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Saturday, May 14. 2011

Insty:

SHOULD WE START PUTTING THE COMMAS outside the quotation marks?

What's in your luggage?

Married couples now a minority in Tennessee

Do SEIU members know what their union does?

Are we looking at the end of Fannie and Freddie?

16 Civilians Killed in NATO Strike in Tripoli – Media and Leftists Yawn

A 2-week online symposium at Patheos: For Life and Family: Faith and the Future of Social Conservatism

Boeing and the Union Berlin Wall - Between 2000 and 2008, 4.8 million Americans
moved from forced union states to right-to-work states—that's one person
every minute of every day.

Sen Hatch on the Dems: "They play politics very, very tough, they play it well, and they don’t give a damn about what’s right and what’s wrong."

Bin Laden's Harem pictures

London's Wiener Library: Lest we forget

What's the point of urban setbacks?

Here comes the water

It's tough on these folks, but they know they live on a flood plain, and know it will happen once in a while despite the levees which attempt to tame the untameable and mighty Father of Waters. That Mississippi silt from flooding is the reason they have such great farmland.

Geert Wilders spoke in Nashville this week:

My dear American friends, you cannot imagine how we envy your First Amendment. The day when America
follows the example of Europe and Canada and introduces so-called “hate
speech crimes” which is only used to punish people who are critical of
islam, that day America will have lost its freedom.

The New Science:

"Observational evidence is not very useful."

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:40 | Comments (6) | Trackback (1)

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As a British linguist put it in a talk studying punctuation, the American rule for commas and quotes is clear: you write it so that it makes sense, and then move the comma inside the quote.

The rule actually comes from which makes the better appearance - or can best be read in a glance - in print.

The comma logically isn't part of either the quote or the rest of the sentence, but is part of a marking process.

#1 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-05-14 06:44 (Reply)

Re: putting commas and periods outside of quote marks, I've been doing that for 25 years and used to have a post on my BBS on the subject called "The Rule Is Wrong".

(look, I just broke the rule again)

In short, the language MUST have one specific way of defining characters that separate them from everything else. According to convention, this sentence is correct:

Now type in "cd,", then "dir,", then "cd..."

And not one of those commands would work if they typed what was in the quotes. Correctly:

Now type in "cd", then "dir", then "cd..".

Those commands will work. The rule is wrong.

Another convention that's coming about is using "they" and "them" as singular to replace the awkward 'he/she' circumstance. I've also been doing this for about 25 years.

"If the person responds, find out if they want to make the comment secure or not."

James Taranto and others who [SIC] their quotes would [SIC] the above (James has SIC'd three instances like the above in the past year), but I'd call that "decidedly Old World".

Now if we can only get away from that ungainly "automatic plural" of some words ("the media are", "the data are", "the public are"), we'd be in good shape!

#2 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-05-14 07:59 (Reply)

I had too many arguments in H.S. senior English to care. I told the teacher flat out, the rules were made by teachers, interpreted by teaches, and change on the whim of teachers without rhyme or reason. For reference, the brief flirtation with "an historic". All through my years of english it was "a historic moment" up and until the time that Barbara Walters started using the "an" because with the backing of the educated elite, the "h" in historic was silent. This flew in the face of everything I had been taught and thankfully, this rule change did not seem to catch on. Add the rule about ending a sentence with a preposition "what on earth for?" which now is accepted usage and it is no wonder most students give up and just go along to get along (and pass the class).

#2.1 JoeC on 2011-05-14 23:08 (Reply)

Setbacks: "setbacks are arguably closest to a pure "taking" of land, in that the municipality deprives a landowner of all, or virtually all development rights to a substantial proportion of his property"

Setbacks were the closest thing to pure 'taking' until busybody petty tyrant vogons came up with newer ideas like lot coverage % limits. But 'sliding scales' for subdivision maximums on rural properties might be the most egregious taking so far. (and I won't even get into historic districts and env and other historic regulations)

I witnessed a couple in zoning seeking to build a second house on their 25 acre lot for an aging parent. Board said they needed to subdivide to build, but then said they couldn't because back in '76 the previous owner already used up the "allotment" of 3 subdivides off a 30 acre parcel when they sold off 3 small lots for houses. Conclusion: they "own" 25 acres and cannot build on it or sell off a portion for building. Then to rub it in, they asked about adding an addition on their own house, and the board told them they could add a room, but cannot make an "in-law suite" with bathroom/kitchenette etc because at some point in the future, they might be able to lease it out which would be a violation of ordinance in that zone.

It's unreal. They are paying taxes on 25 acres, but I do not see how they "own" it. More like they are leasing it from the Twp. And this is in a rural area of York County, PA which is heavily conservative. the leftist areas are even more totalitarian.

#3 forest on 2011-05-14 08:32 (Reply)

Yes, people do live in a flood plain and they benefit from the deposit of river silt but it might be acknowledged that the last time they opened the spillway in the linked article was 1973. Of course, everyone got all upset about New Orleans flooding and those idiots live below sea level and from the street level, you look up to see the ships go by.

#4 JKB on 2011-05-14 08:39 (Reply)

If that's the case, Geert, USA has lost it's freedom.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/11/obamas-department-of-injustice-and-sharia-prosecutes-infidels-for-hate-speech-crimes.html

#5 Leag on 2011-05-14 13:52 (Reply)

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Saturday, May 14. 2011

Saturday morning links