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If you think that the popularity of Coca Cola, MacDonalds, and "money" is the fault of the United States' "total disrespect to (sic) every other culture," you have a very narrow and shallow understanding of how the world operates. The United States did not "impose" these products and ideas on other cultures. Whether one likes it or not, other cultures embraced them. You can include the popularity of "Levi" jeans in your litany as well.
In 2003 I was at the Guitar Foundation of America convention at Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Conversing with a well known English classical guitarist, he bemoaned the fact that his British and European friends despised everything American. George W. Bush was the bete noir du jour.
"I try to remind them that America has produced great art, music and literature," said the Englishman.
"So are they showing English and French movies at the big cinemas in Leicester Squre and on the Champs Elysee?" I asked.
Just ran across this history published last month, of criticism of the book "The Story of Ferdinand" : "How The Story of Ferdinand Became Fodder for the Culture Wars of it s Era."
When "Ferdinand the Bull" was first published, it was banned in both Hitler's Germany and Franco's Spain, no doubt because it sent the "wrong" message. I'll bet the author of this article/review thinks he has "Huevos Grandes" (Big Balls) because his definition of "manhood" depends upon it.
Yessir, ain't he a real "Hombre" though, ain't he just?!
Bill
I have repeated my intitial response above to the "El Pais" link, Richard. Your link to the article expanding on the "culture wars" of the era fleshes it out even more. It is amusing to read articles by blowhards who define "masculinity" as being in the "corrida" with a "toro" that has been weakened by the picador digging into his neck muscles and the banderillas damaging them even more.
"Huevos Grandes" indeed!
Aficionados recognize a link between the corrida and flamenco, but it is not necessary for flamenco's survival. Were the corrida to disappear in Spain tomorrow, flamenco would survive, to the extent that it survives at all over the next 40 years or so. And that is a question that has been explored before on the Foro. Except for a few die-hard afionados of flamenco as we know it, what are the chances of flamenco being around 40 years from now as a genre that resisted absorption into "World Music" and other "fusion" forms? I may be wrong, but I don't hold out much hope for that outcome.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
No. "Huevos Grandes" are sitting in a plush office and sending drones to "take out" "selected targets". That innocent bystanders, including women and children might be "taken out" too is, of course. perfectly justifiable.
Obviously, the Corrida de Toros is much more cruel and is only undertaken by cowards.
"Huevos Grandes" are sitting in a plush office and sending drones to "take out" "selected targets". That innocent bystanders, including women and children might be "taken out" too is, of course. perfectly justifiable. Obviously, the Corrida de Toros is much more cruel and is only undertaken by cowards.
Nice example of a "non sequitur."
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
I have said before that I was something of an aficionado of the corrida in my youth, but I haven't attended one for at least 40 years. I doubt that I would enjoy it now. I might even be repulsed by it.
But the other day I was discussing it with a friend, motivated to some extent by this thread on the foro. My friend said he had gone to a few corridas while he was in Spain, but he got tired of "seeing the poor bull" after he had been mistreated by the picadors, the banderillero, etc.
"But the bull never gave up," I said.
My friend observed that the bull was clearly at a disadvantage relative to the matador, "the murderer," as he named him.
I said that during the rise of the corrida to its era of great popularity during the 18th and 19th centuries, and well into the 20th, at least 95% of Spaniards were quite obviously getting the short end of the stick, due to the huge economic inequality. The land, money, power and other resources were exclusively in the hands of a privileged elite. The rest were subject to injustice, oppression, poverty and in many cases, hunger. I wondered whether the average Spaniard in those days did not in some respects identify with the bull: he never gives up in the face of insuperable odds.
My first exposure to the corrida was in Mexico. There the poor and oppressed denizens of the upper seats in the sun certainly cheered for the bull at times. The picadors were hissed and booed when they entered the arena. The bull was cheered and applauded when he continued to charge them, seeming to ignore the pain and injury of the lances. People applauded and cheered heartily when the corpse of a brave bull was dragged from the arena by the team of horses.
Even from my privileged seat I was thrilled by the bull's bravery.
This is not to say that the spectators did not also vicariously partake of the matador's bravery, fame and wealth, earned at the expense of ultimate cruelty to the bull.
With age I have grown more empathetic to the bull. I don't think it is entirely due to the fact that vicious bulls haven't been part of my daily life for sixty years.
Corridas are much rarer now in Mexico. The border is far more dangerous than it was in my youth. I don't know of any remaining fans of the corrida among my friends and extended family along the border. I do not regret the gradual disappearance of the corrida in Spain and Latin America. I think it is doomed, as the social milieu that gave rise to it disappears.
The cante, as I first experienced it, was a professional art, but it clearly reflected the desperation and defiance of an oppressed people. I do regret the gradual disappearance of the cante, though I believe it declines for some of the same reasons that the corrida does.
Just for the sake of being contrary, and up to date: 'Begs the question' meaning has changed in common usage and Websters dictionary has acknowledged a new second meaning as valid. If I had not mentioned a very good and pithy reason to say 'begs the question' means also to 'raise the question', I would really be begging the question.
Why not just say "it raises the question", when something, or a statement really does raise a question? Seems like a good way to be direct. For some reason however 'Begs the Question' has entered common speech to mean something raises a question. It's not quite the same as using 'begs the question' to point out a fallacious argument based on a shaky premise, a logical fallacy, in fact it's almost the opposite. Begs the question in common usage supports the extension of a logical argument or statement.
- Example - Baseball players get paid a lot of money today, it begs the question of whether this is worth it to fans who have to pay high ticket prices to attend a game?
That's not the way lawyers or formal logic uses begs the question, but it is stylish slang, and Merriam-Webster says it's fair game. (And personally in conversations, I usually find the guys who point out logical fallacy to be dullards. There are two kinds of dullards; the dull by lack of intellect who think they have arrived in smartypants land, and the dull who, though actually smart, spoil everyones fun by being didactic and calling out logical fallacies while everyone else is riffing on imaginatively. Dullness in personalities stems from trying to act smart, when you either are not smart, ( Donald Trump style dullness) or when you are very smart and have a very good brain, perhaps the best brain, but make everyone miserable by pointing out fun jokes to be logical fallacies. )
This has something to do with irony and dullness. But let's keep puns out of this because it raises the question.
When the "begging the question" question was first raised in this thread, I Googled a bit. Wikipedia asserts that the English phrase is in fact a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which actually translates to "assuming the initial point".[1]
"The original phrase used by Aristotle from which begging the question descends is: τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς (or sometimes ἐν ἀρχῇ) αἰτεῖν, "asking for the initial thing." Aristotle's intended meaning is closely tied to the type of dialectical argument he discusses in his Topics, book VIII: a formalized debate in which the defending party asserts a thesis that the attacking party must attempt to refute by asking yes-or-no questions and deducing some inconsistency between the responses and the original thesis.
In this stylized form of debate, the proposition that the answerer undertakes to defend is called "the initial thing" (τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ) and one of the rules of the debate is that the questioner cannot simply ask for it (that would be trivial and uninteresting). Aristotle discusses this in Sophistical Refutations and in Prior Analytics book II, (64b, 34–65a 9, for circular reasoning see 57b, 18–59b, 1).
The stylized dialectical exchanges Aristotle discusses in the Topics included rules for scoring the debate, and one important issue was precisely the matter of asking for the initial thing—which included not just making the actual thesis adopted by the answerer into a question, but also making a question out of a sentence that was too close to that thesis."
So the phrase "begging the question" seems almost to ask to be misused, since it does not clearly convey the Latin and Greek usages from which it arose.
But I was taught the older usage. Using the phrase to mean "raising the question" jars upon my inner ear, as well as being confusing, so I generally avoid it.
RNJ
1. Liberman, Mark (29 April 2010). "'Begging the question': we have answers". Language Log. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
But I was taught the older usage. Using the phrase to mean "raising the question" jars upon my inner ear, as well as being confusing, so I generally avoid it.
RNJ
I know what you mean. When someone says of a vintage of wine, "it drinks well" to mean the wine has good qualities, it grates on my ear. The word 'build' being used by guitarmakers- "The Fleta pattern is a good build." "How is your build coming along?" - I hate hearing this short cut. I'm assured it is grammatically wholesome, but it raises a lot of questions and irritations in my ear.
These are proliferating like mice. “He identifies as African-American”. He identifies what as African-American? You just have to get used to it, there’s no alternative.
These are proliferating like mice. “He identifies as African-American”. He identifies what as African-American? You just have to get used to it, there’s no alternative.
Your example above is used all the time by journalists and others who should know better but, in fact, are ignorant of the English language. Most don't even know the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb. And as far as the average graduate goes, forget it. He's too busy dumbing himself down with texting and what passes for "communication" on his mobile devices.
I remember in high school English class spending many hours diagramming sentences. I don't think students today are required to diagram sentences, and many are graduated, though barely literate. We can't hold the little darlings back now, can we? The parents would probably file a lawsuit claiming discrimination or whatever the "cause" of the day happens to be.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
I know what you mean. When someone says of a vintage of wine, "it drinks well" to mean the wine has good qualities, it grates on my ear. The word 'build' being used by guitarmakers- "The Fleta pattern is a good build." "How is your build coming along?" - I hate hearing this short cut. I'm assured it is grammatically wholesome, but it raises a lot of questions and irritations in my ear.
Thinking how to rephrase "How is your build coming along" I considered "How is the guitar you are building coming along." That got me to wondering when do the pieces of wood become a guitar? No doubt it would be a guitar by the time the box was closed, but before that....?
These questions could be avoided by asking, "How is your guitar building project coming along?" since presumably your intention is clear. But "How is your build...?" minimizes the number of words, and would generally be understood by someone it is addressed to--important drivers in the evolution of English.
Larisa's first language was Russian, with Ukrainian a close second. She speaks and writes English fluently and accurately, but sometimes asks me to look over something she has written. Occasionally I suggest the insertion or removal of an "a" or "the." Years ago she asked me for the rules governing when these articles are used in English.
I realized I couldn't answer her request. I still don't know what the rules are. I suppose someone has codified them? So I asked, "When do you use them in Russian?"
"You don't," she replied. "In effect, they don't exist."
So there's an example of English resisting impulse to abbreviate--at least until now.
I know that last sentence needs a "the," but you understood it anyhow, didn't you?
I know that last sentence needs a "the," but you understood it anyhow, didn't you?
In the case you just illustrated, yes. But often when something is "understood" by the writer or speaker, it is ambiguous at best and misunderstood at worst by the recipient.
Punctuation is as important as grammar and syntax in conveying meaning. I have used this example in a previous post, but it fits in this thread and is an example of the importance of proper punctuation in conveying the meaning of a statement. It is often said in our semi-literate society that punctuation does not matter as long as the "meaning" is conveyed. But proper punctuation almost always matters. Take the example below.
The following sentence is clear, is it not?
"Woman without her man is nothing."
No ambiguity. The meaning appears clear. Yet add a couple of punctuation marks as follows.
"Woman: without her, man is nothing."
The colon and comma completely change the meaning of the sentence. To all those illiterate ignorami who think puntuation does not matter, keep dumbing yourselves down with texting and tweeting.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Japanese is light on articles and uses them in places English doesn't use them. It makes me a bit lost at times because I'm an article whore, and a comma slut. Japanese is rammed together without the articles we find satisfying.
And there is a great deal of situational context in colloquial speaking. The apple on the table is not the apple, it's just apple. And if you want to determine who's apple, you can pretty much just say 'dare' meaning 'who'. There are more elegant ways to say 'Is this your apple?' but the 'your' part time is automatically assumed because you are obviously asking the question and addressing it to those at the table.
The daily speech is rife with these assumptions, and they are not always clear for non-native speakers. Shorthand based on dropping 'I' 'we' 'they' etc. is normal.
The better alternative to "how is your build going?" Is pretty simple. How is your guitar making work going? Or more specifically, I want information about the Fleta design, not a vague empty response, it's a good build. It tells me nothing. How about, I'm building the Fleta model, let me tell you about its quantities as a design.
How is your build going? - assumes you are building a guitar, but I prefer to ask, how is your guitar coming along. It assumes you are making something, but at least it names the actual object leaving no doubt. Otherwise I don't know what the hell they are building. And to assume it's a guitar just makes an ass out of you and me. Assyoume.
the rules governing when these articles are used in English
That's a tough one for foreigners. As is often the case, there are some overarching rules but as soon as you delve into more detail those rules seem to disappear almost completely. I've found it more effective to drop the big rules and just learn the full list of cases where this or that determiner is used. It doesn't help that the rules I was taught are often not applied, or only seldom. For instance, I was taught that a title should not be preceded by a determiner ("President Bush wrote that ...") but that professions should ("The author John Updike wrote that...") But I've seen "Author John Updike wrote that..." enough that I no longer know whether that rule is still valid or not. It's all very confusing. The hardest for French learners is probably the zero determiner, since it does not really exist in French but it is used all the time in English. "Mon chat aime la nourriture pour chiens". "My cat likes dog food". It'll take a while for the French learner to figure out why there is no determiner before dog food. The larger question of course is what the hell is wrong with that cat, but there was no answer to that in my grammar books.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
I realized I couldn't answer her request. I still don't know what the rules are. I suppose someone has codified them? So I asked, "When do you use them in Russian?"
"You don't," she replied. "In effect, they don't exist."
This is very familiar to me at the moment, since to earn a crust I’m proof-reading archæology articles translated into English from Russian. Some translations are quite good, but a few have used articles fairly haphazardly.
There’s quite a good explanation of the rules on Wikipedia. Look up Article (grammar).
The hardest for French learners is probably the zero determiner, since it does not really exist in French but it is used all the time in English. "Mon chat aime la nourriture pour chiens". "My cat likes dog food".
I hadn’t really thought about it before (of course), but it seems to me that zero determiners are used for generalisations, and that’s it. Is there an exception?
However, the converse doesn’t hold, unfortunately: “The bat is a nocturnal animal” is a generalisation with a determiner. But then I've always felt the impulse to say “What bat?”
The hardest for French learners is probably the zero determiner, since it does not really exist in French but it is used all the time in English. "Mon chat aime la nourriture pour chiens". "My cat likes dog food". It'll take a while for the French learner to figure out why there is no determiner before dog food.
We actually do provide a determiner for French speakers. If we who speak Americanese know ahead of time that the French reader will be reading the text, we always say it thusly:
"My cat likes zee dog food, but zare ess sumzing wrong whiz zee cat."
I hope that was helpful.
-----------
Now eeff yuu'll excuse me I ave to go restore zee violence.
I once interpreted a meeting for a large French company that was held entirely in English as part of some policy to be more "open to the world". There were only French people there, all speaking English. But they had French/English interpreters there because, turns out, they don't even understand themselves when they speak English.
It's a shame really. They're forgetting their own former president's advice: "Just be you. Be proud of you because you can be do what we want to do".
@Paul Magnussen
quote:
I hadn’t really thought about it before (of course), but it seems to me that zero determiners are used for generalisations, and that’s it.
That's the rule of thumb. The zero determiner is also used for most proper nouns or proper names. In French it is used for names of individuals but not so much for other proper names (le Canada, l'Estonie, la place de la République (as opposed to Canada, Estonia, and, say, Trafalgar Square). An adult learner of English really just has to make a list of categories and learn them by heart. Country names don't take a determiner, except the United States, the Gambia, etc. River names take a determiner (the Thames, the Potomac, etc.) but mountain names do not (Mount Everest, Mount Rainier, etc.). It's a hassle to learn all of those by heart but unfortunately there is no way around it.
There's a tendency in English to remove the determiner if there is another piece of information that grounds the noun, that makes it specific. The idea is that this additional piece of information does the job of determination and the determiner is therefore no longer needed. For instance, "We shall reconvene in the conference room at 10" becomes "We shall reconvene in conference room B at 10". "B" determines which conference room you are talking about so there is no need for a "the" to do that. Another way of looking at it is that "conference room B" is being treated in effect as a proper name (which it would not be in French: "nous reprendrons dans la salle de conférence B").
Part of the problem about saying that zero determiners are used for generalizations is that the very idea of generalization is open to cultural interpretation. History, physics, English, basketball. An English-speaker might think, yes, these are generalizations. English in general, as opposed to the English spoken by a particular individual. History in general, as opposed to the particular history I was taught in school. A French person will understand the rationale to this, but instinctively he would not see these as generalizations. History is one specific subject matter or academic subject, English is one specific language and basketball is one specific sport. One way around that has been to separate generalizations from "abstract nouns". But in the end, it is just as difficult to define what constitutes abstraction as what constitues generalization. Meals are an interesting case. "We had lunch together last Tuesday". Some would say this is a generalization/abstraction. They would oppose that example to "The lunch we had together was cheap but good". Fair enough. But then you have to get into why "lunch" would be considered an generalization/abstraction at all. Is "lunch" more abstract or general than "meal"? If not, how do we explain the fact that we would say "We had a meal together last Tuesday" and not "we had meal together last Tuesday"?
The zero determiner is also used for the vast majority of uncountable nouns. For instance, "she has red hair", "add salt", "my cat likes dog food", etc. To make things more complicated, uncountable nouns can become countable nouns through figures of speech (in which case the use of a determiner is necessary). "Pass me the salt" is a good example of that. "Salt" is uncountable, but in this case "the salt" is a synecdoche for "the salt shaker", which is countable.
Then there is a slew of other cases related to locations and how you get to those locations, usually within adverbial groups. "at home", "at work", "to hospital" (apparently not in US English though), "he went to work", "I travelled by plane/by bus/on foot", etc.
And to think there are people out there who say English is easy...
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
One of the "talking heads" on CNN this morning was prattling on about Melania Trump and unknowingly revealed that she (the "talking head") no doubt majored in "Journalism," rather than History, English, Political Science, Physics, Engineering, or some useful major where she might have actually learned something.
She stated (and I'm quoting directly here): "Melania is one of the most unique First Ladies in our history."
Whatever one may think of Melania Trump, this so-called "journalist" could use a crash course in the English language. Among the first things she should learn is the word "unique" means "without like or equal." Hence, there can be no degrees of uniqueness. Melania Trump may be unique, but she is not one of the "most unique" First Ladies.
Further evidence, if any were needed, of the continued decline of Western Civilization. And what is "Western Civilization" you might ask, especially if you are under the age of 40? You could be forgiven for not knowing, since it is no longer taught in most schools these days, as it is not considered "multicultural" enough and may be viewed by some as "exclusionary." Same goes for American History. You can actually go through most schools without studying any course in American History.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
She stated (and I'm quoting directly here): "Melania is one of the most unique First Ladies in our history."
Probably, previous First Ladies have only been unique in one respect, or at most two; whereas Melania is obviously unique in at least seventeen different respects
For a while I had this theory that Melania is the mastermind behind the Trump world. I left that theory behind after I saw that she looks really bored and disengaged.
But for a while it looked like she was as smart as any of them, and probably is. And she is from a USSR influenced region. I kind of like the idea that she's a plant in Donald's life, and she's bored with her assignment now that she engineered his ascension to high office. Where does an asset go from there?
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