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Any grammar experts in the place? #6925327
07/09/20 07:33 PM
07/09/20 07:33 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 17,379
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
J
James Offline OP
"Minka"
James  Offline OP
"Minka"
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Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
I'm now completing what is essentially an essay examination as part of my MFA program. One of the questions asks:

"As a graduate student, which types of presentation are the most valuable?"

That sentence sets off my grammar alarm. Shouldn't it read something like:

"As a graduate student, which types of presentation do you find the most valuable?"

After all, I am in an advanced English program. I just sent an email to the director.

Jim


Forum Infidel since 2001

"And that troll bs is something triggered snowflakes say when they dont like what someone posts." - Boco
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925331
07/09/20 07:36 PM
07/09/20 07:36 PM
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 10,471
Iowa
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trapdog1 Online content
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Iowa
I think you are right, James.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925332
07/09/20 07:37 PM
07/09/20 07:37 PM
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 6,461
central Haudenosaunee, the De...
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white marlin Offline
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central Haudenosaunee, the De...
it is certainly WIDE OPEN to interpretation.

I would have asked "in what sense?"

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925347
07/09/20 07:52 PM
07/09/20 07:52 PM
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 4,913
Idaho Falls, ID
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Grandpa Trapper Offline
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To me, the first one sounds more like a rhetorical question. The second one as if your talking directly to somebody looking for his/her opinion.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925352
07/09/20 07:59 PM
07/09/20 07:59 PM
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Posts: 3,009
ohio
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tomahawker Offline
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Awful wordy. Where you’re school at?

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925363
07/09/20 08:08 PM
07/09/20 08:08 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 2,445
revillo, sd
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cohunt Offline
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revillo, sd
I do not think that poor grammar is really the issue here, James. The sentence presented to you is simply very poorly written.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925368
07/09/20 08:10 PM
07/09/20 08:10 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 17,379
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
J
James Offline OP
"Minka"
James  Offline OP
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The Stonecoast program for an MFA in Creative Writing, Popular Fiction, at the University of Southern Maine. Class of 2021.

Jim


Forum Infidel since 2001

"And that troll bs is something triggered snowflakes say when they dont like what someone posts." - Boco
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925371
07/09/20 08:12 PM
07/09/20 08:12 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 41,592
Northern Maine
Bruce T Offline
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Lol....I struggled with English and Grammer in school.


Nevada bound
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925372
07/09/20 08:12 PM
07/09/20 08:12 PM
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Posts: 6,461
central Haudenosaunee, the De...
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white marlin Offline
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tell them "you suck at asking questions."

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925381
07/09/20 08:20 PM
07/09/20 08:20 PM
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Posts: 2,445
revillo, sd
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cohunt Offline
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revillo, sd
Which type presentation is most valuable to a graduate student.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925384
07/09/20 08:23 PM
07/09/20 08:23 PM
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revillo, sd
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cohunt Offline
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revillo, sd
Or, if you must be verbose(getting paid by the word) . To you as a graduate student, which type presentation is most valuable. This sentence is still very weak due to the beginning prepositional phrase.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925386
07/09/20 08:24 PM
07/09/20 08:24 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 4,907
PA
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elkaholic Offline
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I think both are acceptable. In both, they're asking for an opinion. The first one is asking anyone in general. The second is asking you specifically.


Millions of trees die every year to print environmentalist publications
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: cohunt] #6925390
07/09/20 08:29 PM
07/09/20 08:29 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 62,661
Minnesota
330-Trapper Offline

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Originally Posted by cohunt
Or, if you must be verbose(getting paid by the word) . To you as a graduate student, which type presentation is most valuable. This sentence is still very weak due to the beginning prepositional phrase.

Yeah this^^^ ha!

You can help those on here who cannot use Too, two and to correctly.


NRA and NTA Life Member
www.BackroadsRevised@etsy.com




Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: cohunt] #6925471
07/09/20 10:24 PM
07/09/20 10:24 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 35,129
McGrath, AK
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white17 Offline

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Originally Posted by cohunt
Which type presentation is most valuable to a graduate student.



Yes it is very ambiguous. It is obviously asking for an opinion. But .an opinion about WHAT ?

What is more valuable to the graduate student or what, in the graduate student's opinion, is most valuable to other graduate students or to students in general ?


Mean As Nails
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925475
07/09/20 10:28 PM
07/09/20 10:28 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 17,379
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
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James Offline OP
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It's an invitation to BS, so that's what I'll give them, I suppose.

Jim


Forum Infidel since 2001

"And that troll bs is something triggered snowflakes say when they dont like what someone posts." - Boco
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925485
07/09/20 10:36 PM
07/09/20 10:36 PM
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 7,630
Virginia
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52Carl Offline
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I am having difficulty with the premise of the question, and the context therein.
It would be helpful to me to hear your answer to this question before I can opine on the structure of this Question.
At face value, I find it to be somewhat awkwardly worded.

Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925496
07/09/20 10:44 PM
07/09/20 10:44 PM
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 16,170
ny
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upstateNY Offline
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Originally Posted by James
I'm now completing what is essentially an essay examination as part of my MFA program. One of the questions asks:

"As a graduate student, which types of presentation are the most valuable?"

That sentence sets off my grammar alarm. Shouldn't it read something like:

"As a graduate student, which types of presentation do you find the most valuable?"

After all, I am in an advanced English program. I just sent an email to the director.

Jim

No,,it should read,,as a graduate student,,why are you an ambulace chasing,,,foreigner "councling" reject of a lawyer JIMMY.Hows that grammer?

Last edited by upstateNY; 07/09/20 10:45 PM.

the wheels of the gods turn very slowly
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925500
07/09/20 10:47 PM
07/09/20 10:47 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 35,129
McGrath, AK
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white17 Offline

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Posts: 35,129
McGrath, AK
By the way Jim whatever became of your 'interaction' with the prof about the free speech issue ?

I thought about that when I read this piece from the WSJ


Bonfire of the Liberals
A defense of free speech leads to recriminations on the left.


America’s liberal intelligentsia thought the election of Donald Trump meant America would re-enact “1984,” but it’s starting to look more like “Homage to Catalonia,” George Orwell’s account of the left’s internecine savagery during the Spanish Civil War. Witness the spectacular online meltdown that followed a liberal open letter opposing left-wing attacks on free speech.

“A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” published Tuesday by Harper’s, opens with anti-Trump throat-clearing. It then accurately describes the ferocious campaign of coerced conformity sweeping America’s liberal institutions as they purge dissent from the hard-left line. “Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class,” says the statement signed by more than 150 writers and academics.

The online left, which can’t decide whether left-wing censorship is a myth invented by its enemies or a necessary tactic for destroying them, erupted at the betrayal. It wasn’t long before the renunciations began. Jennifer Finney Boylan, a frequent New York Times contributor who had signed the letter, pleaded for forgiveness on Twitter. She had not realized that not all the signatories were of the caliber of the socialist intellectual Noam Chomsky, she wrote. “The consequences,” she added, “are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”

A Tufts University historian, Kerri Greenidge, tweeted that she did “not endorse” the counterrevolutionary document (without denying having signed it) and asked that her name be removed. Others may yet face consequences. Matt Yglesias, a co-founder of the millennial progressive website Vox, was among the signatories. One of his colleagues wrote in an open letter to the publication’s editors that because the Harper’s letter was signed by “several prominent anti-trans voices” Mr. Yglesias’s signature “makes me feel less safe at Vox.”

Tom Wolfe couldn’t have devised a more pungent satire of mutual recriminations among liberal elites. There is a significant layer of hypocrisy here; many free-speech liberals tolerate left-wing mobs when their furies are aimed at conservatives. But now that the purge of conservatives from America’s flagship intellectual institutions is almost complete, new enemies are needed, and it’s no surprise that the left is descending into mutual back-stabbing.

Our hope is that the moderate elements can fend off the woke attack. Society benefits when both its left and right coalitions accept basic free-speech principles. Yet if the intolerance turns out to be self-perpetuating and unstoppable, we have a humble suggestion for any remaining signatories of the Harper’s letter: Consider a political belief system that is not premised on the transformation of society, that is built on the sanctity of traditional rights, and that abhors the certainty of revolutionary vanguards.

In the 1970s a handful of intellectuals, appalled by the left’s viciousness and anti-Americanism, became neoconservatives and helped usher in decades of better governance. Maybe the conditions will soon be right for something similar to happen again.


And this one one also.




Woke Capital Targets Free Speech
Advertisers want to turn Facebook into a political enforcement tool.


American companies are in a frenzy to get ahead of the current moment of woke moral panic. That sometimes means sacrificing an unlucky employee to the political mob or buying copies of the best-seller “White Fragility” to encourage workers to define themselves by race. Now large firms are joining a campaign to turn social media platforms into tools of political surveillance and enforcement against conservatives.

Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Verizon, North Face, Eddie Bauer and other major brands have paused Facebook advertising after left-wing activist groups claimed that it does not censor enough political speech. CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week promised further controls, including flagging posts by politicians. This predictably did nothing to satisfy the activists, who see the opportunity to expel more of their political enemies from the public square.

Facebook already takes down content promoting violence and has a broad definition of impermissible hate speech. Yet the coalition of left-wing groups urging the corporate boycott, “Stop Hate for Profit,” wants a progressive power-grab. It demands that Facebook “empower permanent civil rights infrastructure” to search for speech it deems biased.

If you think that means merely striking insults and threats based on identity—Facebook already does this—you haven’t been paying attention. America is in an environment of cultural censorship in which HBO suspended “Gone With the Wind,” Netflix is erasing scenes or episodes from shows like “The Office,” and universities are investigating staff for reading aloud Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” or firing them for courteously questioning some claims of the Black Lives Matter movement. Facebook is being told to have its enforcers root out political speech and artistic expression based on deliberately opaque criteria.

The activists also want Facebook to use algorithms to more closely surveil “private groups” as well as remove any that focus on “climate denialism.” Watch out if you debate climate projections in what you thought was a private forum. They also want Facebook to fact-check speech by politicians, but don’t expect claims consistent with officially sanctioned social-justice ideology to face any scrutiny.

Some firms may have signed on to this campaign because they cut advertising budgets anyway amid the coronavirus downturn and see an opportunity to win easy plaudits from a monolithic media. Some may come back after the 30-day boycott period ends.

But the boycott nonetheless reflects a new and worrying effort to leverage corporate power against America’s open public square. Woke Fortune 500 firms had better hope that they will make fast and permanent friends among the anticapitalists of the new left because they are fast burning through reservoirs of goodwill among American conservatives.


Mean As Nails
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925501
07/09/20 10:47 PM
07/09/20 10:47 PM
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Idaho Falls, Idaho
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Furvor Offline
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Just say "none." They were asking if you learned anything from any of the presentations.

Last edited by Furvor; 07/09/20 10:50 PM.
Re: Any grammar experts in the place? [Re: James] #6925521
07/09/20 11:07 PM
07/09/20 11:07 PM
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The more I deal with "formal" writing, the more I try not to start sentences with prepositional phrases or at least mix it up with more active voice construction. I reviewed a manuscript a month or so ago (written by Europeans) that had almost every sentence starting with a prepositional phrase. It just about drove me crazy, besides the nearly dry as dust subject matter.


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Genesis 1:26
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