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.
I don't know if Ted thinks What's-his-face,Whos's-her-name (a new one on me!), and the Whatchamacllits are pronouns, or if he means the neighbors are lucky they aren't called worse things than "you". (Probably the former.) But while What's-his-face does indeed stand in for a proper noun, that doesn't make it a pronoun...
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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1 Comments:
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At 5:02 AM, July 24, 2014
Adrian Morgan had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->According to the Cambridge Grammar analysis, "What distinguishes [pronouns] from other nouns [...] is that they permit a much narrower range of dependents" (page 425).
The cartoon itself uses "whatchamicallits" with a definite article, so it's out, and although introducing someone as "The Amazing Whatshisface" would be unlikely, it would not be grammatically wrong. So indeed, these are not pronouns.
Related trivia: The Cambridge Grammar does classify "yesterday", "today" and "tomorrow" as pronouns. I remember being intrigued by this when I first got my copy.
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