gentleman

[Laurence Urdang]

It would be comforting were correspondents to allow me the benefit of the doubt in the detection of irony in language (and, occasionally, other matters, as well).  It would hardly be worthwhile to comment on ironic uses of language any more [sic] than it would be useful to conduct learned discourse on hyperbole, demanding, for instance, that dictionaries carry the meaning 'put; place' for throw when used in the context, "I'll just throw these glasses into the dishwasher."
  It is refreshing to see a lively, intelligent, well-informed discussion of language matters on this exchange, but it is increasingly salted with the patronizing comments and quasi-learned discourses on a subject that, perhaps properly, is not felt to beyond the calling of anybody who can read and write.
  For those who might have missed it, there is an article or two in the current issue of Nature revealing that what we call strong verbs (that is, those that change their form to make a past, like take, took, run, ran) vs. those we call weak verbs (those that simply add a dental or alveolar ending, like book, booked, ban, banned) are slowly changing into weak verbs because of "pressure" exerting by the weak and are not changing faster only because of their great frequency in the language.  I hope they don't start giving out Nobel prizes for that sort of linguistic insight, but it is another good example of the low level of scholarship that has pervaded even professional linguistics.  I am no longer struck by the lack of originality characterizing the topics accepted for doctoral dissertations in linguistics, one that I had previously thought was reserved for dissertations on English literature (where I once found seven, almost identical, on Monk Lewis in the library at
 Butler Library at Columbia alone).
  Considering the superficial annoyance brought by frequency of the often inane comments proffered, it is no small surprise that every week seems to bring the name of another person withdrawing from the game.
  The foregoing might well have been occasioned by an attack of dyspepsia, but stupidity and disrespect often have that effect on me.
  L. Urdang
  Old Lyme

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