It's just a tiny blurb from the Austin American-Statesman (probably off the AP wire), but I like they way they wrote it up. It's like the Marx Brothers bailing out of an upper berth. Operation FUBAR'd.
_____

"DROP ON IN

Two parachutists who were supposed to land at North Carolina's Kenan Stadium to deliver the game ball last Saturday came to earth instead at Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium eight miles away, much to the surprise of the folks there. Thus inspired, the Blue Devils rolled over James Madison 31-7."

[Ring ...]

Hello? AnswerMan here!

I* "m*****" m* b******** p******??

Wrong, Everglades breath. Miasma is not your breathing problem.

But thank you for calling The AnswerMan.

What is the relationship between clarity in the use of language and clarity of thought? A professor of philosophy I knew visited the Stanford Linear Accelerator. He could not get the physicists there to intelligibly tell him where the particles came out. They could talk grandly about relativistic and quantum effects, but they could not or would not communicate with someone not in their caste. "The particles come out there" would have been sufficient.

It seems to me that, since language is such an essential part of being human, just a few words can reveal volumes about someone. What if the meaning of those words is not clear? What does it say about the person?

They saw them walk home.

Is walk subjunctive?

How do you parse it?

I am confused.

Thanks,

Donna

Heard in a meeting yesterday, in a discussion of a controversial issue:

"Everyone was up in a roar about it."

I kind of like it! [Intended phrase: in an uproar]

From the National Hurricane Center's website:

Note: If a storm is expected to dissipate within 5 days, its track will be shorter

That's good. I hate to see the tracks of nonexistent storms.

Hello.

Would you read the following?

I have had a hard time explaining what it means for me to "speak" three languages. I don't think of it as "speaking" them --- it feels more like I live in them, breathe them. There was a time in my life when I was trying to explain that I was not realaly multilingual, but rather monolingual in three languages. That's how it felt for those years when my life was really split between three worlds. Today I seem to have settled into a more integrated lifestyle, one in which I weave in and out of my three languages and the various worlds they are attached to. I keep track of my relation to them, a complex relation, never stable, always powerful, sometimes frightening or embarrassing, sometimes exciting, but never neutral.

I can see my lfe as a set of relations to languages, those that surrounded me, those I refused to learn, those I badly wanted to learn, those I studied professionally, those --- the intimate one --- I think in, write in, am funny in, work in. Sometimes I catch myself envying intensely those monolinguals who were born, grew up, have lived all their adult life in one language. I miss the feeling of comfort, of certainty, of control I imagine they have, unaware as they really are that it could be otherwise.

Q1: Can I rewrite the phrase "I imagine they have" as follows?

... which I imagien they have

If so, then what is/are the antecedent of "which"? "the feeling .... control"?

Q2: Does the phrase "unaware as they really are" mean the following?

and I am unaware as they really are ...

or

though they really are unaware...

Q3:What does "it" in "it could be otherwise" refer to?

Q4: Actually, what's the meaning of the last sentence "I miss ...otherwise."?


Thank you so much in advance for your great help on these!!

koichiro

Forecasters said the hurricane was most likely to strike the Gulf Coast on Monday. New Orleans could get winds of up to 73 m.p.h. and possibly greater.

--New York Times

Hello.

Would you read the following?

There are some creatures that do not seem to die at all; they simply vanish totally into their own descendants. Single cells do this. The cell becomes two, then four and so on, and after a while the last trace is gone. It cannot be seen as death; excepting mutation, the descendants are simply the first cell, living all over again.

There are said to be a billion billion insects on the earth at any moment, most of them with very short life expectancies by our standards. Someone has estimated that there are 25 million assorted insects hanging in the air over every temperate square mile, in a column extending upward for thousands of feet, drifting through the layers of the atmosphere like plankton. They are dying steadily, some by being eaten, some just dropping in their traces, tons of them around the earth, breaking up as they die, invisibly.

Who ever sees dead birds, in anything like the huge numbers required by the certainty of the death of all birds? A dead bird is an irregularity, more startling than an unexpected live birds, sure evidence to the human mind that something has gone wrong. Birds do their dying off somewhere behind things, under things, never on the wing.


Q1: Which part of the sentence does the phrase "in a column extending upward for thousands of feet" modify? Does it modify the following part?

Q2: Which part of the sentence does the phrase "drifting through the layers of the atmosphere like plankton" modify? Does it modify the phrase "25 million insects"?

Q3: What does "them" refer to? "insects" or "deaths (of the insects)"?


Thank you very much in advance for your great help on these.

koichiro

For months, the Repubicans had a field day attacking Obama's "inexperience." But, the other night, speaking at the DNC, Bill Clinton seemed to settle that argument by stating that sixteen-years ago, the Repubicans also tried to portray him as the "inexperienced" newcomer to the scene (Clinton's clever comment drew thunderous applause and laughter from the enthused audience). Now, just a few days later, however, Sarah Palin (who? ) gets the Repubican VP nod, and it's the Democrats hollaring "inexperience."

Ping pong at its finest. (Who'll get the from this?)


With each passing Presidential election, Lincoln's stock rises higher and higher. Oh, those days of log cabins, Abe; they must have been golden years.

Can one say:
1-He is young to be a police officer.
instead of:
a-He is too young to be a police officer.

Can one say:
2-He is young for being a police officer.
instead of:
b-He is too young for being a police officer.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lif...0,1314447.story

Anyone want to play?

What is the difference between the meanings of these two sentences:

1-We are working hard for our children to have a good education.
2-We are working hard so that our children may have a good education.

CNN has this help-the-people-of-the-planet thing going on. You join, and you too can help. Trouble is, its name is:

IMPACT YOUR WORLD

Bleah.

Well, what if we just don't wanna be crater-causing meteorites? Why pimple the planet?

I know, I know. You go back in word history and impact once legitmately meant affect. But this is now.

What goes around comes around? Like planets and meteorites?

Anybody have an affected wisdom tooth?

Harrumph

You're peeing into the wind on this one, Claws. Deal with it.

[Ring ...]

Hello? AnswerMan here!

I* "E*****, O*****," a* o**** b* P**** I***** T*********?

Wrong, Baritone Breath. Eugene, Oregon, is not an opera by Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky.

But thank you for calling The AnswerMan.