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Someone needs to send M.I.A. to get all "radical chic" on this guy's ass. Except wait! He's not really Robin Williams. Hm... maybe he's OK, though I remain unconvinced the third-world children need the white man's clowning arts so urgently. Plus... Arthur C. Clarke? What? Did I miss something?
Speaking of M.I.A., she's getting so overexposed that I'm starting to forget that I actually like her music. But I do, quite a bit in fact, even if it is irritatingly head-sticking at times.
That counted as a sidetrack. "Sunshowers" is a really pretty song, and the chorus to "Galang" is brilliant. I'm into British people these days.
(Edited above to placate the grammar police, by which I mostly mean myself. Gabe, you hit a sensitive spot. Look, I got rid of the passive voice also!)
Edit 2: Follow-up, wherein wikipedia answers all our questions. Arthur C. Clarke lives in Sri Lanka. Thus it makes a little bit of sense, at least, that he's shaking hands with Patch Adams. Nougat (the kind I'm thinking of) is "a mixture of sucrose and corn syrup aerated with a whipping agent such as egg albumen or hydrolyzed soya protein." The latter is not so enlightening, but it's more than I knew. It'll do. If anyone wants to dig up some egg albumen and make some nougat with me, let me know.
March 28 2005, 20:41:05 UTC 7 years ago
!!! Robin Williams & A.C.C.
omgwtf.March 28 2005, 20:43:11 UTC 7 years ago
Re: !!! Robin Williams & A.C.C.
Oh, yeah, not really Robin Williams. Still crazy!I hear that other cultures, even primitive ones, have developed humor technology already.
March 28 2005, 20:55:30 UTC 7 years ago
Re: !!! Robin Williams & A.C.C.
I am really genuinely confused as to what Arthur C. Clarke is doing in that picture. I didn't even know he was still alive, frankly. Yes, I could probably google it and find out, but why kill the mystery? (This, by the way, is why I still don't know what nougat is.)March 28 2005, 20:59:51 UTC 7 years ago
Re: !!! Robin Williams & A.C.C.
nougat is this weird candy caramelized stuff... right?March 28 2005, 21:03:17 UTC 7 years ago
Re: !!! Robin Williams & A.C.C.
yeah, like the filling in three musketeers bars. i don't know what it's made of, and have not for years, although i have been wondering. it is really ridiculous laziness, since some small amount of research could determine this in a minute or two. but i am not going to do so now, and i will be sort of upset if someone else does it and then tells me. (if you already know off the top of your head, readers, i'm impressed enough that you should tell me anyhow.)March 28 2005, 20:54:06 UTC 7 years ago
"is gets smacked"
You are the CHAMPION.Tee hee.
Cut me some slack, I've been drinking. (Hey, it's week night, whattya expect?)
March 28 2005, 20:59:51 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
I was unhappy with that grammatical construct, but decided to keep it for some reason. Now that you've called me on it there's no way I'm sneakily changing it the way I sometimes do. Bastard.You accurately point out the reason "cut me some slack. I've been drinking." doesn't work for you: when, at a time at which you aren't working and are therefore giving me an opportunity to cut you slack, are you not drinking?
March 28 2005, 21:02:23 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
But, look here grasshopper, there's a difference: I'm asking for slack on being a dick, not asking for slack on a gradeschool verb-agreement mistake.;^>
March 28 2005, 21:14:31 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Oooh... you called me grasshopper.That's definitely an ass-poor sentence, make no bones, but I'm not sure I'm making the mistake you think I'm making. The "is" attaches to the 'how controversial the line "foo" is' part, not the 'gets smacked' part. Either way it sucks though. Good job, former WA.
March 28 2005, 21:16:52 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
'Kay, fine, make me get all technical on your ass.The agreement with the subject isn't the issue, the agreement with the predicate is. You want "is getting smacked," no matter what the number of the subject.
March 28 2005, 21:24:52 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
'The next critic who mentions how controversial the line "like the P.L.O. I don't surrendo" (it is nonsensical! it barely even rhymes!) is getting smacked upside the head though.' is definitely wrong. It could be "is is getting smacked" if you were a horrible person. I'm still wrong though.I'm going to bed on that note.
March 28 2005, 21:39:42 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Um, no... that's exacty correct. Diagram it. Gimp just failed me (on the "drawing lines" front) at doing that for you, but your subject is "critic", your verb is "is" ("the verb 'to be'"), your predicate adjective is "getting smacked". "Gets smacked" makes no sense there. Everything else is peripheral (meaning, hangs off diagonal lines at the bottom, but is still easily diagrammable (even the dependent clause leading into a paranthetical, independent clause).Having boiled that sentence down to a nice, viscous sauce, though, I wholly support the operation of smacking critics.
March 29 2005, 04:47:44 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
I'm basically done with this argument, it being morning and me having to go to work and all, but... Dude, nested parentheses?March 31 2005, 05:41:43 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Yeah, it was late. I wholly support your rewritten version! Well, grammatically, anyhow.March 28 2005, 21:43:35 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
That said, "The next critic ... gets smacked" is more forceful, and what I probably would have suggested, as your WA.(Disregard that stray email you got where I wrote "smack" rather than "smacked". It doesn't exist.)
March 28 2005, 21:03:55 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Right, and you should COMPLETELY DISREGARD my "lack of an indefinite article" mistake, obviously.March 28 2005, 21:16:27 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Oh man, I totally would have missed that without your help.March 28 2005, 21:17:59 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
You might have, but I know (some of) your readership, and I would have been fried on my next visit to the YH if I didn't accept blame.March 30 2005, 22:41:58 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
um, sorry to drag this out (but y'all started it...)i'm confused about why this is causing so much trouble. jonah's original sentence was fine, the paranthetical just made it a tad confusing. n'est pas?
anyway, i too have been weirded by people saying that line is controversial. what controversy? no it isn't.
speaking of m.i.a. and bizarre sentences, do you have any idea what my colleague is saying with the first sentence of the m.i.a. blurb here?: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.p
"If I actually cared about M.I.A., I’d give her a piece of advice: take it from M.I.A., if you want to get your record into the hands of people it’s a whole lot easier if you just do it yourself."
this is also about a different m.i.a., apparently.
also, i just saw her last week.
March 31 2005, 05:40:39 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
J's sentence was "Someone is gets smacked." That makes no sense. Choices are either "Someone is getting smacked," or "Someone gets smacked." You don't get to conjugate both verbs. Period.March 31 2005, 09:28:00 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
the next critic [who talks about "how controversial the line is"] gets smacked. c'mon g.whatever, see you saturday.
March 31 2005, 05:56:50 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
See, lots of music writers make less sense than me! Besides the sentence not making any sense, I don't know what M.I.A. it's about. There's an 80's hardcore punk band called M.I.A. also, who I acidentally downloaded some tracks by when I was desperately trying to figure what this whole deal was. It doesn't sound like them either though, unless they've branched out a whole lot.As long as we're registering complaints, I also think it's kind of misleading to call her an "emcee" or a "rapper" as people do sometimes. She's about as much a rapper as Peaches, who she has apparently cited as a direct influence.
I agree with you about my sentence, and so do a few other people I have showed it to. Gabe, the "is" is hanging from a confusing but mostly grammatically correct construct - the noun phrase "how [bar] the line '[foo]' is" - not attached to the verb "gets." I tried to explain this earlier, but poorly. I am still pretty sure it is the case. I am wholly exhausted with this argument however. I like my revision better anyway for clarity.
March 31 2005, 05:59:39 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Oh, and I finished your mix a long time ago but I've been putting off sending it because I've been unsatisfied with various aspects of it and too busy to fix them. I'm actually gonna be in philly this weekend, so if I can get it in decent shape by then I'll bring it.March 31 2005, 09:29:46 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
sweet. i assume your phila plans would include gabe's martini. anything else? let me know if you make it.my d.c. uncle is pressuring me to come visit him down there, so maybe i'll do that sometime and see you too.
March 31 2005, 09:45:08 UTC 7 years ago
Re: "is gets smacked"
Yeah, I'll be at Gabe's party. See you there!I'm too embarassed to say publicly what I'm doing most of Sunday, but I probably have some free time Sunday evening and Saturday afternoon, the latter depending on when I actually leave DC.