Monday, August 23rd, 2004

Time	Event
6:25p	I really really need to devise some more potent abusive epithets about prescriptive grammar. I need buckets of mockery, and lashings of contempt. I need to pour scorn and impute ignorance and deride lack of education. And not drop to their level, let's not forget that. I like the sound of 'Muggle grammar', but does it convey enough of its hopeless inadequacy? (2 Comments | Comment on this)
7:26p	Today I wrote two or three paragraphs on the Thing (I'm afraid to look in case it was only one), which is a lot more than in the past two weeks. It's a nice evening out, pleasantly cool. It's almost as if I'm not quite as depressed today, so fuelled with some Guinness I might go back and see if I can write a few paragraphs more. (Edit: No I can't.) I heard a bloke in the supermarket say ['emti] and a barrier crumbled. I'd thought phonology was the safe, easy, boring option I'd turned my back on. But why isn't it *['em?i]? The lecturer span us some story about weak foot positions, being the reason why it's glottalled in ['ba?@] and ['wIn?@]. But why not in ['emti] or ['ma:st@]? The whole edifice of phonology is probably just as unfounded as that of syntax; they just hide it better because most of phonology seems easy to understand. Current Mood: apathetic Current Music: Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 2: Yefim Bronfman (5 Comments | Comment on this)

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