Sorry, vw, I didn't intend to impugn his entire being with my comment about this one issue. I should have been more specific and less vulgar. I do agree that on that particular issue, however, he's way off - the rest of your classmates notwithstanding.

I know you would, Barb. If only MM and the transporter... ah, well.

I should have been more specific and less vulgar.

Oh, I didn't take offense. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was just being vulgar back :).

Oh, good. I didn't mean to be all snotty about someone you very well may like! I was irrationally, long-distance insulted by his assertion or something. (Hey, I said irrationally!)

Heh. He is my absolute favorite prof. This is the fourth class I've taken with him. He's my adviser. And, he was one of my thesis readers (by request). But, that doesn't mean he can't be wrong!

He's not full of shit, actually. He's pretty progressive on language change. He used who/whom as an example of word-shortening as the natural evolution of language. I just happen to think it was a bad example. Though, when I pressed the issue, I was the *only* person in the class that raised my hand as knowing/using the difference.

It is falling out of common usage rather quickly, and although most Buffistas I know use it, the majority of educated people I know don't.

I use it when feeling like dressing up my language in formal wear, but my spoken tongue is pretty well business casual. Of course, I'm also a descriptivist rebel who merrily splits infinitives and ends sentences with prepositions and spits in the face of the Latinate rules shoved willy-nilly onto a Germanic language by stick in the mud twerps with some sort of mental hard-on for a dead tongue.

Not that I have strong opinions on the matter.

I use it when feeling like dressing up my language in formal wear, but my spoken tongue is pretty well business casual. Of course, I'm also a descriptivist rebel who merrily splits infinitives and ends sentences with prepositions and spits in the face of the Latinate rules shoved willy-nilly onto a Germanic language by stick in the mud twerps with some sort of mental hard-on for a dead tongue.

Not that I have strong opinions on the matter.

Heh. This class has made me go, "Wow. That explains A LOT!" many times a day. The Latinate is just the craziest. Also, the "beautifying" of the language of the Bible for King James. They don't tell you that in Fundamentalist churches!

It is falling out of common usage rather quickly

That, I agree with. And clearly,

and ends sentences with prepositions

I do that, too.

I'm all good with change and progress, I would just like it to match exactly (hey, look! I split infinitives, too. ETA: Oh, wait, no I didn't. Carry on.) what I think should and shouldn't change and progress. Is that so, so, very wrong?

Also, the "beautifying" of the language of the Bible for King James. They don't tell you that in Fundamentalist churches!

Butbutbutbut! It wasn't for pretty! It was the seventh purification of the seventh translation of the somethingawhatsit! That proves numerologically that it was the real reinspired word in spite of being a translation of a translation of a translation! Or something!

(also, you can see Russia.)

Of course, I'm also a descriptivist rebel who merrily splits infinitives and ends sentences with prepositions and spits in the face of the Latinate rules shoved willy-nilly onto a Germanic language by stick in the mud twerps with some sort of mental hard-on for a dead tongue.

hi-fives Plei

What she said. I mean, I kinda-sorta know all the "proper" rules, but there are times that I'm amazed I've tricked someone into hiring me as an editor.

One can argue that splitting the infinitive was never specifically wrong in English. When grammar books were finally written, they were based on Latin grammar. In Latin, of course, you can't split an infinitive.

t /pedant

Like that ever closes