move along, nothing to see here
Jan. 29th, 2008 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ppfuf"The mark of a truly great mind isn't whether you're right or wrong. It's how well you can weasel out of a jam." -- Cecil Adams, author of The Straight Dope
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want." -- Bill Watterson, in Calvin and Hobbes, 1988
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -- Albert Einstein
"Are you offering me the dreary exile of your imagination?" -- Jean Genet, The Maids
"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning." -- Jane Austen in Persuasion
"Ninety per cent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment." --Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters, 1990
“I took advantage of a pigeon once.” -- overheard at choir practice
“Symptoms of "Pathological Science"
1. The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
3. There are claims of great accuracy.
4. Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
5. Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment.
6. The ratio of supporters to critics rises up to somewhere near 50% and then falls gradually into oblivion.”
From a lecture by Irving Langmuir, in 1953. Transcript published in Physics Today, October 1989.
"Women have girlfriends so they don’t have to die of loneliness, waiting for a guy to start a significant conversation." -- Rhonda Raskin
"A subtle joke about a man's character can ruin a reputation faster than an obvious lie." -- Texas Bix Bender in A Cowboy's Guide to Life
"Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." -- Jane Austen in Mansfield Park
"One thing is for sure, the sheep is not a creature of the air. They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perchin'. (Baaa baaa... flap flap flap ... whoosh ... thud.) Trouble is, sheep are very dim. Once they get an idea in their 'eads, there's no shiftin' it." -- Monty Python
"When marrying, one should ask oneself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this woman into your old age?" -- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Modal auxiliaries: any one of the verbs that combine with the main verb to express necessity (must), obligation (should), permission (may), probability (might), possibility (could), ability (can), or tentativeness (would)." -- from Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want." -- Bill Watterson, in Calvin and Hobbes, 1988
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -- Albert Einstein
"Are you offering me the dreary exile of your imagination?" -- Jean Genet, The Maids
"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning." -- Jane Austen in Persuasion
"Ninety per cent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment." --Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters, 1990
“I took advantage of a pigeon once.” -- overheard at choir practice
“Symptoms of "Pathological Science"
1. The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
3. There are claims of great accuracy.
4. Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
5. Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment.
6. The ratio of supporters to critics rises up to somewhere near 50% and then falls gradually into oblivion.”
From a lecture by Irving Langmuir, in 1953. Transcript published in Physics Today, October 1989.
"Women have girlfriends so they don’t have to die of loneliness, waiting for a guy to start a significant conversation." -- Rhonda Raskin
"A subtle joke about a man's character can ruin a reputation faster than an obvious lie." -- Texas Bix Bender in A Cowboy's Guide to Life
"Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." -- Jane Austen in Mansfield Park
"One thing is for sure, the sheep is not a creature of the air. They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perchin'. (Baaa baaa... flap flap flap ... whoosh ... thud.) Trouble is, sheep are very dim. Once they get an idea in their 'eads, there's no shiftin' it." -- Monty Python
"When marrying, one should ask oneself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this woman into your old age?" -- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Modal auxiliaries: any one of the verbs that combine with the main verb to express necessity (must), obligation (should), permission (may), probability (might), possibility (could), ability (can), or tentativeness (would)." -- from Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF by B. Shaw
Date: 2011-02-11 05:57 pm (UTC)Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
-- B. Shaw