Ron's Brain

I'm slowly working my way through the Thursday Next series and really enjoying it. When I get to the Nursery Crimes series I'm sure I'll like that too.

Take my word for it.

I was excited to hear about these books. I am looking forward to reading them. Hopefully, I will have some time this summer.

I refuse to read anything from a guy who has too many F's in his name.

Define "too many".

More than is necessary.

Too many as in redundant letters. He could have gotten by with one F, but no.. he had to be all wasteful and use that extra F. Think of the amount of time wasted by the tens of people who have to type that extra F in his name.

What about "Jeff"?

CHECK AND MATE BITCH!

Also an inefficient use of F, unless its in its full form of Jeffery, in which that 2nd F is needed to prevent the incorrect pronounciation of the 2nd E. I think Jif got it right... but then again I doubt its short for Jiffery.

Jif did get it right, my friend. Long live Jif!

Choosy moms?

We shud remov al extra leters. They just wast typing.

You know that they tried to pass something similar to that in congress. Basically they wanted to change everything so it was phonetically spelled. Needless to say it got shot down. But could you imagine reading government printings in which they spelled everything like a five year old.

We should get rid of irregular forms of words.

Example: I have 2 sheeps.
Example: I have quite a few oxes.
Example: I drinked a cup of water.

Or we could just make them all irregular.

Example: I have a geese.
Example: Look at all that foxen.
Example: He lank some chains together.

No, no, you're going overboard. I said unneeded letters. Just human's example of "We shud remov al extra leters" drastically changes the pronounciation of the sentance. I dont know anyone who pronounces "Al" and "All" the same way. However, I think everyone pronounces Fford and Ford the same way.

The only confusion would be at the start of the sentence, when 'al' would be capitalized and looked like 'Al'.

That can't be your only objection to my idea.

Probably not, but its where I stopped reading.

Burn!

Check out the new chat page. It's under the 'Members Only' section.

This reminds me of that Saturday Night Live skit where they were making fun of all those Don Laprie (?) infomercials. What they were toting about was dropping extra syllables when speaking to save time. One of the testimonials was from a death row inmate talking about needed to use his remaining time efficiently and Don's new system will save him a total of X precious hours of his remaining life and what not.

If we were to get rid of the irregular forms of words we would end up with atrocious words like catched.

The real reason all the irregular forms have been preserved is that educated people can recognize each other and the ignorant can also recognize each other. A lot of it comes from England when most of the people looked just like each other, so we had to make up distinctions between groups that otherwise would have looked the same, and the best one (at least the one that has lasted the longest)is language. There are places a person is definitely not welcome if he doesn't use the "correct" form of a word, and other places he might be in physical danger is he DOES use the "correct" form. "Whom" is a good example: use it incorrectly and you may lose the chance at the job you wanted. Use it at ALL, and you may find the mall rats are after you.

Less and fewer is another one people don't get.
Less is where you're not quantifying the items. "I have less corn."
Fewer is where you are quantifying the items. "I have fewer ears of corn."

It's actually the '12 items or fewer' lane.

I also can't stand the missuse of its and it's. Easy way to know - if you can say 'it is', then it's (it is) it's. If you cannot substitute it is, then it's its. Its means ownership. "Its tongue is its own best friend."

It might be a tool for the smart to recognize the smart, but if someone's calling card is the pedantic implementation of an old bastard language, they're not the kind of smart I'm lookin' fer.

Back before the 15th century, the majority of verbs were what we consider today to be irregular. When our glorious language made the jump from middle to modern English and became less of a bastard child of the unholy union of eleventy seven other languages, a few archaic hold outs stood their ground and are still with us today. It could very well have been a tool to recognize the uneducated, but I just studied the language, not the socio-economic politics behind it.

Trivia: did you know the 10 most used verbs in modern English are irregular? I cannot remember what they are. I just remember that from a class way back when. However, new verbs are all regular. The youngest accepted verb that comes to mind is 'to google'.

This is how I spend my Saturday evenings.