Je suis Omar

Seeing as how you admit that you are a grammatical incompetent in the active/conscious sense, might you not want to consider that you are ripping people off?

Odd that, Bubber. The linguists at Language Log have no problem debating and pointing out the lunacies of S&W and their camp followers.

Perhaps you could have OGFT check out your first sentence for you. This beautifully sums up the ignorance, your ignorance, on language and grammar, BubberMiley. Native speakers already know when to use different grammatical structures and they know this from their innate knowledge of English grammar. You provide, in what is simply a repeat of S&W's useless information, absolutely nothing in the way of rules for folks to decide when it's okay to use the passive. You make the exceedingly ignorant assumption, as did S&W, that people can actively/consciously even detect/identify a passive construction. S&W, themselves, didn't know passives from their heinies. Set out clear guidelines for when the passive should be avoided. This should be good.

But Mr Grammar Guru is unable to share his knowledge with us.

Not "famous for", infamous for. Strunk and White were grammatical incompetents.

It could easily be argued that you know very little about English grammar, in an active, overt sense. You've put the proof in the pudding by your strident avoidance of anything grammatical. The proof has been put in the pudding by your strident avoidance of anything grammatical.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the passive. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html

More nonsensical prescriptive poppycock, Bubber. ------------------------- Fear and Loathing of the English Passive Geoffrey Pullum Abstract Writing advisers have been condemning the English passive since the early 20th century. I provide an informal but comprehensive syntactic description of passive clauses in English, and then exhibit numerous published examples of incompetent criticism in which critics reveal that they cannot tell passives from actives. Some seem to confuse the grammatical concept with a rhetorical one involving inadequate attribution of agency or responsibility, but not all examples are thus explained. The specific stylistic charges leveled against the passive are entirely baseless. The evidence demonstrates an extraordinary level of grammatical ignorance among educated English language critics. http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf ...

BubberMiley:Nevertheless, Strunk&White are most famous for cautioning against using the passive voice. This is, for the most part, good instruction. It makes for clearer, less evasive writing. This is pure prescriptive poppycock. If it's such a grand instruction, why have you included so many examples of the passive in your post?

BM: Or can you provide an eloquent argument why the passive voice is not to be avoided ... Omar: Sure I can, BubberMiley. There's 6 good reasons below, taken from your post why the passive voice is not to be avoided. (prior, in bold, is passive) ("taken" is also a passive.) And one more in the sentence just prior, that has been underlined. That last phrase too, that was put in bold. (also, "that was put in bold". EDIT: The underline function doesn't seem to work but nevertheless, there are many fine examples of the passive being used in a perfectly natural manner. 1. Before it was even linked by you 2. it was read by me. 3. However, I wonder why the arguments are made by it 4. ... and not (made) by you. 5. Maybe your thread title should have been (named) "Is Strunk and White making us stupid?", 6. ... why the passive voice is not to be avoided

BM: Maybe your thread title should have been "Is Strunk and White making us stupid? Omar: That is a given. This thread has illustrated that in spades.

-------------- People around the world view the US as the greatest threat to peace; voted three times more dangerous than any other country. The data confirm this conclusion: Since WW2, Earth has had 248 armed conflicts. The US started 201 of them. These US-started armed attacks have killed ~30 million and counting; 90% of these deaths are innocent children, the elderly and ordinary working civilian women and men. The US has war-murdered more than Hitlers Nazis. US official reports now confirm all reasons the US told for current armed attacks were known to be false as they were told. These lie-started US wars are not even close to lawful (here and here recently). US wars and rhetoric for more wars continue a long history of lie-began US Wars of Aggression. The most decorated US Marine general in his day warned all Americans of this fact of lie-started wars for 1% plunder. The categories of crime for armed attacks outside US treaty limits of law are: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit), likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. ... http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/earth-248-armed-conflicts-ww2-us-started-201-81-killing-30-million-far-arrests-now.html

His guns have been wrested from his cold dead hands.

An article that you have obviously failed to read, even when it was twice presented to you. Had you read it you would know what is in it.

Had you and yours suffered multiple generations of genocidal policies inflicted by the federal and provincial governments and Canadian citizens, you and yours would be exactly the same, Kimmy.

You brought it up. You mistakenly described it as a dead prescription. I have only provided sourcing to illustrate how you don't seem to know much about these issues. Those two paragraphs are terribly ambiguous. So much for that grammar lesson/s.

Do you think Toronto is better than, say, Seattle, home to Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway, or Chicago, home of John Wayne Gacy, or a Canadian military base?

Rape in the Military. That was the headline on a Macleans cover in 1998one of four cover stories that year stemming from a nine-month investigation into disturbing behaviour in the Canadian Forces. Now, 16 years later, Macleans and its sister publication, Lactualité, have come together to publish another months-long investigation into the sexual violence that still plagues our military. Lactualité reporters Noémi Mercier and Alec Castonguay talked to dozens of victims, attended court martials, culled statistics and documents under Access to Information, and visited bases across the country and Afghanistan. This story is the result of their investigation: Lise Gauthier doesnt have enough fingers to count the number of times she was raped, assaulted or sexually harassed by fellow soldiers. The 51-year-old, from Sherbrooke, Que., spent half her life in the Canadian Forces. When she signed up at 18, she was young and idealistic, and couldnt wait to get her hands on the engine of a fighter plane. For the next 25 years, she wore the blue uniform of the Royal Canadian Air Force proudly, like it was a second skin, convinced she was serving a greater cause. Yet the whole time, she was actually waging a private war. And the battlefield was her own body. I think about the attacks all the time, 24 hours a day. Theres no escape. I wish no one had to go through what I did. I wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy. You stop living. Youre in survival mode. The best you can do is breathe, she says, rocking herself in the solarium of the house she shares with her partner, her eyes welling with tears. The first time it happened, Gauthier had been serving for barely a year. It was October 1982. A bus driver raped her in a bedroom on the Saint-Hubert military base. He grabbed her by the throat so hard it left fingerprints on her neck. She will never forget him whispering in her ear: If you talk to anyone about this, youre dead. http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/our-militarys-disgrace/

Normally the Canadian military hasn't followed número uno war criminal/terrorist nation, the USA. Sadly, it has been doing so of late. The following is one of the results of cozying up to the top gangster.

Which bone, BM, the one where you illustrate time after time that you are not up to speed on this issue/these issues. The one that you inaccurately described.

I wasn't at all lost. With every post you keep proving my point - the nonsense grammar that was taught has made people dumber, not smarter about language. This bears repeating; ////////////////// 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice By Geoffrey K. Pullum APRIL 17, 2009 April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released. I won't be celebrating. The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it. ... - See more at: http://m.chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497#sthash.mK4X885B.dpuf I think you're a bit overwrought. Aren't you being a bit of a batrachomyomachist.

No, you folks don't do grammar explanations. Someone, who obviously doesn't know, (even here you are being slippery) tried to advance the ludicrous notion that said non grammar rule is unimportant, that it isn't being touted as a rule.

If you're so good at this grammar stuff, having learned it all in school, or even a little good at this, you could, as I have suggested, describe an equal language situation with to illustrate what you mean. But even armed with all this grammar knowledge, you are reluctant. Why would learning "grammar" make you incompetent?

But you tell us you use these rules, which you are too frightened to discuss, to take money from unwitting individuals who you believe you are helping. That just doesn't wash, OGFT.

Indeed, you might. Do you think that folks who willingly engage in war crimes are really going to be much bothered by insignificant issues like this? ----------------------- Sunday, December 20, 2009 Obama's Af-Pak War is Illegal President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war. In 1945, in the wake of two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created the United Nations system to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the commands of the charter, which is part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose that war as well. The UN Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom was not legitimate self-defense under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity, not armed attacks by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the UN General Assembly. ... http://www.marjoriecohn.com/2009/12/obamas-af-pak-war-is-illegal.html?m=1