Can you spray for trolls?

[icarus]

Can you spray for trolls? Because I've an infestation in Primer to the Dark Arts at the moment, crawling in the margins, chewing quote marks and shitting sawdust.

Oh. Look, now it's replying under the new pseudonym "repentantTroll."

That's an oxymoron, isn't it? *is not fooled.* *deletes review notifications unread*


ETA: Ooo. Good news - my Linguistics instructor is insane. She's crammed an enormous amount of material in just a few short weeks. And it's 200 and 300-level material crammed into the same damned class.

She also makes broad judgements about how language should and should not be used, proclamations that I can't say I believe. It's good to know that echo questions are considered weak questions, but to my mind that doesn't mean I should never use them. While there transformations make for cluttered diagrams, I think they're very useful for say, a Percy voice. Because the alternatives provided are stiff, formal and dead.

There. I said it. I think my teacher's brilliant, but I don't necessarily agree. The written word is first and foremost a reflection of the spoken. /blasphemy

Comments

[abigail89.livejournal.com]

It must be troll season. My good pal, thetreacletart has one chewing her arse up at the mo. Says her vocabulary is repetitive and her style choppy.
Oh, yeah, and Severus and Remus are OOC.

As her beta reader, I'm highly offended. Only I get to say that to her right before I make her rewrite and polish her brilliance.

So sorry people are being such pigs to you, too. *hugs*

[cheshyre]

If you do find some kind of troll-repellant (to deal with repellant trolls), can you let me in on the secret? It seems to be silly/stupid season this week.

[kijikun.livejournal.com]

Bad trolls! No cookies.

[mad_maudlin]

"Echo questions?" Do you mean tag questions? Like, "It's hot, isn't it?"

Has the woman read Deborah Tannen?

::fumes::

[absurdwords.livejournal.com]

She also makes broad judgements about how language should and should not be used, proclamations that I can't say I believe. It's good to know that echo questions are considered weak questions, but to my mind that doesn't mean I should never use them. While there transformations make for cluttered diagrams, I think they're very useful for say, a Percy voice. Because the alternatives provided are stiff, formal and dead.

Gah. Prescriptive linguistics. I hate it when instructors say such nonsense. For me, linguistics is about the study of language, of how it's usage. If language users use echo question, she can't just dismiss that as incorrect.

There. I said it. I think my teacher's brilliant, but I don't necessarily agree. The written word is first and foremost a reflection of the spoken. /blasphemy

Not all linguists would call this blasphemy. There are theoretical frameworks that only consider spoken language legitimate evidence.