Re: grammar

[Nick Carbone <nickc@english.umass.edu>]

For something that comes at grammar in a different and funny way, head
over to Time Mag. and check out Calvin Trillin's piece on Rep. Burton's
editing of the Hubble tapes at 

http://pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/980518/notebook.the_trouble_wit24.html


Here's the first graph to give you a sense of it:

   If Webster Hubbell had really said, as Dan Burton's creative
   transcript had it, "The Riady is just not easy to do business with me
   while I'm here," what language was he supposed to be speaking? Did
   people on the staff of Burton's Government Reform and Oversight
   Committee actually take that to be an English sentence? Do they talk
   that way themselves? Outside of chairman Burton's earshot, do they say
   things like "The Burton are just too much of loony to conduct this
   investigation"?


Trillin goes on to discuss Burton's performance more than grammar, but the
piece does highlight what people are willing to overlook when the right
conditions exist.

Nick Carbone, Writing Instructor
Marlboro College
Marlboro, VT 05344
nickc@marlboro.edu, but coming to you via nickc@english.umass.edu