (Continue Reading)
The concept underlying the subjunctive
01/29/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThe subjunctive, rightly called a mood in the grammatical sense, gets its name from the fact that it ordinarily does not stand alone (though it (Continue Reading)
Why it’s a good idea to have diversity in your work force
01/28/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentMany years ago I heard a report on the radio of a rookie baseball player socking his manager. It was reported that the team was (Continue Reading)
Four Skills and Three Modalities
01/27/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver the last 80 years several major shifts in foreign language teaching have occurred. All have been strongly motivated by perceived failures and gaps in (Continue Reading)
Serious issues in French
01/20/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentSome where at some time a article on pedagogical issues in French was illicitly copied by me. It had appeared in The Modern Language Journal (Continue Reading)
Testing – what is it good for?
01/16/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentWhen I tested over a story I would make fresh copies for the test b/c students often wrote the English above the FL words. Besides (Continue Reading)
‘Splain this
01/13/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentQuoting a NYT article: And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an (Continue Reading)
Down to basics, KIng
01/11/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOnce in a while, a public figure makes a bold statement that tears away the veil of gentility and exposes what one might call “deep (Continue Reading)
The trouble with Trump voters……
01/10/2019 Pat Barrett 3 CommentsThere are lots of reasons to find Trump voters troubling, not the least of which is that they still are Trump voters. Think about this (Continue Reading)
The beat of the washing machine
01/09/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne of the hallmarks – no, the sine qua nons – of the music of West Africa and the African Diaspora is what is popularly (Continue Reading)
Which aspect? It all depends…..
01/04/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentSo often here and elsewhere I’ve recounted the hilarious presentation at ACTFL, not meant to be hilarious, on the preterit and imperfect in Spanish. The (Continue Reading)
taking root
01/01/2019 Pat Barrett Add CommentThat phrase occurred to me as I was thinking of how my granddaughter is dealing with her vocabulary in French. Today she stumbled on ‘parce (Continue Reading)
Progress in Harry Potter
12/24/2018 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsThe biggie here is that the Norwegian version is on its way from Norway. A clerk there and I struggled with how to pay for (Continue Reading)
Linguistics and current politics
12/24/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy new orders just came. Amazon’s delivery system is amazing. I got Max Boot’s The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right and Steve (Continue Reading)
president or President?
12/24/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMax Boot had trouble spelling President with a capital P when Trump hit the scene. It made me think why I defer to the President….. (Continue Reading)
Dramatic evidence of who made the changes in America
12/23/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn Michelle Obama’s new book she has two class pictures, one of her kindergarten class and one of her first grade class in a school (Continue Reading)
Too much P.C.?
12/23/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentA PBS/NPR/Marist poll recently found that a good many Americans, while not opposed to civility, believe that “political correctness” is being overdone and pundits believe (Continue Reading)
easy done
12/18/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentHernia surgery yesterday. Out patient. Easy as pie. Almost no pain. Plenty of uninterrupted reading time as I recover. (See What I’m Reading Now category) (Continue Reading)
Where our values clash with reality
12/16/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentAn article I just read explains that Seattle schools experimented with a later start time for jr and hi school. Results were positive for improved (Continue Reading)
Two issues in learning French
12/13/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentOne often hears comments like this: I took four years of French and made good grades but when I got to France I couldn’t understand (Continue Reading)