{"id":26178,"date":"2016-06-12T07:13:42","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T12:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=26178"},"modified":"2016-06-12T16:37:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T21:37:26","slug":"recursive-epitomology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=26178","title":{"rendered":"Recursive epitomology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today's SMBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Mouseover title: \"Life rule: Never do anything you've done more than 3 times already.\"
\n<\/p>\n

On the contrary, it seems to me. Beyond the status of a mere generic clich\u00e9, we can all aspire to become the\u00a0type specimen of something important: the archtype or personification of a significant class of complaints.<\/p>\n

Consider this passage from John McIntyre's fine post \"Grammatical Malpractice<\/a>\", The Baltimore Sun<\/em>\u00a06\/4\/2016:<\/p>\n

It had been a trying night at the paragraph factory, and the water for coffee had not yet come to a boil this morning when I spotted a billet-doux posted by Ian Loveless:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI'd like to see this piece of worthless advice get a wider audience,\u201d he wrote, citing this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo identify passive voice, just do a find or search for the passive verbs: is, was, are, has, had, would. Then see how you can get rid of that passive verb and replace it with a verb that has more energy and specificity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGreat Fowler\u2019s ghost!\u201d I muttered. This goes beyond the usual crackpot advice on usage that abounds online. This is more than crazy Nevile Gwynne fulminating about split infinitives. (Because Latin.) This goes beyond Grammarly\u2019s applying fresh lipstick to the rotting corpse of the nauseous\/nauseated<\/em> distinction. This is malfeasance. This is Laetrile offered to cancer patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

The writer appears ignorant of fundamental grammar. Forms of to be<\/em> standing alone are not passives but copulatives. (None of your smut, now.) This article is arrant nonsense.<\/em> Article<\/em> (subject) is<\/em> (copula) nonsense<\/em> (subjective complement). Not passive at all. Has<\/em> and had<\/em> often function as auxiliaries. I have never seen such arrant nonsense.<\/em> I<\/em> (subject) have seen<\/em> (verb) nonsense<\/em> (object)\u2014pure active-voice transitive construction. Would<\/em> and could<\/em> are modal auxiliaries. I could go full Pullum on this fool<\/em><\/strong> is not passive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Geoff Pullum wrote to me, with a copy to John:<\/p>\n

What is John McIntyre talking about in \"Grammatical malpractice<\/a>\" when he uses as an example the sentence \"I could go full Pullum on this fool\"?<\/span><\/p>\n

Just because I may have occasionally (and reluctantly) mentioned that Strunk and White were a pair of shameless, pontificating, ignorant, hypocritical, incompetent, authoritarian old weasels, or hinted that for the issuers of some online grammar advice the medieval punishment of being hung up in a cage for crows to eat should not be too hastily ruled out, is my name now to be taken as a byword for polemical critique? Am I to be adopted as some kind of icon of irascibility? I just do not understand where this McIntyre fellow gets his inaccurate impressions of me. I am not of unstable temperament.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have not hurled a misguided usage advice merchant out of a barroom and into the street for… well, if you ignore last night (that twerp deserved it), perhaps two weeks or more. I wish people wouldn't say these things about me. Could we get the Language Log Plaza legal team to look into the possibilities of a defamation suit?<\/span><\/p>\n

John's answer: \"Bring it on.\"<\/p>\n

To which Geoff responded:<\/p>\n

Typical. Who are the only people I have heard use that phrase who weren't in a movie at the time? You, and George W. Bush. That's not good company.<\/span><\/p>\n

When\u00a0John and Geoff bring these\u00a0exchanges into public view,\u00a0they'll be well on the way to establishing\u00a0an edgy new genre of academic outreach: intellectual\u00a0kayfabe<\/a>. Of course this approach can trace its history back to Plato and beyond, but even the Socratic dialogues were deficient in references to\u00a0brawling and having one's opponents eaten by crows.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is not the first person to show us that\u00a0the ethos of professional wrestling has a certain appeal in politics<\/a>. And the intellectual\u00a0substrate for linguistic cage matches has\u00a0been in place for a long time.<\/p>\n

Vita brevis, rixa\u00a0longa.<\/em><\/p>\n

And yes, I know that epitomology<\/em> wasn't a word. Until now.<\/p>\n

Also, the SMBC aftercomic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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