Ted Rall for July 29, 2013

Howie doesn’t care about facts.

Zing!

I note your use of a possessive (“your”) with the gerund (“rejecting”). These days most people use a personal pronoun (“you”) followed by a participle (“rejecting”). The gerund and the participle have the same form, so it’s easy for people to reanalyze the construction. There’s a slight difference in emphasis — the gerund construction emphasizes the action (“What I notice it the rejecting that you are doing”) while the participle construction emphasizes the person (“What I notice is you doing the rejecting”).

I’m interested in grammar, but I’m not a purist, and certainly not a member of the grammar police. Generally, whatever is in use is correct (within certain limits of intelligibility). That’s how language changes; and there’s no point trying to keep it from changing. I’m a little on the conservative side in my own usage, but when it comes to what other people write, I tend towards the libertarian.+Now here’s a question for you — do you allow “which” in restrictive clauses? Can you say “The car which was parked in the no-parking zone”? Or do you insist on “that”? I allow “which”, but I find that a lot of editors don’t like it.

Since when is deporting illegals considered to be sinister?

Generally Michael’s posts speak for themselves and don’t need my commentary. I certainly pay attention to what people have to say. I’ve found lately that there’s a lot of repetition (“Trayvon was a thug”; “Zimmerman was a racist”) and a lot of rather unpleasant insulting. A few posters are clever and interesting. Just a few.

You know a lot more about writing than I know about medicine.

they only have to stop giving Egypt money if the government overthrow is deemed a ‘coup’ Plus, the aid mostly takes the form of discount prices on death fighter jet planes made by ’Merikan arms merchants.

Ted Rall forgot that Obama also supported stand your ground laws.