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Post by Paul Doherty on Jul 28, 2008 16:59:16 GMT
I wrote this in another place: My argument is simply that the grammar rules we were taught in school often don't adequately explain our actual use of language, but some people prefer to twist the language (or criticise other people's use of it) rather than accept that what they were taught was a useful approximation.
As we get older we accept that what we were taught was maybe simplified: light isn't always a ray, sometimes we can add unlike units, occasionally it's OK to run down corridors. But with English grammar, people prefer to hang on to what they were taught as if it's an absolute truth: never start a sentence with And, never split an infinitive, always different from never different to, and less if it's countable. We do say one less thing to worry about even though it goes against the rule. Some people try to persuade themselves that somehow it's an exception, some say it's "technically" wrong, some even contort themselves into saying one fewer thing to worry about.
I prefer the simpler explanation: the rule is wrong and we use less with numbers. (Which also happens to explain 30 seconds or less and less than six miles away without our needing to tie ourselves in knots pretending that those are really about time and distance although they say they are about seconds and miles -- but ten items or less isn't about shopping.) It started me wondering about what else we are taught at school that we later learn was simplified. "There are seven colours in a rainbow"?
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 28, 2008 17:49:31 GMT
When I dragged myself back to school in the September following the taking of my "O" levels, my Physics teacher introduced his first lesson of the "A" level course with: "You'll now spend two years unlearning what you learnt at "O" level, because that was all over-simplified and most of the equations were mere approximations". Of course, after "A" levels the same thing happened again at university, where I had try to let go of the image of atoms consisting of little balls orbiting bigger balls, and try to visualise unvisualisable probabilities of masses which could also be waves.
My problem was always that I needed to understand what the teachers and lecturers were teaching me. My classmates were perfectly content just to take notes and learn everything by rote without attempting to comprehend it. That's probably why I flunked.
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Post by Barry on Jul 28, 2008 18:17:41 GMT
I once got sixpence at my primary school from a teacher who, when teaching us letters, told us that 'Q' never appeared in a word without 'U', and that she'd give sixpence to anyone who could prove her wrong. I'd been collecting a set of bubble-gum cards of countries of the world, and one stood out in my mind at this point, so I spoke it: Iraq. See - it was bound to be a cause of trouble! I've learned (since school) that: - 'dead man's fingers' in crabs aren't poisonous, just not very pleasant to eat;
- you can start a sentence with 'and';
- centrifugal force does exist (although we often misname centripetal force);
- Henry VIII did a heck of a lot before The Great Divorce;
- genetics isn't as simple as it's cracked up to be;
- we have more in common with the French, the Germans, etc., than language-teachers would have us believe (actually, language teachers have cottoned on to this - they call it the 'gravity doesn't stop at the Channel' process).
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Post by Alan Palmer on Jul 28, 2008 18:28:41 GMT
I was told "I before e except after c." Then people started finding lots of words that didn't conform, so the "rule" was recast as "I before e except after c, when 'ie' is pronounced as 'ee'. " Then "seize" and "weird" were discovered ...
Not a grammar rule, I realise.
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Post by Pete on Jul 28, 2008 18:57:01 GMT
When I dragged myself back to school in the September following the taking of my "O" levels, my Physics teacher introduced his first lesson of the "A" level course with: "You'll now spend two years unlearning what you learnt at "O" level, because that was all over-simplified and most of the equations were mere approximations." Of course, after "A" levels the same thing happened again at university, where I had try to let go of the image of atoms consisting of little balls orbiting bigger balls, and try to visualise unvisualisable probabilities of masses which could also be waves. Strangely, I had exactly the same experience on exactly the same issues, except with my chemistry teachers / lecturers!?
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 28, 2008 20:34:24 GMT
When I dragged myself back to school in the September following the taking of my "O" levels, my Physics teacher introduced his first lesson of the "A" level course with: "You'll now spend two years unlearning what you learnt at "O" level, because that was all over-simplified and most of the equations were mere approximations." Of course, after "A" levels the same thing happened again at university, where I had try to let go of the image of atoms consisting of little balls orbiting bigger balls, and try to visualise unvisualisable probabilities of masses which could also be waves. Strangely, I had exactly the same experience on exactly the same issues, except with my chemistry teachers / lecturers!? I was reading chemistry at uni, Pete. It always struck me as odd that lecturers in chemistry should be trying to teach me about quantum physics; I doubt if they understood it themselves!
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Post by Pete on Jul 28, 2008 21:29:39 GMT
Strangely, I had exactly the same experience on exactly the same issues, except with my chemistry teachers / lecturers!? I was reading chemistry at uni, Pete. It always struck me as odd that lecturers in chemistry should be trying to teach me about quantum physics; I doubt if they understood it themselves! I certainly didn't! That's why I stuck to biochemistry.
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Post by Barry on Jul 28, 2008 22:43:21 GMT
Somewhere in my files I have a lovely picture of Sir Hans Krebs's bicycle parked outside his lab in Cambridge. It is, of course, labelled 'The Krebs Cycle'.
(a joke for the biochemists).
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Post by Pete on Jul 29, 2008 6:18:30 GMT
Somewhere in my files I have a lovely picture of Sir Hans Krebs's bicycle parked outside his lab in Cambridge. It is, of course, labelled 'The Krebs Cycle'. (a joke for the biochemists). Tee hee ;D ;D
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Post by Tone on Jul 29, 2008 20:29:47 GMT
> It always struck me as odd that lecturers in chemistry should be trying to teach me about quantum physics; I doubt if they understood it themselves!<
If you want a "jolly good read", and to understand it, might I suggest attempting to obtain a copy of the excellent (albeit a bit behind the times -- but not actually wrong) tome by Isaac:
"Asimov's New Guide to Science".
Avoid earlier variations of that title. It's the 1984 edition (Penguin 1987).
It pretty well retaught me most of science -- and added bits.
Tone
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Post by Pete on Jul 29, 2008 20:43:23 GMT
Somewhere in my files I have a lovely picture of Sir Hans Krebs's bicycle parked outside his lab in Cambridge. It is, of course, labelled 'The Krebs Cycle'. (a joke for the biochemists). I did hear of an undergraduate gatecrashing a college drinks reception, at which he told an older gentleman present that he had been studying the Krebs Cycle. The gentleman concerned said he understood that Sir Hans preferred that it be referred to as the Tricarboxylic Acid (or TCA) Cycle. Our obnoxious undergraduate loudly opined that Krebs wouldn't care as he'd been dead for years, at which point Sir Hans, for it was indeed he, suggested that reports of his demise had been somewhat exaggerated. Probably an urban myth, but I still like it.
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jul 30, 2008 1:09:24 GMT
I once sat opposite a pompous bore [name withheld] at a British Computer Society dinner, who kept telling us how important he was. As evidence, he told a story about how he'd been due to appear as an expert witness in the lawsuit which followed a debacle at a daily newspaper when 187,000 readers all simultaneously won a bingo game (although they called it roulette) which the newspaper was running. Quite a cause celebre at the time.
Anyway, he told us that the technical adviser to the game was a complete idiot, had designed a foolhardy game, and had printed the game cards wrongly. Unbelievable that anyone could be so stupid, he said.
I asked if he knew this idiot's name, but sadly he didn't.
Luckily, I was able to add that bit of information for him, as it was me. I might not have mentioned that for quite a while, though.
He seemed a bit embarrassed.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 30, 2008 1:49:00 GMT
Tee hee, Paul. There's a particular satisfaction in bringing down a pompous git, isn't there! ;D
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Post by Dave M on Jul 30, 2008 8:21:17 GMT
Do tell, Paul - had you been (on that rare occasion) idiotic, foolhardy, wrong, and stupid?
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Post by Pete on Jul 30, 2008 9:15:07 GMT
Do tell, Paul - had you been (on that rare occasion) idiotic, foolhardy, wrong, and stupid? Unlikely, I suspect. And I'm sure Paul didn't print the cards. If it's the case I am thinking of, the main problem was that the printers couldn't be bothered to print random cards, which is why there were so many winners. Puts me in mind of the Hoover offer of free BA flights, too.
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