Archive | July, 2007

If, as Orin points out, the Carpenter’s Union is hiring workers for $8 an hour to picket on its behalf, it’s obvious that what we need is a private sector Davis-Bacon Act for “hired feet” picketers. The picketers would then just need a sympathetic government official to do a skewed “wage survey” that would determine […]

The Washington Post has the story. Thanks to Sam Yospe for the link.

John Bambenek (BlogCritics) has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, alleging that DailyKos is a “political committee” that is subject to various federal elections law registration and reporting requirements with which it hasn’t complied. After all, Bambenek argues, the DailyKos itself says that it is “about electing Democrats,” and is therefore a political […]

A commenter writes: Baloney, we should not accept the degradation of distinctions, clarity, etc., that illiterates introduce into the language. To grill is not to barbeque. At present does not mean presently. Anxious does not mean eager. And to beg the question does not mean suggests the question. Except to people who have no concern […]

Alan Gunn comments: It’s not possible, or even desirable, to stop English from changing in this way, but why should we encourage it, or think it always a good thing? I’d just add that changes like this not only make understanding more difficult during the transition, they end up making older writings hard for modern […]

A commenter provides the following: Back to the subject at hand: One of my own pet peeves is the use of “insure” where the writer clearly means “ensure”. “Affect” for “effect” is just as bad, but not nearly as common; these days, it seems like everybody and his dog misuses “insure”. I’d check a dictionary […]

A comment on the What Do Descriptivists Teach Their Children thread lead me to think: Will I practice what I preach with my children? Will I indeed teach them (once they’re at an age to grasp this) that “ain’t” is simply something that one would be wise not to use — for fear of being […]

Does a user have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their files — including images of child pornography — posted on a password-protected website? In a decision handed down last week, Judge Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts concluded that the answer is “yes.” At the same time, Judge Stearns […]

While composing my last post, I spilled some tea on my keyboard. I opened an empty browser window while attacking the affected keys with my napkin, so as not to mess up any of my already-open windows. When I looked up at the screen again, I had navigated to the Universitet i Oslo.

In my last post, I quickly pooh-poohed the idea that, when someone talks about “correct” English, they mean inherently right (as opposed to good for a particular goal): Because when different people are speaking mutually incomprehensibly, this is as if one were speaking German and the other were speaking Spanish. Nothing inherently wrong with that. […]

I’m offering personalized podcasts for people who pre-order my new book Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, due out August 2. Here is the Amazon link. Here is the Barnes&Noble link. The podcast is personalized because it is sent directly to you and […]

I agree with what Sasha and Eugene have said about the descriptivist view of language, but I think language serves an instrumental goal that has yet to be explicitly described. By speaking (or at least attempting to do so) proper English, I not only potentially impress the elites with my intelligence, I send a signal […]

Jonathan Adler’s post about how the federal government pays dead farmers not to farm has generated predictable outrage from commenters. I sympathize. But the critics are ignoring some important reasons why paying dead farmers not to farm is a lot better than paying living ones. It’s hard to deny that dead farmers can do just […]

The idea that Nazism was an extreme form of “capitalism” and Hitler primarily a tool serving the interests of “big business” is a longstanding myth that even now retains a measure of popularity in some quarters. This, despite the fact that the full name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, […]

Eugene and I think fairly similarly in matters of language, and I don’t disagree with anything he’s said so far. However, I want to make a more radical statement. Perhaps Eugene agrees with it, but I want to express it more nakedly. There is no such thing as the English language. Every person speaks slightly […]