Some societies have a tense relationship with the language that bears them. My French neighbor exclaimed, when I told him our new French teacher was (Continue Reading)
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
Great example of how a quotative works
07/06/2018 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy grandson was speaking of a little kid in his karate class and he said, “Christian does not like not pay attention.” The first thing (Continue Reading)
Good Use for Grammar
09/05/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentI recently got two e-mails, one from Amazon and one from Walgreens, both of which I have recently dealt with. Both were headed, “Your order (Continue Reading)
McWhorter on Black English
05/28/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentC-Span had McWhorter discussing his book, Back Talk, Black Talk. In his talk he laid out, in his usual fashion, the structure of discourse on (Continue Reading)
… fall the facts where they may.
04/11/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentIs this construction, verb + subject + modal embedded in an adverbial clause an archaism, obsolete? What is its origin. Is it like “now I (Continue Reading)
Unexpected variations
03/18/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentRecently, John Kasich amused viewers of the GOP primary by saying things like, “The economy needs healed.” Standard English says either ‘the economy needs healing’ (Continue Reading)
Prescriptivism – short version of entry
02/21/2017 Pat Barrett Add CommentThis comment should not have to be made, but I have read so many posts to listservs by teachers who assert the absolute superiority of Standard (Continue Reading)
Frozen expressions as repositories of the old grammar
11/13/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentLook me in the eye. How explain the “me”? A frozen expression from a time when English used a dative case “me”. Now I lay (Continue Reading)
When prescriptivism helps
05/18/2016 Pat Barrett Add CommentLet’s take a look at how prescriptivism can interfere with establishing whether or not an expression is standard English or not. Let’s say the question (Continue Reading)
Ruining my reputation on the Stack Exchange
03/29/2016 Pat Barrett 5 CommentsThe English Language & Usage blog of the Stack Exchange irks me no end. Some of the answers are good. One really dumb thing happened: (Continue Reading)
Response to “Bribes”
09/24/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentThere must be some understanding of how people learn as well as some understanding of how people eat. The connection? Re the latter, the more (Continue Reading)
A matter of perspective or of words?
03/20/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentDo our words affect our perception or even effect our perception? Here are three examples: I read the directions to where a drop box for (Continue Reading)
Watching the process…..
03/15/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentAs I was reading about the Hanseatic League, Hanse in Low German, Hansa in Latinate language, it struck me how basic such organization and binding (Continue Reading)
blue & black or white & gold
02/27/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentInteresting how adamant people get about something clearly a matter of perception. Kind of like the learning/acquisition issue.
A start on Fukuyama’s first book
02/09/2015 Pat Barrett Add CommentI took all summer and and fall, after I started in the spring, to finish Fukuyama’s big book, The Origins of Political Order. I recommend (Continue Reading)
Where does it all come from?
10/30/2014 Pat Barrett Add Comment“ Our unspectacular (but not horrible) performance on tests is because of our high child poverty rate, about 23%, second highest among 34 economically advanced (Continue Reading)
Basics II
07/03/2014 Pat Barrett Add CommentMy web guru has assured me that the attention span of my readers does not sustain the long entry I posted on Basics. I’m trying (Continue Reading)
Big Main Intro to BASICS
07/01/2014 Pat Barrett Add CommentOver the years, since July of 2008, a few items have appeared under the category Basics. All of them seem to be worth reading in (Continue Reading)
What Amis said……….
06/18/2014 Pat Barrett Add Comment“If there’s one word that sums up everything that’s gone wrong since the war, it’s ’Workshop.’ After ’Youth,’ that is.” I hope that’s right; I (Continue Reading)
Rejoinder to the post-racial comments
06/15/2014 Pat Barrett Add CommentA rejoinder to those who say our racial problems are over because we have a Black president: both India and Pakistan have had female presidents; (Continue Reading)
Ups and Downs, Ins and Outs
03/03/2014 Pat Barrett Add CommentHuman societies are so complex we cannot make final judgments in most cases about what is good and what is bad. There is usually a (Continue Reading)
Excerpt from a book everyone needs to read for the survival of our schools and profession
09/17/2013 Pat Barrett Add CommentOf equal importance are the topics that corporate reformers don’t talk about. Seldom do they protest budget cuts, no matter how massive they may be. (Continue Reading)
Outline of World Geography
08/29/2013 Pat Barrett Add CommentIn 1972 I taught a class in multiculturalism at the Phoenix OIC. It upset a lot of people that I was selected to do so (Continue Reading)