The Pooka

Well TLC........... that bit sounds like Autism / Asperger's type stuff. But then a friend of mine who is a psychologist (a female one, as was Heim) argues that autism is just a fairly extreme form of masculine thinking. I don't really know. Its just that the difficulty in gauging people's emotional responses sounds typical. My friend might be right though about males and autism...... I was driving the other day and tried to work out my travel expenses in my head. When I reached 12 decimal points I realised that I had calculated to 1/100 billionth of a penny. That's not intelligent - that's autistic.

Some questions for you Mr Pooka, from an eager student.. The first part (ability to grasp the essentials in a given situation) to me suggests intelligence, whereas 'responding accordingly' would be common sense or wisdom, to me a distinct...thingy. Is intelligence merely the comprehension of what's happening without necessarily knowing the best way (or a sensible way) to respond? Even if in theory the various possible responses can be worked out? If so, can you begin to call computers intelligent if the ability to respond is 'common sense' and separate? Are common sense and intelligence merely two sides to the same coin?* I suppose it depends on your definition of intelligence, at which point the argument starts to become a little circular. A quote I heard once was 'intelligence tells you it's raining, common sense tells you to open your umbrella'. *You'd never think that if you've ever met any of the 'hyper-intelligent but can't do their own shoelaces up without falling over' type of student that is very common. Two different coins entirely. I suppose what Heim was saying was that intelligence involved having a nervous system that equipped you well to exist as a human (or whatever other species you belonged to). Heim's definiton excluded mere knowledge or performance at tests as constituting intelligence. What you refer to as common sense had to be an element. The definition also excluded the sad chacters who believed that membership of Mensa, in its own right, indicated intelligence. What they were doing was confirming the cynic's definition, 'Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure'.

In the days that I had to study this sort of thing, the best definition of 'intelligence' that I saw was by Heim who described it as, 'the ability to grasp the essentials in a given situation and respond accordingly'. I always thought that definition took account of common sense and the ability to survive in the real world.

BS, I'm not sure I understand this and, I suppose, that may place me in options 1 or 2. None of the 8 (?7) look like kinds of intelligence. They look more like the sorts of evidence that indicate the extent of one's deviation from the norm. However, I would need a bit of a walk-through to understand the 'evolutionary' and the 'symbol' systems. tell us more.

Millwall volunteered to infiltrate Brinsworth a couple of months ago and, frankly, disappointed us. The lad seemed to lack the resolve to go through with the project. However, hanging around outside may just be manageable for him. Personally, I would suggest someone local who has a bit more spunk about him.

Yes Bill. Read the whole thread and thank God that your life isn't as empty as ours.

Dammit MPFC! My wife would never smoke in the house.

Are you sure it was that squirrel. He looks quite well all things considered.

I feel a little hurt that you thought you needed the last line.

Carla Mcdonough, who was also a soprano, tap dancer and contortionist, is Brinsworth's resident glamour-puss and is portrayed in one framed black-and-white photo from her heyday thoughtfully smoking a cigarette held between her toes. I once went to a stag night where a stripper 'thoughtfully' puffed a cigar with her vagina. Much to the amusement of a good-natured crowd, one of whom raced from his seat and made off with the cigar. God I miss the Masons.

Only the ones we've never heard of ie 90% of them.

This list is full of people, such as Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee, who, through their debauchery have met an early end. Its never too late, TLC, to commit yourself to a life of sobriety, thrift and celibacy As they say, you may not live forever but it will feel like it.

Maybe I just need to try a bit harder then. I start off fine talking about ablative absolutes, sure, but a few drinks later and it's all split infinitives and tautology from me I'm afraid. If only I'd took more money out of the cash point on Saturday afternoon there'd have been no unfortunate mention of 'PIN numbers' on my part to the lady I'd made the acquaintance of later that night. Oh how my tear-stained hot cheeks burned with shame as she pointed out my grammatical faux-pas, before quickly making her excuses and leaving. I suspect, TLC, that you are hanging around in the wrong places and drinking the wrong stuff. The Pooka has had great success at tea dance matinees where my references to relative clauses are seen as hallmarks of the suave and intellectual. Experience has taught me that suaveness and intellect are characteristics that are soluble in alcohol. More tips later.

I was once involved in a seance with 3 other lads where we raised a spirit. He did the usual stuff of threatening to smash windows, kill us etc etc. It was convincing but it was still possible that one of us was pushing the glass around even though it seemed to be moving pretty quickly. We asked the spirit who he was and he said, 'Your grandfather'. We asked him to spell his name. One of the lads was called Bishop. When we asked the spirit's name he started to spell ..... R-E-G. Bishop immediately got very scared and took his hands off of the glass. He got up from the table and begged us to stop. Needless to say we continued. The glass continued shooting round the table spelling R-E-G-I-N-A-L-D and then F-A-Y. It turned out that Reginald Fay was Bishop's maternal grandfather. Bishop had been nowhere near the glass and none of us knew him particularly well; certainly not well enough to know his mother's maiden name. I'm normally sceptical but I have never been able to explain this experience.

Anything can be taught. If it's taught right or wrong is the difference. The discussion of good and bad style and sentence construction seem seems to be an essential element[s]s[/s] of education that are is missing. There is, however, an important distinction between learning and teaching. I suppose 99.999999 % of people learn their first language without being taught and without being aware of letters or of rules of grammar and syntax. Indeed language has to exist before its grammatical conventions can be developed and described. A problem is that most of the rules that obsess those who insist on correcting others (eg not splitting infinitives, not commencing sentences with conjunctions, not ending sentences with prepositions) make no sense, have been arbitrarily introduced and are not accepted by most grammarian authorities such as Fowler, Gowers and Trask. I haven't met a grammarian pedant yet who didn't make as many mistakes as he found. That's why I have shown the strikethroughs above that show my own errors in drafting this response. That's why I am also reluctant to point out that there are probably (to the strict grammarian) three or four problems in the sentences of Banshee and Slave above. Yet they make perfect sense and sound right, so who cares?

You are right, TLC. I learned about grammar through studying Latin. It is different learning a language through being brought up in a culture that speaks it than learning it through study. The study of grammar ought to be at least an option for children at school. As for grammar being no good as a chat-up topic, I disagree. Since I joined this thread I have been besieged by throngs of sex-crazed grammarians wanting to talk about the ablative absolute. Dirty bitches!

Well said Tempus. the voice of balanced reason as always. Talking of Oxonians and thereabouts, did someone mention Fowler? Good old Fowler. 'None of us are going' sounds just as right as 'None of us is going'.

Herring can be both singular and plural, and so is an ambiguous example. ...cats. More than one cat(s) are .... 'More that one' is a phrase describing 'cat' (in which case use 'is') or 'cats' (in which case use 'are'). It's as simple as that. ...or is it? This leads on to the difficulty raised by the use of 'begs the question,' originally meaning 'makes the question unnecessary and now widely used in place of 'raises the question', which is the opposite of the original meaning! So what do we do? Do we assume that everyone who uses the term is ignorant of its origins or do we assume that the user is obviously a very clever person who knows exactly what they are saying? If both meanings of the term are in use, there is a serious risk of misunderstanding but how do we cope with working out which meaning is intended? A good way to lose friends, I fear! Incidentally, I was taught at school that it was incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction. This can include some uses of 'however', as well as 'and', 'but', and the like. But we don't always follow the rules, do we? Point taken about herrings. You cannot say 'more than one cats' as 'one cats' is simply wrong. My point earlier was that 'More than one cat are on the mat' is correct grammatically because 'more than one' is obviously plural and 'more than one' are on the mat. But it sounds wrong and one is far more likely to say 'More than one cat is....' That's fine by me but grammatically you are saying the equivalent of 'Two or more cats is on the mat'. That is why I argue that a number, but not all, of forms can be correct. It may annoy those who seek a definitive rule but that's the way it is with something as complex as language. PS In 1948 Gowers, in The Complete Plain Words, described the argument that one shouldn't start a sentence with a conjunction as 'dead'. He also described the 'rule' that one shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition as 'a half-hearted rule .... but no good writer ever heeded it, except Dryden, who seems to have invented it'. That sums up the ways these rules originate. Another irritant to me is the use of the term iteration as in 'first iteration' meaning 'first version'. An iteration is actually a repeat (a re-iteration repeats again). As with 'begs the question' the change in usage seems more or less permanent and now one has to either avoid the term or clarify what is meant with each usage.

But the problem, CP is that there is no rule book. You will find books of usage (eg Fowler) and these tend to describe what is logically and conventionally done. To say that there is 'the however rule' is not right. There are those who argue that it is wrong to start a sentence with 'however', or 'and' or to use a split infinitive (don't get me going on that). They are mistaken. Certainly, it is wrong to use English that is ugly, confusing, cliched, unimaginative and which fails to communicate the thoughts of the writer. However, few of the so-called 'rules' prevent this happening.

Responding to the good Captain Oates.... OK, replace the word 'person' with the word 'herring'. If I have two herrings, I have more than one herring. Your argument suggests that 'more than one herrings' would be correct. It isn't. As I have said before there isn't necessarily a definitive correct form. Usage, convention and the flow of words tend to determine what is good form. Your suggestions(in bold) are fine but so would be 'More than one have died' and 'None are ready'. Finally, the 'begs the question' issue. I think that beg in this sense means to 'fail to answer' (Chambers Dictionary). In the past, 'to beg the question' meant to use a circular argument. For example, 'Allah is great and all-powerful. The Koran says so and the Koran is the word of all-powerful Allah'. It has more recently been used to mean to evade a straight answer to a question. Also it has been used to mean 'raise a question'. This is an example of how language evolves and it is difficult to argue that what is current usage is wrong. Otherwise, we would still be talking like Beowulf. As someone pointed out earlier, what is often criticised as US English was correct English 300 years ago. It has been suggested that were we to visit the England of 1650 we would find that most people would sound like Loyd Grossman. Christ. I agree, captain, that this is important. The beauty of English is that it is ever-changing, fluid and adaptable. That does not mean, however, that usage cannot be cliched, ugly or just plain wrong.

I know what you mean, but my pet-hate is when people use double negatives. Do they not realise that they cancel out any point that they were trying to make? Grrrrr. I'm warming to this. I stress that I am not posting out of pedantry but at frustration with the pedantry of others. It is true to say that a double negative is a positive in mathematics. However, maths ain't grammar. There is a long literary history of using double negatives to emphasise the negative message. The Greeks did it, Chaucer did it, Shakespeare did it. So do many other languages. So when you hear that chav using the double negative acknowledge that he's just celebrating his literary heritage. My pet hate is being corrected by pedants when I say, for example, 'Please consider my friend and me...' and they amend it to ' ...consider my friend and I..'.

I simply don't understand that bit! The Pooka replies: In essence I am saying that 'Not one of us is....' and 'Not one of us are....' (and also 'None of us is...' and 'None of us are....') are acceptable. It sounds wrong because it is wrong. 'More than one persons have died' sounds slightly better but I suspect that a grammarian would regard it as a compromise, having a similar absurdity level to 'more than one person has died.' The Pooka replies: 'More than one' has to be plural. That is clear. Therefore, 'more than one person have died' is grammatically correct but sounds wrong. This is because the word 'one' exerts a 'pull' on the verb that is powerful enough for us to overlook the fact that 'more than one' (ie two or more) is what we are talking about. Your suggestion of 'More than one persons' is wrong. You don't say 'one persons'; you say 'one person'. Therefore, you use 'more than one person'. Is the capitalisation in this sentence influenced by TLC's post, by any chance? No, I was just 'dissing' Notapotato. I disagree, Captain. Comments are in green in the text above. I love this thread. Pedants the world over will sniff the air and howl like wolves.

"None" is a contraction of "not (any) one". "Not one of us are as smart as all of us" is complete nonsense because in spite of containing "us", "none of us" is indisputably singular. The comma, is wrong of course. Nuff said? Nuff said? Not on this subject. There being no formal grammatical rules in English, much is determined by style, convention and whether a line sounds 'right' or elegant. Balancing these elements ensures that it is difficult to argue for a fixed view of what is good and bad form. So...... 1. Its fine to start a sentence with 'And...'. It places additional emphasis upon what you have said in the previous sentence. 2. The same applies to the use of: 'however', 'nevertheless' and 'notwithstanding'. Starting a sentence with each allows a greater emphasis on the fact that what follows may contradict what went before. 3. As notapotato correctly asserts, 'none' is technically singular. So that message should read 'Not one of us is....'. However, there are many examples of this rule being ignored for the sake of convention and style. 'Not one of are..' just sounds wrong, whereas 'none of us is....' doesn't. Sources going back over half a century allow either usage and so I would take issue with the singular use being 'completely wrong'.. 4. Similarly, 'more than one person have died' sounds wrong, though it is correct in strict grammatical terms. Nevertheless, (there's that emphasis again) 'more than one person has died' sounds correct, though grammatically wrong. Stylistically, it is the latter form that we tend to use because it sounds 'right'. 5. notapotato is right about commas. 6. The person who placed that trite message should certainly be lashed until he or she drops. But that has nothing to do with their grammar. PS It is perfectly acceptable to use 'their' in the context of 6 above as, while grammatically wrong, it avoids the clumsy repetition of 'his or her'.

As ever, pulphack, you are right about Liza Goddard. However, when Alvin Stardust chased me with a cleaver I transferred my affections to others more deserving. On the way back from seeing Hammill's Van der Graaf Generator at Weymouth, I bought the newly released Imagine by John Lennon. From underground to mainstream in one fickle leap.

The contribution of Mr P O'Oka is clearly bogus and, possibly, the work of one twelvetrees (see above). It is unlikely that Ms Wyatt, bless her, will ever work again. She seems curiously reluctant to leave her accommodation other than for the occasional visit to Brinsworth in the company of a number of Equity 'minders'. PS Did anyone happen to see Angela Down in a re-run of Poirot last night? She was another fine young woman to whom I developed an attraction back in the days of 'Take Three Girls'. An unfortunate misdirection led me to bumble into her dressing room at the Shaftesbury one night. The exclusion order from theatreland was quite unnecessary.