A bit of current military jargon

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 28 06:51:20 UTC 2010


I didn't need a re-reading. OTOH, de-comma-ization and de-that-ization
really throw me. And I don't like the split infinitive in much the
same manner that I don't like to eat rhubarb. Well, not quite.
There've been times when I've been unable to avoid splitting an
infinitive, no matter how I tried. But I've lived my entire life
without doing anything more than seeing rhubarb displayed in the
produce section. I also find the loss of the serial comma, after the
fashion of Britwrite, to be a real tragedy. But, that's likewise a
matter of "different strokes for different folks."

-Wilson



On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: A bit of current military jargon
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ah, I needed to re-read this one. Here's a spot where the split infinitive
> would come in really handy: "... when the goal is to not impart information=
> "
> -- as opposed to, say, "when imparting information is not the goal".
>
> m a m
>
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Senior officers say [that MS PowerPoint] does come in handy when the
>> goal is not imparting information, as in briefings for reporters.
>>
>> The news-media sessions often last 25 minutes, with 5 minutes left at
>> the end for questions from anyone still awake. Those types of
>> PowerPoint presentations, Dr. Hammes said, are known as =E2=80=9C_hypnoti=
> zing
>> chickens_.=E2=80=9D
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?src=3Dtp
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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