Supergrunch

Yeah, but having a parallel universe theory isn't consistent with the Simon we know becoming the Simon from the future - future Simon coming back would have changed things, creating an entirely new universe. Present day Simon would only die if we resolve the paradox by saying there is only one universe and thus Simon going back in time had always happened. Curtis doesn't create paradoxes, because he rewinds time instead of merely going back to a time as his future self, meaning his time travelling is consistent with both parallel and single universe theories. But I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up mixing the two interpretations depending on what they want to do at the time - that's what Heroes did. Yes it is (or at least was), I just watched it on there.

This show is so amazing. I think everyone must be right about future Simon dying for good when coming to the present - I doubt they'll use more complex time travel methods like parallel universes.

My college is doing a production of this next term, although apparently it's quite different to the film. I can't say I liked what I saw of the film to be honest, I'm afraid my aversion to musicals still kicked in. I'll have to give the stage version a better chance though.

Well I had to try it because of its notorious reputation, but I found it pretty boring really, despite several people telling me how much I'd hate it. It's alright I suppose. I wasn't aware you could get it outside of Japan.

I eat it, it's traditionally supposed to be eaten in the case of brie. With good bries it tastes slightly of mushrooms.

Cheese is one of my favourite things ever. I've never had some I dislike, although I'm willing to bet I wouldn't enjoy casu marzu. Of note are mature Brie (especially on hovis biscuits, although I'm sure mainland Europeans will get furious over this), stilton, soft goat's cheese and gorgonzola. I've had lots of other nice and more obscure cheeses too, but I can't remember/never knew their names.

I'll play, but I'm not very good - I don't know any strategy and am at the awkward stage where I make stupid errors all the time. I remember playing a fairly intense Facebook chess game with jayseven a while back, which he of course won, but I did ok thanks to the massive gaps between turns. I then got soundly defeated by him on a real board. Any skill I do have (read: not much) is just transferred from go.

Sorry to pick on you Dan, but this post embodies one of the most common misconceptions that many intelligent people have about language; that having a bigger vocabulary and a better grasp of prescriptive grammatical rules gives you a greater depth and range of expression. This is by no means the case. First, it’s worth making a clear distinction between spoken and written language, because as I indicated earlier, many of the supposed “grammatical†errors are actually just misspellings. Though it can be hard to realise in a society where writing is so prominent, speech is absolutely the primary form of language, with written language being very much an ugly young upstart by comparison. This has been recognised by linguists since the early 20th Century – children learn to speak so long as they can hear other speakers, yet they must be taught to read and write, and here spoken language is a prerequisite. Spoken language has (probably) existed for between 2 million and 50,000 years, whereas it appears that writing emerged less than 7000 years ago. Limiting our discussion to English for the sake of simplicity, we can say that the property those who are fluent in English share is that they all speak some variety of English, yet whether they can write is neither here nor there. This is compounded by the fact that written English doesn’t bear all that much relation to spoken English. For instance, the words tap and tape are both monosyllabic and differ only in the vowel used, yet this difference is reflected by an additional e at the end of the word in the written form, which is entirely counterintuitive. It’s true that such difficulties result from English going through the Great Vowel Shift, and the standard written forms better reflect (early) Middle English pronunciation than they do the pronunciation of modern English, but no languages use writing systems that perfectly reflect pronunciation, and many are far worse off than English. So it’s understandable that people may get confused and spell things incorrectly, and one example of this is the use of could of instead of could have; in fast colloquial speech, these two are pronounced identically, hence the error. Now of course our writing system isn’t a free for all, and generally we use a strictly standardised one, which is useful in many contexts – indeed, before such a form was agreed upon for English, people used to believe that one of the key differences between modern languages and ancient ones such as Latin was this difference of standardisation. Today we can see that this represents a failure to identify spoken language as primary, but also shows how agreeing on spelling can be important. So errors such as could of should probably be avoided if you want to be able to spell, but it’s interesting that interpretation of the writing system could ultimately lead to the reinterpretation of the auxiliary ’ve as a preposition in the language itself, which could have all sorts of consequences for the structure of the language. This kind of change is unavoidable though; it’s not like correcting spelling can stop it as by that point it’s too late, but it’s also no bad thing – such changes are far too slow to affect comprehension between generations, and they don’t introduce ambiguity. Text speak and the like is more interesting then, because here we’re not looking at spelling errors, but rather conscious choices to spell differently. Obviously this kind of thing is no good for formal purposes, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely useless. For instance, abbreviations aren’t just “lazy,†they can end up serving more useful purposes than the original form, such as @ in twitter/blog/irc comments, and even i.e. in formal writing, which doesn’t mean exactly the same thing as the Latin id est, but has a meaning more suited to academic writing. And on top of this, such abbreviations take up less space and are less time consuming, both of which can be useful in the contexts they’re used (such as when you have to send a text message in a rush, making use of a limited number of characters). Furthermore, variant forms of writing like this can be used to increase expression, as attested by David Crystal in his book txting: the g8 db8, which considers precisely these issues, along with several other myths. Here’s an example he gives of a text message poem: 14: a txt msg pom. his is r bunsen burner bl% his hair lyk fe filings W/ac/dc going thru. I sit by him in kemistry it splits my @toms wen he :-)s @ me. While this kind of thing is too much in its infancy to be directly compared to great poetry, it’s clear that using non-standard forms of writing can have interesting stylistic effects, and indeed increase the range of meaning available. And it’s not as if this a new thing – how about, for instance, symbolic writing, such as the heart in I [heart] NY, or even something like lolcat? While the silly examples in this thread are annoying and unimaginative, this isn’t because they’re in non-standard spelling, it’s because the writers made an attempt to be stylistically clever which utterly failed. Furthermore, you might associate this kind of writing with certain sociolinguistic groups you dislike for whatever reasons, giving you even more of a negative impression. Contrary to popular belief, use text speak on Facebook and so on doesn’t reflect an inability to spell. But in many of the examples in this thread, the writers are irritating for entirely different reasons. I should probably discuss prescriptive grammatical rules also, which aren’t the same thing as prescriptive rules of spelling, which are actually useful in many contexts. Native speakers already know grammatical rules – this is a major part of what it means to know a language – so any supposed “rules†that have to be taught are either to do with spelling or style, or they’re pointless and not followed, like the ones to do with split infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions. And style is much more complex than just a few simple rules, so making up rules isn’t the way to address this sort of problem. Geoffrey Pullum covers this topic in huge amounts of detail, for example in this article – I think this post is already long enough as it is without going into more depth on this topic. So that brings me to your claim about vocabulary, which is again problematic. While it can be useful to know more words to refer to things precisely, it’s not the case that you cannot comprehend a concept without knowing the word for it, and furthermore, you can even express such concepts using phrases of words you do know. Which of these is better depends on the individual case – for instance, using a word nobody else will know isn’t going to be of any help, and some long words can be far uglier or less efficient than simple phrases. So it’s by no means better to always use single words for concepts when possible, and so a greater vocabulary isn’t always helpful. And even in cases where distinctions of meaning have been lost, as with disinterested and uninterested which now basically mean the same thing, it’s not always the case that ambiguities result – here for instance, the context almost always makes the meaning clear. And if you think that context is a poor substitute for clarity of meaning, then realise that you use contexts to make meaning clear all the time – for instance, in sentences like I fell out of a tree and hit my head, it’s only context (speaking more technically, pragmatics) that causes you to order one event before the other. I’ll end with one of my favourite poems by e e cummings, which uses simple words and off the wall syntax, yet nonetheless conveys great depths of meaning. why must itself up every of a park anus stick some quote statue unquote to prove that a hero equals any jerk who was afraid to dare to answer "no"? quote citizens unquote might otherwise forget(to err is human;to forgive divine)that if the quote state unquote says "kill" killing is an act of christian love. "Nothing" in 1944 AD "can stand against the argument of mil itary necessity"(generalissimo e) and echo answers "there is no appeal from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and you doesn't take your choice.Ain't freedom grand I used to have the same view as you, but gradually realised that it was just untenable, and though I clung to it for a while, I had to give it up. What’s annoying isn’t the type of language people use, but the way they use it.

But that thread doesn't consist of much apart from people saying that it's snowing, and taking the odd picture. It's not like there's a higher level of snow-based discourse...

Wait, what?

I got to 6.9m, and am now going to go and cry.

These book ones make me want to play, what with having access to the second biggest library in the uk. It'd suck up too much time though...

Precisely my point - why throw away that amount of money you know you have for a miniscule chance of a win, when all sorts of unpleasant things are far more likely to happen? You live life assuming you're not going to die in a car crash every time you get in the car, but if you think there's a possibility of you winning the lottery then you also have to account for the (far greater) possibility of being in a car crash.

This thread is made of lies. These people have atrocious spelling, but their grammar is fine. It doesn't stop them being funny though. (also the English langugage isn't declining, and nobody using English writes how they speak)

The closest I get to gambling is going on the ItBox pub quiz games. As for the lottery, you're often more likely to die before the results are announced than you are to actually win.

for some research, and for some fun.

Learn lots of grammar and vocab and practice/listen a lot. Grammar is probably the most important of these. I need to get better at Japanese, and also want to learn German, Ainu, and British Sign language some time soon.

Un poquito.

I was going by edit history, but you may be right. Anyway, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of the dancing. I thought that scene was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Just... why?

But the bit you failed to see was there before the edit...

Fargo and Barton Fink are my favourites, I found Lebowski pretty funny but not really on the same level. Fargo especially is just... perfect.

Well I have tickets for Sunday. Is it true it's 3 and a half hours long?

The Pillowman is great, must be fun to translate though.

I have to say, while No Country for Old Men was good, it was nowhere near some of the best Coen brothers films I've seen.

Yes, good point.