A reader asks:
I learned almost all the grammar I still know from Latin, French and German where these constructions had to be more explicitly explained: Declension and conjugation from Latin, subjunctives from German, etc. My question is, am I unusual in this respect or did you gain a better command of English by comparing (it) with other languages?
Studying Latin and the other languages helps, but I wouldn’t overemphasize this. English has the subjunctive mood. We don’t say, “If I was king.” or “Joe wishes he was taller.” We don’t have conjugations of verbs, but we have more than our share of irregular verbs, which I would argue earns our language what it’s known to be: a beast to learn.
My point is that one can achieve a solid command of English grammar without any exposure to anything beyond.
The issue is caring. My family cared a great deal, as did the private school my brother and I attended. When I come across people with poor grammar I realize: no one cared. That’s sad, especially considering that the average European high school student becomes fluent in at least two languages, and sometimes four or five.
When my kids were young, I told them, “No one can look into your mind and read your thoughts. For that reason, those around you will listen to what you say or read what you write and form their judgements as to your intelligence accordingly. If you don’t want to be thought to be an idiot, put in a bit of effort and nail down the basics of our language.
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I’m not sure it’s as simple as this, insofar as Bush 41 and 43 weren’t criminal sociopaths.
I happened to be driving through Manhattan on the very day that Colin Powell was addressing the United Nations just a few miles away and claimed, and I think honestly, that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” and must be stopped by a U.S. military invasion.
Contrast that against what we’re doing in Iran. Fifteen years ago, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), included Iran, the P5+1 nations (the United States, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany), alongside the European Union made an agreement in which most of the developed world agreed that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon.
That stood firmly in place until Trump’s latest war crime, which is costing lives and choking the world economy, solely to defend our president’s neuroses.
The Brennan Center at NYU’s seminal report on this issue, The Truth About Voter Fraud, found that most reported incidents of voter fraud are actually traceable to other sources, such as clerical errors or bad data matching practices. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.
Does that stop liars like Mike Lee from spreading disinformation of the subject? Of course not.
There is no judgement day. There is no Saint Peter standing in front of the Pearly Gates discerning good from evil and acting according.
That’s a lucky break for Mike Lee.
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