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I feel almost sorry for them after reading that demolition job by Geoff Pullum! He doesn't try to hide his glee at their demise, does he?  Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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He might be a very clever man; he is certainly a rather rude one. Every time I trouble to read his over-lengthy missives I get so irritated by his condemnatory comments that I don't believe I have ever read to the end of one. Richard English | |||
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His epicaricacy? (In a nod to Kalleh.) Yes, I think Pullum has a bad case of the Schaudenfreude! Somehow, though, I do not have the patience to stick with him through his entire diatribe! Wordmatic | |||
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I agree with Michael Quinion (link) who writes that Professor Pullum's piece "is well worth reading". On another words-related board, I read that there was actual a sort of feud going on which hastened the end of the QES. Quinion also writes: "I can’t be sad about its demise, as I’d scarcely been aware of the Society’s activities, and the advice on its linked website, grandly called the Academy of Contemporary English, was prescriptivist, fussy and — despite its name and remit — out of touch with current usage." Schadenfreude indeed! —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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I agree that it's well worth reading and the demise of the QES should trouble no one except its small band of members. There does seem to be an unhealthy element of gloating though. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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Oh, definitely epicaricacy! Thanks, Wordmatic! Geoffrey's analysis of the 8 sentences/phrases made me think that most sentences likely could be analyzed in this way. It's enough to give one writer's block! I was interested by his #8 complaint. He considers punctuation mistakes to be ungrammatical. Not all linguists do, right? Or are they sometimes ungrammatical because of syntax errors they create? | |||
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He considers punctuation mistakes to be ungrammatical. Not all linguists do, right? Or are they sometimes ungrammatical because of syntax errors they create? I think he was talking about putting the comma between the subject and the predicate of the sentence. I'd call that a punctuation problem and not one of grammar. I'd've thought Pullum would, too. In the chat yesterday, I suggested that he kept hedging his bets by saying that he was giving prescriptivist complaints and not his own. Maybe this was some kind of friendly fire situation. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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"Hoist with his own petar" used to be the common expression. Another of those pesky cliches Shakespeare used so often.  "Friendly fire" seems much more up to date.It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti | |||
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