I thought Zoe’s post was directed toward Excalibre.
It was. I was teasing her because that’s also how I write at times. 
Well, shit!!! Now I not only have to draft a calm, reasoned, semi (or quasi? 
)-conciliatory post to Excalibre, I now have to draft one for ETF, too! And time unfortunately is at a premium at the moment! There is much I’d like to say in response to both your posts, but to do so properly is going to take quite a bit of time. So for now, please know that I’ve read your posts and that I will respond to them fully as soon as time permits.
Urg. I’m really not proud of that thread. But here’s a link.
Ha! Frank and I are on the same list! Bet he loves that.
I thought while you were compiling your long semi-concillatory posts to Excalibre and ETF it might be worth one more response to cleanse your palate by explaining what part of my posting history/character tranforms my pointing out you were weaseling into a compliment. That post to me was a total character smear, ISTM*, instead of a response.
I’ve generally backed up any assertions I’ve made on the Dope rationally and the one time I thought I was over-jerky I owned up to it so I’m curious why you’d run me through your opposite filter.
*I will agree with Excalibre’s semi-retraction that the posts cited “complimentary” to Liberal were probably overseared into the old brain and don’t really reflect your overall posting habits.
Yeah he writes like English is a second language to him.
Oh. :smack: Okay, this is obviously too esoteric for me to follow along with. Kind of a pity, really; as far as the Pit goes tonight, this is about the only game in town.
Guess I’ll mosey on over to MPSIMS and see if Uncle Rue has any new fairy tales to share.
It’s true; I have a tendency towards long sentences and I love semicolons and dashes. Nonetheless, by my reading, this sentence is entirely well-formed; it seems to me you’re offering a criticism here of my writing style, not my grammar per se. And it’s a valid one; my only defense is that I don’t always revise my writing when posting here as I do elsewhere. In fact, people tend to compliment me on my writing, both here and elsewhere, so I’m generally confident in my ability to at very least communicate clearly. I do try to notice and correct such atrociously long sentences, but I’m afraid I don’t always manage it.
It’s interesting you should bring up writing style in the context of linguistics. Certainly the most famous linguist alive is Noam Chomsky; he’s got an enormous reputation in - well, many areas within linguistics, but particularly for his syntactic work. His theories regarding Universal Grammar (as he calls it) are grounded thoroughly in syntax but tend to be rather far-reaching. He’s also one of the worst writers I’ve ever encountered in all that I’ve read. His theories regarding syntax are really the foundation of almost all the work going on in the field nowadays, and yet he’s such a terrible writer that there’s almost something of a cottage industry in linguistics of people rewriting his work for others. I’ve actually seen papers that reference an author’s explanation of one of Chomsky’s particular points and then question whether that author’s analysis is correct - sometimes it strikes me that interpreting Chomsky is rather like interpreting the Bible. To make a long story rather longer than I intended, I’m afraid that being intimately aware of the ways that grammar assembles words into sentences doesn’t necessarily make a person capable of felicitous writing.
I don’t see any error. Perhaps you’re referring to the traditional grammar treatment of such sentences, which requires the second item in the comparative clause to be in the subjective case. That’s based upon an analysis under which the noun following “than” is the subject of a clause whose verb is elided. That makes a certain sense. After all, it is possible to use the verb in the construction - in this case, resulting in “He may be more intelligent than I am” - which certainly requires the subjective case. However, the fact is that in all but very formal English, “me” is acceptable in that circumstance, leading some syntacticians to propose that two competing possibilities exist: either using “than” to introduce a clause (whose verb may be elided) or treating it as a preposition.
The fact is that linguistic analysis doesn’t only work with standard forms of language. Furthermore, the construction using the objective case is actually common even among highly educated speakers of Standard English, except in formal usage. I tend not to treat my writing on the SDMB as particularly formal, and so I’m inclined to write a bit like I talk. From a linguistic perspective, the job of the linguist is to describe usage, and a syntactic theory that didn’t predict the very common construction I just used would be treated as incomplete.
One of the things you’ll note is that English teachers tend to teach the rules of formal usage, or at very least the standard variety of the language. While for pedagogical purposes when teaching children to read and write one may casually describe such usages as “proper English” or “good grammar”, it’s important to remember that this is not literally the case, and English grammar assuredly permits the usages forbidden by English teachers.
Oh, if you look through my posts, I’ve never claimed any position of authority on the subject. I’m a mere student; fortunately, most linguistic questions here on the SDMB don’t require the expertise of a professor; should someone come and start asking about head movement in Chomsky’s minimalist framework, I’d have to stay out of the discussion. If you’ve followed what I’ve written, I have attempted to make it clear that I’m not an authority in the field - in fact, I’ve explicitly explained that on at least one occasion. There are actually not too terribly many linguists on the SDMB, and I step in to answer what questions I can to whatever extent I’m capable, since even my clumsy efforts are (hopefully) better than nothing. (The use of “hopefully” as a propositional adverb - another bugaboo amongst English teachers! :)) Most of my formal study has been in Romance linguistics; I daresay I have as much knowledge as anyone else here in that area at very least. In other spots, I just limp along and look through my books when I have to.
I was truly fascinated to discover that Joseph Conrad wasn’t a native Engilsh speaker. While I found Heart of Darkness so goddamn boring I couldn’t finish it when we read it in 12th grade English, it has to be said that he attained mastery of a second language to a truly phenomenal degree. Much like Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote many very famous works in English and certainly couldn’t be faulted for his writing style.
Eeep, I think I’ll take a pass on that one. Yikes.
Has there ever been a thread involving cats (except for the “Look at pictures of my new kitten” threads) that has ever ended in anything but heartbreak here?
Ultimate flamefest: “Declaw your cat while watching Showgirls before your circumcision and gay marriage to Donald Rumsfeld.”
Eh? I don’t think we’ve had one of those. We’ve disagreed strongly, and there are one or two of the “liberal media” threads where I’ve gone to great lengths to point out what I saw as silly… but I don’t think we’ve really ‘fought’. YMMOV.
HAHAHAHA. One day you’ll meet a man and make him very very happy. Then after a week and he realizes what he got himself into, very very sad.
Call me.
You’ve been trolled.
I am sorry, I know it is inappropriate for a pit thread. But thank you for my first very good laugh of the day. I would hope that even DrDeth will get a good chuckle from that one.
Jim
Could be my memory is at fault, but I do recall you and SA having some intense battles over his insistence that the media are part of a vast liberal conspiracy. Since those threads are so painful to read I haven’t gone back to look for examples. My apologies if I’ve misremembered.
A point I’ve been mulling over for some time while reading this thread is this: Excalibre, this is my theory about why at least some of your detractors have it in for you with such passion: You’re too damned cool under fire. Even when you get angry and let fly, you come across as icily in control, contemptuously dismissive of the feeble antagonist you’re crushing beneath your heel.
Now, in some (but most assuredly not all) instances you’re spot on and your victim thoroughly deserves it. But it seems to me that many people find it easier to forgive and forget if their adversary blows up like a “normal” human being rather than coldly, cruelly slicing them into ribbons. They don’t resent the angry exchange as much, probably because they’re not left feeling so humiliated.
I don’t know whether you can – or would want to – mute somewhat this aspect of your persona. There’s no doubt in my mind you’re not about to suppress it. But it’s something to think about. Like most Dopers, you contribute good and bad both to this board. It’s distressing to me to see the positive things a person brings to this board overshadowed by the negatives.
God, I slogged through six pages of this in order to throw in my miserable $.02 worth!
Excalibre, I’m sure you don’t know me from Adam, but I started noticing you around the time of the What Exit incident in Mrs OMalley’s Cow lamented farewell thread, referenced above. After I noticed your sheer nastiness in several other threads, I considered pitting you myself.
Unfortunately, I realized that in threads with real content, either you were a) correct or b) in agreement with my position (which, of course, is correct ). In short, most of the time, even when you were being nasty, you were also contributing, dammit!
I think your snarkiness goes beyond not suffering fools gladly or even inability to keep your temper. I think you get some mileage from being cutting. I think you also get some mileage from being the focus of attention (as do most of us, of course).
Of course, there are an awful lot of posters around here who DO seem to enjoy being cutting. The people with whom you’ve had severe run-ins often are in their number, but what about poor innocents like What Exit? He didn’t do anything to deserve the vitriol you poured on to him, and I find it disturbing that you informed him that the reason you were so pissed was that he wasn’t nasty about Cow. It’s as if you feed on viciousness, your own or others’.
So, when Oy! becomes the Ultimate Tyrant of the Universe, she’ll let you live, but for Pete’s sake, can’t you tone it down a little? I suppose it’s better here than in real life, but the vast majority of us here don’t have to deal with you in real life, just here. You have real value (way more than Roger or Starving IMO), but how much more valuable you’d be if you’d just be a tad less, er, astringent!
Tone it down a little? In the Pit? Are you people missing the point?
Look, from what I can tell, people are mad at Excalibre for winning the Pit, or anyway being amongst its champions. “Enjoy being cutting”? Think of the opposite this suggests for people who hang out in the Pit; are you here because it is painful? I’ve seen it before – we have a forum for flaming, in which every thread is full of flames, and then somebody goes ‘Oh, but THAT was just mean’. “Feed on viciousness”? Look up to the top of the screen, do you see the letters MPSIMS anywhere?
I’m not saying it’s not possible to foul in the Pit; we’ve all done it, including Excalibre. I thought his attack on Jim was out of line and said so at the time. But what I see is a lot of hating the player because of the game. Now, if he’s doing it outside the Pit a lot, and that’s what you mean, very well. But I haven’t seen him be vicious anywhere except the place that says ‘HEY COME BE VICIOUS HERE’ in bright neon on the door.
I’m sorry, but I’m not talking about “language,” but rather incredibly sarcastic or nasty tone, and THAT I’ve seen Excalibre do in several fora other than this. No, I’m not going to hunt down references; I’m not interested enough nor do I have time. But I’ve even seen it in GQ. You don’t have to punch someone in the nose in order to make him or her feel like shit.
I’m signing off for the day - have to do my laundry and kill orcs.
Okay, well, for one, I’m not talking about “language” either, because swearing is not what makes the Pit the Pit in the least. And while he can get snippy, I would not describe his behavior in GQ ‘vicious’. So no, I’m not demanding a cite or anything, I do know what you’re referring to now; I just don’t see it as that bad. The thread you referred to was a Pit thread, anyway, so I was going on that.