from The Language Instinct pp. 377-379 Sometimes an alleged grammatical ‘error’ is logical not only in the sense of ‘rational’ but the sense of respecting (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
My new Web site
Hillbilly Legacy
08/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentOf hillbilly legacy myself (West Virginia though raised in Ohio), I was heartened to see J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (J.D. is so Southern – it (Continue Reading)
A Breakthough Insight, I think………..
08/20/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentA couple of nights ago I had put on a CD of rhythm and blues. My wife and I began slow dancing between the kitchen (Continue Reading)
What’s been happening all along is………
08/16/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis is an attempt to put together the essential matters we all have to consider. I was inspired by Francis Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order (Continue Reading)
The Cicadas
08/15/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentWe are not surprised when the cicadas emerge. Why are we when the Taliban emerge? What a shock! American troops start their precipitous withdrawal and (Continue Reading)
My Wife, the Genius
08/08/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentSomewhere in this blog there may be a mention of my wife’s uncanny ability to size up a room full of people and indicate if (Continue Reading)
Racism without malice
08/01/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentLast night we went to the ASU football game. I am not a sports fan but my wife had to be peeled off the ceiling (Continue Reading)
Order of Operations
07/30/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentHow do linguists proceed to reasoning about what goes on in the black box known as the LAD – language acquisition device?Here’s a simples example:Spanish-speakers (Continue Reading)
Why SOME sports fans belong in the dregs of humanity category
07/29/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentFull disclosure: I have never been a sports fan. My wife, my son, so many people in my life are “avid” sports fans (like a (Continue Reading)
Two-tiered thinking
07/29/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentAdvanced Republicans (one step above Australopithecines) can speak on two tiers: one is to their base and the other comes from that one eye on (Continue Reading)
Whence sprang Liz Cheney?
07/29/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentLuke Skywalker sprang from the loins of Darth Vader; Liz Cheney sprang from the loins of Dr. Evil. How does one explain this?Cheney is a (Continue Reading)
MSNBC DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE JULY 27, 2021
07/27/2021 Pat Barrett 4 CommentsNicolle Wallace, host, moderates as Matt Dowd and Eddie Glaude reflect on the testimony of Capitol Police Officer during the Jan. 6 Insurrection hearings. Nothing (Continue Reading)
Rachel Maddow invents new grammatical voice
07/25/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentRecently Rachel Maddow said the following: “… voters who got knocked on their doors.” That is substantially amazing. Standard English would have “… voters whose (Continue Reading)
The Trump Presidential Library
07/25/2021 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsThe Trump Presidential Library is not yet in the offing but it might be on the horizon and what will it look like?A long wall (Continue Reading)
Why voter suppression now?
06/26/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentAnti-Black laws and ordinances depriving Blacks of their civil rights were passed in the ante-bellum North once slavery was outlawed in many states of the (Continue Reading)
Review of Viking Language 1 submitted to Amazon
06/26/2021 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsJohn McWhorter uses the phrase “bristling morphology” to label languages like Old Norse. You like ending? O.N. has ’em. (BTW, ’em is the Old English (Continue Reading)
Review of Wilkerson’s Caste
06/26/2021 Pat Barrett 1 CommentLooking at the reviews I realize the very number of them will drown my little comment but It’s worth noting that regardless of the many (Continue Reading)
What’s wrong with trainers and p.e. coaches?
06/22/2021 Pat Barrett 2 CommentsThe typical experience is for a coach of some sort to give you an exercise to do. He shows proper form and then has you (Continue Reading)
Juneteenth
06/17/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentSigned into law today is a new federal holiday celebrating the time in June, 1865, that slaves in Texas found out they had been freed (Continue Reading)
Cultural Condescension
06/03/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn interviews with Eliot Cohen, the authors, Saldin and Teles (terrific book so far) quote him referring to Obama’s “cultural condescension” and to how furious (Continue Reading)
Why do they have to keep talking about it?
06/01/2021 Pat Barrett 5 CommentsListening to and watching the coverage of the commemoration of the Tulsa 1921 massacre, I recalled the number of times I’ve heard people express impatience (Continue Reading)
Cultural holdovers
05/25/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentCustoms remain embedded with us after the initial raison-d’etre is gone. The other day my wife said she did not like to sit out on (Continue Reading)
Why Do Certain Things?
05/23/2021 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver several decades on foreign language teacher listservs, a debate could be found over whether teaching the language should focus just on the language, not (Continue Reading)