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  07/30/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

How 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)

Linguistics
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Why SOME sports fans belong in the dregs of humanity category

  07/29/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Full 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)

Health and exercise, Running commentary, Uncategorized

Two-tiered thinking

  07/29/2021       Pat Barrett      1 Comment

Advanced 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)

Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition

Whence sprang Liz Cheney?

  07/29/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Luke 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)

Basics, Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition

MSNBC DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE JULY 27, 2021

  07/27/2021       Pat Barrett      4 Comments

Nicolle 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)

Basics, Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition, View from under the Bus

Rachel Maddow invents new grammatical voice

  07/25/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Recently Rachel Maddow said the following: “… voters who got knocked on their doors.” That is substantially amazing. Standard English would have “… voters whose (Continue Reading)

grammar & language change

The Trump Presidential Library

  07/25/2021       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

The 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)

Complete nonsense, Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition

Why voter suppression now?

  06/26/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Anti-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)

African Diaspora, Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition

Review of Viking Language 1 submitted to Amazon

  06/26/2021       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

John 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)

What I'm Reading Now

Review of Wilkerson’s Caste

  06/26/2021       Pat Barrett      1 Comment

Looking 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 I'm Reading Now

What’s wrong with trainers and p.e. coaches?

  06/22/2021       Pat Barrett      2 Comments

The 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)

Health and exercise

Juneteenth

  06/17/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Signed 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)

Pat's World View, Politics 2016/2022 running blog Corona Delta/Omicron & whatever's next edition

Cultural Condescension

  06/03/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

In 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)

Pat's World View

Why do they have to keep talking about it?

  06/01/2021       Pat Barrett      5 Comments

Listening 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)

African Diaspora

Cultural holdovers

  05/25/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Customs 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)

Anecdotes

Why Do Certain Things?

  05/23/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Over 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)

Foreign language teaching & learning

What I’m proud of

  05/23/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

A number of things plus some I’m not so proud of. But one thing these days that stands out is the way I insisted my (Continue Reading)

Basics

Current Health of Me

  05/22/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Since my last post to this topic I have been on a very steady exercise program, actually two programs, one CORE I do at home (Continue Reading)

Health and exercise, Uncategorized

Double consciousness – we all possess it now

  05/11/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

For decades, going back to W.E.B. Dubois writing in The Atlantic , African-Americans have told of the double consciousness they carry within: who they are (Continue Reading)

Music of the African Diaspora

(Re)Starting Harry Potter

  05/11/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

So I’ve started. I’ve read the first page of Harry Potter book the first first in English, then in Spanish, then in Russian, then in (Continue Reading)

Personal language learning

1619, Roadmap to Democracy, teaching history

  05/09/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

No doubt this is well-trod ground, going by the name no doubt of the inquiry method or some such. It is frequently used by teachers (Continue Reading)

Basics

Tapping Into the Sacred Force

  05/02/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

The title of a 2013 blog item here dealt with that sense that musicians may be “plugging in” to a force field for the energy (Continue Reading)

Music of the African Diaspora

The role of morphology

  04/29/2021       Pat Barrett      Add Comment

Reading Matthew’s Morphology inspires observations such as the following: The -s of 3rd p. sg. present is deleted or not present in the subjunctive. However, (Continue Reading)

Linguistics, What I'm Reading Now
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