Hil R,
demonstrating over in
Firefly
why Buffistas.org is the best of all possible places to engage in discourse:
As I learned it (in French class), the subjunctive is a mood, the perfect and pluperfect are tenses. The subjunctive is used when, rather than stating that something happened or didn't happen (or is happening or is not happening), you're using the form of the verb to express uncertainty over whether it happened. The perfect is for an action that was started in the past, and the pluperfect is for an action that occured before the action in the past tense. I always confused subjunctive with past conditional. So, in a quick South Park demonstration (slightly revising the lyrics):
Subjunctive: "What would Brian Boitano do if he were here right now?"
Conditional: "He'd make a plan"
Pluperfect: "Brian Boitano had been here"
Past: "before he made a plan"
Perfect: "Brian Boitano has been here for awhile
Present: "and he is making a plan."
Next week, on Grammar With the Buffistas: Nouns, Adverbs and Adjectives, demonstrated using
Shut your Fucking Face, Unclefucker.
(Cool, I got COMMed! But, erm, the "make" in the conditional should be part of the bolded verb, and the "would" in the subjunctive shouldn't. And I edited slightly to make the distinction between pluperfect and imperfect clearer.)
Oh, that's a Hall of Famer if I ever read one.
Fay, in a quick discourse on Andromeda:
Tyr - he's the jaw-droppingly beautiful man - I mean, head turning, rugby-tackle-him-reflexively-upon-first- sight-and-start-humping-his- unsuspecting-self-like-a-bitch-in-heat-before-you've-realised-that-you're-in- the-middle-of-a-cocktail-party-and-nobody-has-even-introduced-you-to-him-yet level of Beautiful? Yeah? (Although I suppose in those circumstances one could always beg cultural differences, and claim that in the UK it's called a CockTail party for a reason, and whoops, you mean this isn't an orgy, how dreadfully embarrassing, ho ho ho, could somebody possibly pass me an h'ors deuvre? And oh, look over there, a juggling elephant! - at which point you drag the man into the nearest possible closet with muttered offers of no-strings blowjobbage and get him naked as fast as humanly possible). 'Cause I don't watch Andromeda, but I happened across it this pm whilst frantically vaccuming the cat to avoid essay writing, and sweet weeping mother of God, he could make me give up girls entirely.
I love Fay! Natter, true, but it came from the heart.
Allyson:
I hate John D'oh. I don't give a fuck who he is.
**********************
From
Firefly
Allyson:
I'd pay more for Zoe in the sack
Daniel C. Jensen:
Or Kaylee in the engine room....
Scrappy:
Or Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with the lead pipe.
Allyson, in Angel
Speaking of, if there are so many hell dimensions, shouldn't there be equal numbers of heaven dimensions? Like the "Ice Cream and Adonis Dimension, where one can eat all the ice cream one wants, and while getting eaten by Washes and Gunns, and Angels?
Where is that dimension? That's where I wanna go. Get me a portal.
From FayJay, a continuation of her hymn of Tyr-praise:
I don't understand how they ever get anything done on that ship, actually, because surely everyone's first thought upon waking must be: "Hmm, consciousness. Must go get Tyr naked and have hot monkey sex." Or possibly: "Hmm. consciousness. must go get Tyr naked and have hot monkey sex, and then punch the captain for being an irritating git." But apparently other stuff happens too?
Rebecca Lizard in the midst of the grammar & usage debate over in Firefly:
Dude, how could anyone not love diagramming sentences? It's excellent! It's a great game! It's like laying the sentences out and eviscerating them and getting to see how they work as they whimper and squirm and die their little sentencey deaths.
[edited to correct grammar mistake that got by RL & me.]
(Theo, could you edit the "lying" to "laying"? Just for posterity?)
