Becauses I'm such a nerd, and a grammar freak, I cannot help but express this urge to share all I know about nouns (which I didn't get to do in my exam this afternoon).
[blahblahblah grammatic/semantic gender blahblahblah...]
An exception is the noun "child", which traditionally used to take the pronoun "it", as used as recently as by the eminent author, C.S. Lewis. However, in modern times, the pronoun "it" seems to carry a sub-human nuance, and thus, "child" either is repeated, or uses "he," "she," "s/he".
[blahblahblah Noun Cases blahblah...]
The genitive case, while described as being the modified proper noun possessive as in "Mary's lamb" or "John's eraser," is actually erroneous. The *true* genitive case, as well as the other cases as the Latin ablative, or the Russian instrumental, have all been replaced by prepositional phrases, yielding phrases like "the fang OF doom"(genitive), "the dart was thrown FROM the wall"(ablative), or "I go to school BY bus"(instrumental).
[...blahblahblah conclusion (the end!) blahblahblah]
Overall, it was pretty good, if a bit ridiculous. I spent almost an entire page just on the pluralizing rules for English nouns (the regular -s, and -es endings, as well as explaining the irregular forms for other pluralizing endings, as well as internal vowel shifts, as in "oxen", "geese", "mice", "cacti", "agenda"(as opposed to agendum), etc.)
And I'm pretty sure I lost a few points on the sentence-parsing tree diagram. So much for that perfect... Actually, I probably got significantly less than perfect. I have a bad feeling that I got 8.3/10 on the tree diagram, and only around 9.7/10 on the essay. If I'm lucky. 90% total!? Yes, I'm breathing. Really. Not hyperventilating, nope, not me, uh-uh, not at all...
I wonder what would have happened had I chosen to write on adverbials instead...
2005/11/30
2005/11/29
Greed
I had the pleasure of attending a guest lecture yesterday at Waterloo, titled "The Curse and Potential of Greed: Social and Political Issues Arising from Acquisitiveness".
Talked about the evils of greed, which we're all acutely aware in society, as in capitalist corporations and their shameless exploits of their employees and smaller companies (which they bleed dry), all protected by this system of legality which they created for themselves. Or in modern post-secondary institutions, as we can all relate to with the ridiculous rise in tuition.
But then, the orator gave an interesting spin on it, and offered some positive results of greed: those who have more have the potential to do more; philanthropy is only meaningful because those few people with a lot of wealth are able to contribute a lot and make something happen. (As opposed to the meager offerings of "normal" people, and their unco-ordinated efforts, which ultimately result in little being done.
He quoted several figures from history, most of whom were religious. One very interesting quote which I liked was, "Virtue gave birth to Prosperity, but the daughter killed the mother".
The lecture was recorded, but I have no idea where and when it'll be released, so I'll need my trusty UW spies to keep me informed. :)
You can read more about the guy and the intro to the lecture here
A lot of the ideas weren't really new to me; I've actually found it surprising that he actually mentioned so many of those points that my friends had disagreed with me on (or simply not considered). The same statements or statistics that have been iterated time and time again. That North Americans spend 10 or 15 times more on our pets than we do on humanitarian aid, that we spend several billion dollars on movies and the cinema every year, when all that money could have saved the whole of Africa from poverty and starvation.
Oh, what decadent times we live in...
Talked about the evils of greed, which we're all acutely aware in society, as in capitalist corporations and their shameless exploits of their employees and smaller companies (which they bleed dry), all protected by this system of legality which they created for themselves. Or in modern post-secondary institutions, as we can all relate to with the ridiculous rise in tuition.
But then, the orator gave an interesting spin on it, and offered some positive results of greed: those who have more have the potential to do more; philanthropy is only meaningful because those few people with a lot of wealth are able to contribute a lot and make something happen. (As opposed to the meager offerings of "normal" people, and their unco-ordinated efforts, which ultimately result in little being done.
He quoted several figures from history, most of whom were religious. One very interesting quote which I liked was, "Virtue gave birth to Prosperity, but the daughter killed the mother".
The lecture was recorded, but I have no idea where and when it'll be released, so I'll need my trusty UW spies to keep me informed. :)
You can read more about the guy and the intro to the lecture here
A lot of the ideas weren't really new to me; I've actually found it surprising that he actually mentioned so many of those points that my friends had disagreed with me on (or simply not considered). The same statements or statistics that have been iterated time and time again. That North Americans spend 10 or 15 times more on our pets than we do on humanitarian aid, that we spend several billion dollars on movies and the cinema every year, when all that money could have saved the whole of Africa from poverty and starvation.
Oh, what decadent times we live in...
2005/11/23
Dvorak, Dvorak
As I type the following paragraphs, I struggle with the initial problems of adjusting to a new keyboard layout, the Dvorak keyboard layout!
This layout has claimed to be able more effecient than QWERTY keyboards, a point which is "hotly" debated. But aside from that, this Dvorak keyboard claims that it uses less "hurdling" than that used in the QWERTY system. (While actual typing speeds may not increase, it is said that a Dvorak typist's fingers travel 95% less than QWERTY typists, making it a more ergonomic preference.)
Kinda brilliant, keeping all the vowels in one area... and also things like consonant clusters, such as "th" "nt" "cr" "sn" "rl"...
I'm having too much fun with this... haha...
This layout has claimed to be able more effecient than QWERTY keyboards, a point which is "hotly" debated. But aside from that, this Dvorak keyboard claims that it uses less "hurdling" than that used in the QWERTY system. (While actual typing speeds may not increase, it is said that a Dvorak typist's fingers travel 95% less than QWERTY typists, making it a more ergonomic preference.)
Kinda brilliant, keeping all the vowels in one area... and also things like consonant clusters, such as "th" "nt" "cr" "sn" "rl"...
I'm having too much fun with this... haha...
2005/11/09
Sanguinary Serenity
It's been a really long time since last I wrote here. What is there to say? Well, on the general life front, I'm pretty well. I'm enjoying myself at work, I'm getting enough sleep, I'm taking a course in English for general interest, ...
On the health front, however, I am not doing so well. My extremely sensitive body does not like the extremely arid climate that Southern Ontarian winters wreck. And if it's not the outside weather, the heating system indoors is equally dry. I've had so many nosebleeds these past few weeks. It's been suggested that I may want to see a doctor. It's kinda calming though. Rather, it forces me to be calm. No sudden movements, and I can't afford to react overtly, as it would irritate what little scabbing managed to form inside my nose. And then *gush* comes the blood. It's kinda cool, how it makes such a nice contrast with my (relatively) pale skin, but sometimes health isn't worth the price for art.
Speaking of art, I've recently been more into the "real" stuff of art. Anime is fun and all, but it's essentially cartoons, and I don't exactly draw anything meaningful with them. No dynamic compositions, no artistic expression, just meaningless mush. And since I now have two designer friends (one just graduated from Sheridan in Design, the other soon-to-be graduating from the same program), I'm getting into designer-type stuff. So, I'm creating my own typeface! Ha-ha. Even though I don't have the formal training that those two have, I hope that they won't stint on advice or knowledge in that area... I have a certain distaste for knowledge-elitists who insist that everybody else has to pay $7000 or so that they did for their education. Knowledge is free! And knowing isn't everything anyways... But I'm going to end here, ere I rant about epistimology.
On the health front, however, I am not doing so well. My extremely sensitive body does not like the extremely arid climate that Southern Ontarian winters wreck. And if it's not the outside weather, the heating system indoors is equally dry. I've had so many nosebleeds these past few weeks. It's been suggested that I may want to see a doctor. It's kinda calming though. Rather, it forces me to be calm. No sudden movements, and I can't afford to react overtly, as it would irritate what little scabbing managed to form inside my nose. And then *gush* comes the blood. It's kinda cool, how it makes such a nice contrast with my (relatively) pale skin, but sometimes health isn't worth the price for art.
Speaking of art, I've recently been more into the "real" stuff of art. Anime is fun and all, but it's essentially cartoons, and I don't exactly draw anything meaningful with them. No dynamic compositions, no artistic expression, just meaningless mush. And since I now have two designer friends (one just graduated from Sheridan in Design, the other soon-to-be graduating from the same program), I'm getting into designer-type stuff. So, I'm creating my own typeface! Ha-ha. Even though I don't have the formal training that those two have, I hope that they won't stint on advice or knowledge in that area... I have a certain distaste for knowledge-elitists who insist that everybody else has to pay $7000 or so that they did for their education. Knowledge is free! And knowing isn't everything anyways... But I'm going to end here, ere I rant about epistimology.
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