Language Liberalism Freethought Birds
Verbing Weirds Language only if you're expecting it to work in a simple way. This is a special case of the more general truth that Language Weirds.
Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.
The church says Earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence in a shadow than the church.
If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Something else from that WaPo article:
Rules of engagement -- the guidelines that spell out defensive measures U.S. troops can take -- have been scaled down in recent years. For example, troops are no longer supposed to drive on the wrong side of the road, which they habitually did to avoid setting patterns that make them more prone to roadside bomb attacks.They "habitually" do something "to avoid setting patterns"?
I used to teach Russian and Ukrainian, and some basic English, to civil servants. Now I teach Russian at a local continued-learning institute. I dabble in Gaelic and Welsh. I'm am amateur photographer and I love birding (in a small way). I'm a Progressive, and a Freethinker, and I know Evolution is a fact - that's FCD, Friend of Charles Darwin (look down the sidebar). I read a lot, and follow women's college basketball. Also I love astronomy, though I'm a rank amateur at it. Most of all, I like living in the reality-based community...
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3 Comments:
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At 5:00 PM, January 12, 2009
Anonymous had this to say...
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At 5:05 PM, January 12, 2009
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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At 10:02 PM, January 12, 2009
Anonymous had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->This reminds me of something I've been hearing from newscasters lately, namely the use of "troop" in the singular, for example, "Three troops were killed and one troop was injured." Sounds odd.
While the widespread use of the word is probably due to a need for a cover term ("soldier" isn't much liked by Marines, for instance), its usage goes back to at least the Civil War.
I wrote a post on it a couple of years ago, in fact.
Thanks for the link to the previous post. I understand what the fellow means - that the terms 'troop' and 'troops' shifted from referring to specific units in a cavalry to referring to a collection of individual military men and women in general, but I still think that calling a solitary serviceperson 'a troop' sounds awkward. Old dog (that would be me) coping with new linguistic tricks I guess.
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