Boring preposition jokes: new termination policy

Every time a post or comment on Language Log mentions, in any context, the prescriptive disapproval of preposition stranding (where a preposition is separated from its logically associated complement, as in What are you looking at?), e.g. in this post, commenters who have apparently never read the site before enter comments of two types.

One type says "I think a preposition is a fine thing to end a sentence with!", or words very much to that effect (unaware that instances of this lame "look-I'm-violating-the-rule" joke have been going on since at least the 1700s). The other type says, "This is nonsense up with which I shall not put!" (invariably thinking that they are quoting Sir Winston Churchill, though Ben Zimmer definitively refuted that misattribution years ago in a post that Mark and I subsequently included in our book, and it is enormously annoying to us that still no one is aware of Ben's discovery).

Unable to bear any longer the tedious work of seeking out all the instances of these two dopey comment types and deleting them, I have decided that from now on I will hunt down the relevant commenters and kill them.

I realize that it is unusual for a popular science blog to launch upon a policy of killing its own readers. That is why I thought an explicit warning should go up on the site first. This is that warning.

...

But the let-everyone-have-their-say softies who criticize my policy have no idea just how many boring self-satisfied twits have posted almost exactly the same thing over and over again down the years. Yes, death is a severe sanction. But I think people should look at things from my point of view. It is really irritating.

I realize that it is unusual for a popular science blog to launch upon a policy of killing its own readers.

The internet would be greatly improved if more blogs adopted that policy.

I have Braves-Giants tickets for Sunday!

t skips gleefully through thread

Language Log cracks me up.

I would like my money back please or fire service. I don`t think that`s too much to ask for my local government.

Yeah, that seems reasonable!

I just had one of those moments at work where I feel like a genius -- last week, a coworker and I were talking about someone else's work, saying, "I don't know why they don't do X," and today I got a voicemail that they are going to do X! Good one.

Darwin award waiting to happen...

Long Island liquor store owner believed pet alligator was just a large lizard

The 3-foot gator had been living in a storage room for about two months at Alpine Wine & Liquor in Wading River - where workers fed the beast about 45 goldfish a day, officials and the owner said.

Suffolk County SPCA seized the animal Wednesday and ticketed Corcione for possession of an illegal animal.

Skimming through a weekend's worth of Natter (300+ yargh!) to say,

Go, Kathy, go! So proud of you!

ita, holy crap on toast, I wish that I could join in with a posse of other buffistas and come out to LA and unleash some fiery justice on some of these ER docs. I just wish it could be different, with significantly less suck.

Much ~ma to your MiL, Burrell.

Oh, I forgot to say, I saw darth the other day. It was awesome.

amyth, how's he doing?

I saw darth the other day. It was awesome.

The delurking thread is open; he should check in and say Hi.

Heh - PZ didn't waste any time jumping on THAT bandwagon:

I applaud Language Log's bold new policy

(From Twitter)

Trivial thought of the day: Whole wheat bagel thins are actually pretty good as long as you realize that the word "bagel" on the package is some sort of printing error.

He's doing great! We talked about doing lunch, since he still works on campus, so we're in the same town during the day. (But I'm always eating TJ's quiches at my desk. NEED TO GET OUT MORE.)

He said that he's working on a project where he's collaborating with a bunch of playwrights--something where he's getting them to do a bunch of writing for him. I'm not quite clear on the details, but it sounded pretty cool.

I can't believe how long it's been since we've hung out. I haven't even met his DH.

Tom: when I email him about lunch, I'll mention the delurking thread.