Here’s the update on the dangling preposition scandal from Monday’s class.

As stated before, preps should never end a clause or sentence. But… screw it. In normal spoken English, and even in decent journalistic English, dangling prepositions are okay.
What are you talking about? Technically wrong, but no red-blooded native speaker would opt for the more correct “About what are you talking?”
Let us not forget Churchill’s sardonic response to critics of his rhetorical style, ?That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.?
Whoa there. Traps within traps. There are also verbal phrases, some separable and some not. Look in the back of the ol’ grammar book: Call on, hand in, look up, pick out, piss off. “When can I hand it in?” has no dangling prep.
So don’t worry too much about them, just look out for redundancies like “where are you at?” instead of “where are you?” Those are the kinds of sentences which make the speaker look quite the oaf.

And finally, here’s a nice little article which pretty much shares my opinion. Because I pretty much stole what he said and paraphrased it.

Guys and gals, I am so sick and tired of hearing my students mispronounce the word “developer”. No matter how many times I tell em, they always say “devil-loper”. Ooooh that makes me so mad…

Fortunately, my good friend Steve Ballmer put together this highly educational music video which will surely straighten out my little guys once and for all as to how the word “developer”–or rather “developers”– is pronounced. Right click to save!

Z 1 information

Attention all folks from the L1 classes: the Z1 will be offered next semester.

(more…)

N!xau, the star of The Gods Must be Crazy, a film which I almost always bring up at least once in class, has died.

Here’s how I spent my fourth.

I visited Kulturinsel Einsiedel with Claudia, our friend Jana, her 12 year old daughter and two of her little friends. It’s a huge adventure playground right on the most-eastern part of the German border. The experience was extremely enriching, but I will have to fill in the details another time. I’m exhausted. But I will say that 1) the earthy vibe was invigorating even despite the fact that 2) our short trip from Dresden was pockmarked–nay–pot-holed with Pech.

And..
Here’s to looking forward to better times.

What the heck is that thing?

Hinter Herman Hesses Haus h?ngen hundert Hemden raus.

And…

On this day in 1947 some crazy stuff went down in Roswell, man.

Apparently the new Harry Potter book is selling like hotcakes– in English.

Where this might be considered newsworthy to HP fans, or delightful for that embarassingly immature group of people known as “Frog Bashers”, one part stood out to me:

Rowling shocked her young fans when she hinted that Harry Potter could face mortal peril and be killed off. One young fan asked her whether she planned to write books about an adult Harry. She said: "You have to wait and see whether he survives to be a grown-up.

Oh, come on now Sister. You are richer than the Queen. There’s no need to have to frighten the crap out of little kids just to sell even more books. Of course Harry will make it to adulthood. Then he’ll grow a beard, get a beerbelly and move to Paris to write serious poetry. Then he’ll die.

Here’s another smart-ass kid to help me feel bad about myself. He’s working on Phds in four different fields, and then wants to be the president.
Which is good, because being a genius does seem to be prerequisite number one for getting that job.

Of course, in case you have a kid who gives you crap by throwing the goat or smoking a jay or generally has been getting uppity ever since your divorce, worry no more! It’s a great read.