ex cathedra: Adverbially yours

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Adverbially yours

I am a high-end user of adverbs. I use adverbs...frequently. My impression from a lifetime of such a habit is that most people don't often hear these modifiers. Words like "often" "sometimes" "occasionally" "generally" "commonly" "usually" all indicate a modification in my declarative sentence. Most people hear "always" or "never". Or appreciate the difference between a generalization and a universal. Part of the noble pain of being a Five.

I felt a brief pang for the President this morning. He is in SF for a fundraiser, trying to get money from the 1% so he can tax them. A headline said that former worshippers of O now scorn him. A crowd of several hundred protesters stood outside his hotel. A list of their demands and dissatisfactions followed. One of them required him to address the issue of "global compassion." Who could win that one? Poor guy. OK, now I can go back to waiting for the day he leaves the office to which he was so unfortunately elected.

I was directed (HT to RCI) to a story in the NY Daily News where Chaz Bono complained about people commenting on his weight, saying fat men were judged more harshly than fat women like Kirstie Allie. Still whines like a girl.

Got a nice appreciative smile from a handsome young (40's) fella on the way to the office this morning. Never hurts.

Some days I look back on my life and wonder, "What was I thinking?"

Although I like to be right, there are a lot of things I hope I am wrong about.

Been watching old Father Brown Mysteries on Netflix via Roku. Roku was a good purchase. I have to say that Chesterton's clerical sleuth, at least as portrayed on film, is not as interesting or engaging as Miss Marple or Sherlock Holmes. But it's an enjoyable re-creation of England in the 20's.

That working class men's outfit of the time, jacket and pants, vest, collarless shirt and cap...very handsome.

PS> The Blogger spam program correctly derailed this spam comment, but I am putting it here for reasons which will likely be evident to fans of the adverb.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Adverbially yours":

You pretty much said what i could not effectively communicate. +1

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...: A peeve of mine is people not realizing that very simple English statements in the form "x are y" can be ambiguously either generalzations or universalizations. I will hear/read interactions like this--

A: Birds fly.
B: They certainly do not all fly, you hateful, ignorant pustule.
A: Come now. I certainly didn't mean they all fly.
B: I'm looking at your statement, and I don't see any modifier there, so you did mean all, you irksome, unknowing verucca.

-- dann und wann.

--Nathan; 6:50 PM, October 26, 2011

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Toward Our Future

What the sons of Europa need is a new religion: one that is as tribal, portable and survivalist as Judaism, as masculine, terrestrial and tough as Islam and as intellectually and aesthetically creative as Christianity...with a dose of the unflinching realism of the ancestral ways of the Greeks and Romans, Germans and Celts and Slavs..And for the larger Indo-European frame, something of the Indian capacity to combine an ultimate and philosophical realization of The One with a robustly mytho-poetic religion on-the-ground. Oh, and some of the psychological acumen of Buddhism.

Liberalism's Basic Flaw

Liberals believe that the chief role of the State is to force everyone to be equal, (ie, take vengeance on the successful). So when they are confronted with any group that they deem less well off than themselves, they are morally disarmed, completely and utterly. Any group that can achieve Victim Status is on their way to power and the (White) liberal's only job is to give them what they want, no matter how much that damages him. And nothing may ever be expected, much less demanded, of them in return. It's a recipe for suicide: no other outcome is possible.