Funny comic
I have lots more “lessons” in the hopper, and I’ll start posting more frequently when I get time, but here’s a comic I ran into today that particularly struck my funny bone. I think I mentioned David Malki and this strip in the past, maybe more than once. I recommend it. The link below goes to his site.
We have seen The Linguistics Major before.
Ahem. Not that a linguistics major is completely useless. My wedding ring is inscribed with a quote (in Greek, of course) from the Septuagint. Oh—in case you don’t know, Uralic and Altaic are two very old Indo-European languages. And I’ve been meaning to point out what “decimate” really means; well, what it used to mean. I think the meaning of that word is a battle we purists have lost.
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Correct, but could be better
You can write a sentence that is perfectly correct grammatically, but it’s still not right. (Finding these sentences is one reason to let your work sit for a while, then re-read it.) Here’s an example of a sentence that’s technically correct in its grammar, but it’s not correct in its context. Artifacts created from one [...]
Adverbs used as adjectives
The most famous example of using an adverb when you want an adjective is when people start a sentence with “hopefully.” English teachers in particular like to complain about it. Here’s an example sentence: Hopefully, my party will win the election. Hopefully means “in a hopeful manner.” What people mean when they say a sentence [...]
Good old “comprise” again
The compose, comprise, composed of, comprised of choice is among the trickiest set of words to get right in English. Actually, people usually get compose and composed of correct. It’s comprise that makes people stumble. Remember: Compose refers to multiple things combining into a single thing. Twenty-six letters compose our alphabet. Or if you reverse it, [...]
Getting on your case
I don’t know why I’m being so hard on comics lately. Usually comic artists are pretty careful about their use of language, and I have a lot of respect for them, what with having to not only draw, but also write, two very different skills, neurologically speaking. This one is from a comic I don’t [...]
