Trump-haters making democracy impossible

[usmbguest5318]

Adjectives don't provide the when aspect of meaning.

Sure they do: An early meeting.

• Adjectives and Adverbs

In the sentence, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow." do you claim the word "early" is not an adjective? that it has the same function as the word "early" in this sentence, "They decided early in the meeting."

I don't know what "they" say about that particular sentence. Are the authors/editors of the site I linked in the above quoted post they" to whom you refer? If so, is that sentence on their site?

"Early" can function as either an adjective or an adverb. It has a slightly different meaning in each case, and, of course, it modifies a different part of speech in each case.

In post 321, I wrote:

Regardless of how one chooses to interpret it, all the ways one might reasonably construe the sentence amount to essentially the same things.

That remark was my way of alluding to an important distinction between written and spoke communication. When we speak with others, there is almost always context that is understood by the parties to a discussion. Among other things, that context allows listeners to know whether one means, for example, early as an adjective or as an adverb, regardless of the speaker's construction. In writing, context plays the same role; however, writers must establish that context at or near their earliest opportunity because readers can't instantaneously make and confirm their denotational conclusions they draw from the written word. Readers can only apply the standard denotations and rules of grammar construe accordingly what they read.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter much whether there is a slight misinterpretation or usage of a word or phrase. For instance, if one's boss says, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow," barring something preventing one from doing so, whether one's bose meant "early relative to the typical meeting time" or "early in the morning, perhaps because the meeting is being coordinated right there on the fly" is of little or no importance. The natural response to that exhortation is, "Okay. What time?" The answer to that question provides the contextual one needs to know (1) at what time to appear for the meeting, and (2) whether the meeting is indeed earlier than normal or merely early in the morning, or both.

Another important difference between written and spoke communication is that some people will say somewhat vague and/or ambiguous things as a means of putting out feelers. I believe they do so because they think the tentativeness/weakness intrinsic to ambiguous/vague statements/inquiries is polite or something. (I realize that whether it is or not is out of scope here.) Whatever the reason, when people converse in person, their elocutionary uncertainty doesn't cause much of a comprehension problem. In writing and one-way speech, it does; moreover, it infuses inefficiency into their discourse with others.

To wit, in writing, I'd write "Let's meet tomorrow morning at seven o'clock." If I were asking if doing so is amenable to the other party, I'd put a question mark at the end of the sentence. If it's an instruction, I end it with a period, whereafter the only things I expect to read in reply are either (1) "okay," or (2) "I can't. Will 'such and such' a time work?" Were I having a face-to-face chat with the other party(s), I might very well say, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow." (I'd still, as befits my intent, put a period or question mark at the end of or in the middle of the sentence.)

Having gone down this road of discussing adjectives and adverbs, why are we discussing it? I realize the high-level reason accrues from the "[sic]"/hyphenation thing. What I don't understand is why we are talking about parts of speech when my core reason for using "[sic]" is that "out of the box" is an accepted idiom having meaning, precisely the one you intend, rather than a user-constructed phrase. Whether the phrase is intended/though to be an adjectival or adverbial phrase has nothing to do with whether it needs to be hyphenated; the fact that it's an accepted idiom is what determines that.

FWIW, there is one situation wherein hyphenating "out of the box" is correct. That instance is when the very next word is a noun. The reason for that rule is that adjectives (and adjectival phrases), unlike adverbs precede the word they modify, whereas adverbs (and adverbial phrases) can be correctly placed before and after the words they modify. Thus by writing, say, "out-of-the-box attempt," the writer informs the reader that the idiom modifies "attempt." That's not the construction you used; you put "naked" between "out of the box" and "attempt," thereby making the hyphenation a grammatical/spelling mistake.
.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I think it's bad form to correct someone on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, or typos on something as informal as a message board with emoticons of dancing guys and smiley faces flipping each other off. It makes it worse if it is something so petty as whether I should have hyphenated "out-of-the-gate". Plus, you are wrong on top of that. "Out of the gate" with no hyphens is a prepositional phrase. I used it as an adjective: "a full-throttle, out-of-the-gate, naked attempt by the press to bring down a president". Both "full throttle" and "out of the gate" take hyphens there and for the same reasons.

I think it's bad form to correct someone on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, or typos on something as informal as a message board

"[Sic]" is not used to expressly correct someone. It's used to indicate that the writer quoting another's remarks is aware that there is something errant in the way the original author presented the remark and that the error is not the current writer's. I used it because I quoted your writing in my sentence rather than outside of it, such as by using a "quote box."

But for your challenging my use of "[sic]," I'd not have expounded upon my having used [sic], and I certainly wouldn't have bothered to explicitly note what was amiss that led me to use it. Had your point of contention been justified/accurate, I'd have simply "owned" my mistake and moved on, perhaps also offering a clarification of my meaning if such were warranted. (I've done so on more than one occasion. I'm well aware that my USMB posts often contain typos, sometimes a lot of them. Some I discover in time to correct them. Some I do not timely find. Of others, indeed many, I just don't give a damn because nothing I write for USMB has a bearing on how I'm judged by people whose opinion of me I value.)

Plus, you are wrong on top of that. "Out of the gate" with no hyphens is a prepositional phrase. I used it as an adjective: "a full-throttle, out-of-the-gate, naked attempt by the press to bring down a president". Both "full throttle" and "out of the gate" take hyphens there and for the same reasons.

I really didn't think you'd genuinely want to go down that road; apparently, however, you do...

You'd be correct about the hyphenation but for "out of the gate" existing in English as an idiom. Were it not idiomatically understood to and accepted as having the temporal denotation you note you intended, I would agree with you. (In which case I'd also not have used "[sic].") I provided the first reference link in post 298 to illustrate the phrase's acceptance as an idiom unto itself.

BTW, "out of the gate" is strictly speaking an adverbial prepositional phrase, although some might call it an adverbial phrase. The "adverbial" aspect accrues from the phrase's temporal quality, "when" being a piece of meaning adverbs convey. "Out of the gate" identifies when an action took place, which not a function of adjectives. Thus, though you think you used the phrase as an adjective, you did not because adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Adverbs, thus adverbial phrases, can modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.



Note:

• Why am I indulging this discussion line? Because I suspect that 300+ posts in, there's little or nothing of note to add to the substance of the thread topic, so I'm willing to engage on this marginally amusing line. If you think there is, however, thematically relevant ground left uncovered with regard to your thread topic, I'll drop this line of chit chat.

Your error, I believe, comes from your misunderstanding of what was modified. You thought it was referring to Trump. It was not. It was describing the attempt by the press to bring Trump down, i.e., a noun, though, of course, Trump is a noun as well. There was no verb modified and thus no action about which to convey temporal information.

What was the press' attempt like? It was full-throttle, it was out-of-the-gate (meaning immediately on day one), it was naked.

By reporting the news? How much "fake news" was actually reported and not retracted; where is wikileaks now?

where is wikileaks now?

I don't know, but I know nobody's imploring Assange to find stuff on Trump and his cronies. I don't know that it'd do any good were they to do so, but the point is that nobody's asking, not whether asking would yield results.

Should we wait for the "paid campaigning season" to start?

You should probably ask someone who's campaigning. I do not believe any time is a good time to solicit and, in turn, expect to receive credible input from Assange/Wikileaks or the Russians.

 

[koshergrl]

Adjectives don't provide the when aspect of meaning.

Sure they do: An early meeting.

• Adjectives and Adverbs

In the sentence, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow." do you claim the word "early" is not an adjective? that it has the same function as the word "early" in this sentence, "They decided early in the meeting."

I don't know what "they" say about that particular sentence. Are the authors/editors of the site I linked in the above quoted post they" to whom you refer? If so, is that sentence on their site?

"Early" can function as either an adjective or an adverb. It has a slightly different meaning in each case, and, of course, it modifies a different part of speech in each case.

In post 321, I wrote:

Regardless of how one chooses to interpret it, all the ways one might reasonably construe the sentence amount to essentially the same things.

That remark was my way of alluding to an important distinction between written and spoke communication. When we speak with others, there is almost always context that is understood by the parties to a discussion. Among other things, that context allows listeners to know whether one means, for example, early as an adjective or as an adverb, regardless of the speaker's construction. In writing, context plays the same role; however, writers must establish that context at or near their earliest opportunity because readers can't instantaneously make and confirm their denotational conclusions they draw from the written word. Readers can only apply the standard denotations and rules of grammar construe accordingly what they read.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter much whether there is a slight misinterpretation or usage of a word or phrase. For instance, if one's boss says, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow," barring something preventing one from doing so, whether one's bose meant "early relative to the typical meeting time" or "early in the morning, perhaps because the meeting is being coordinated right there on the fly" is of little or no importance. The natural response to that exhortation is, "Okay. What time?" The answer to that question provides the contextual one needs to know (1) at what time to appear for the meeting, and (2) whether the meeting is indeed earlier than normal or merely early in the morning, or both.

Another important difference between written and spoke communication is that some people will say somewhat vague and/or ambiguous things as a means of putting out feelers. I believe they do so because they think the tentativeness/weakness intrinsic to ambiguous/vague statements/inquiries is polite or something. (I realize that whether it is or not is out of scope here.) Whatever the reason, when people converse in person, their elocutionary uncertainty doesn't cause much of a comprehension problem. In writing and one-way speech, it does; moreover, it infuses inefficiency into their discourse with others.

To wit, in writing, I'd write "Let's meet tomorrow morning at seven o'clock." If I were asking if doing so is amenable to the other party, I'd put a question mark at the end of the sentence. If it's an instruction, I end it with a period, whereafter the only things I expect to read in reply are either (1) "okay," or (2) "I can't. Will 'such and such' a time work?" Were I having a face-to-face chat with the other party(s), I might very well say, "Let's have an early meeting tomorrow." (I'd still, as befits my intent, put a period or question mark at the end of or in the middle of the sentence.)

Having gone down this road of discussing adjectives and adverbs, why are we discussing it? I realize the high-level reason accrues from the "[sic]"/hyphenation thing. What I don't understand is why we are talking about parts of speech when my core reason for using "[sic]" is that "out of the box" is an accepted idiom having meaning, precisely the one you intend, rather than a user-constructed phrase. Whether the phrase is intended/though to be an adjectival or adverbial phrase has nothing to do with whether it needs to be hyphenated; the fact that it's an accepted idiom is what determines that.

FWIW, there is one situation wherein hyphenating "out of the box" is correct. That instance is when the very next word is a noun. The reason for that rule is that adjectives (and adjectival phrases), unlike adverbs precede the word they modify, whereas adverbs (and adverbial phrases) can be correctly placed before and after the words they modify. Thus by writing, say, "out-of-the-box attempt," the writer informs the reader that the idiom modifies "attempt." That's not the construction you used; you put "naked" between "out of the box" and "attempt," thereby making the hyphenation a grammatical/spelling mistake.
.

Holy crap, please don't reference your own pendantic posts and then pontificate further on them.

Nobody has time for that shit.

 

[Syriusly]

Just how much good or neutral press does Trump deserve? Given his deplorable character, nonexistent relationship with the truth -- on matters great and small -- and utter failure to complete his own stated goals, my answer is "little to none.".

As the elected POTUS he, (and the majority of Americans who elected him), deserves good and neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

And no President has ever had 'neutral press.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Just how much good or neutral press does Trump deserve? Given his deplorable character, nonexistent relationship with the truth -- on matters great and small -- and utter failure to complete his own stated goals, my answer is "little to none.".

As the elected POTUS he, (and the majority of Americans who elected him), deserves good and neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

And no President has ever had 'neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

I agree.

no President has ever had 'neutral press.

All presidents get neutral press. What they don't get is neutral commentary, editorials, about what they do, don't do, , how they do or don't do it, when/why the do or don't do it, etc. I realize that political commentary is part of the press presidents receive, but it's not the only kind of press they receive.

It is fair to say that in these days of 24-hour news cycles, news commentary forms a far larger share of the content delivered on cable news than it did prior to the 1980s.

thing about that is that few non-journalists take the time and make the effort to (1) master the principles and fully understand the learnings of the major topics having political importance -- economics, science, psychology, law and sociology, and (2) read the any, to say nothing of enough, of the original research that contains the information one needs to form a fully informed opinion on those topics of political interest. Indeed, the vast majority of people aren't even expert in one of those disciplines and don't even bother to read original expert research and analysis on them.

Rather, what most people have is an anecdotal understanding about selective bits and pieces of them. That is what it is, but it's hardly enough for one to develop a well informed position on any complex matter of political importance. Furthermore, most people abdicate the research and analysis role to their favorite partisan news source. That, in and of itself, isn't reprehensible, but it becomes so when those individuals don't "trust, but verify" by obtaining thoroughly reviewing the original content/principles that gives rise to their favorite commentator's stated stance(s).

 

[danielpalos]

"[Sic]" is not used to expressly correct someone. It's used to indicate that the writer quoting another's remarks is aware that there is something errant in the way the original author presented the remark and that the error is not the current writer's. I used it because I quoted your writing in my sentence rather than outside of it, such as by using a "quote box."

But for your challenging my use of "[sic]," I'd not have expounded upon my having used [sic], and I certainly wouldn't have bothered to explicitly note what was amiss that led me to use it. Had your point of contention been justified/accurate, I'd have simply "owned" my mistake and moved on, perhaps also offering a clarification of my meaning if such were warranted. (I've done so on more than one occasion. I'm well aware that my USMB posts often contain typos, sometimes a lot of them. Some I discover in time to correct them. Some I do not timely find. Of others, indeed many, I just don't give a damn because nothing I write for USMB has a bearing on how I'm judged by people whose opinion of me I value.)

I really didn't think you'd genuinely want to go down that road; apparently, however, you do...

You'd be correct about the hyphenation but for "out of the gate" existing in English as an idiom. Were it not idiomatically understood to and accepted as having the temporal denotation you note you intended, I would agree with you. (In which case I'd also not have used "[sic].") I provided the first reference link in post 298 to illustrate the phrase's acceptance as an idiom unto itself.

BTW, "out of the gate" is strictly speaking an adverbial prepositional phrase, although some might call it an adverbial phrase. The "adverbial" aspect accrues from the phrase's temporal quality, "when" being a piece of meaning adverbs convey. "Out of the gate" identifies when an action took place, which not a function of adjectives. Thus, though you think you used the phrase as an adjective, you did not because adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Adverbs, thus adverbial phrases, can modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.



Note:

• Why am I indulging this discussion line? Because I suspect that 300+ posts in, there's little or nothing of note to add to the substance of the thread topic, so I'm willing to engage on this marginally amusing line. If you think there is, however, thematically relevant ground left uncovered with regard to your thread topic, I'll drop this line of chit chat.

Your error, I believe, comes from your misunderstanding of what was modified. You thought it was referring to Trump. It was not. It was describing the attempt by the press to bring Trump down, i.e., a noun, though, of course, Trump is a noun as well. There was no verb modified and thus no action about which to convey temporal information.

What was the press' attempt like? It was full-throttle, it was out-of-the-gate (meaning immediately on day one), it was naked.

By reporting the news? How much "fake news" was actually reported and not retracted; where is wikileaks now?

where is wikileaks now?

I don't know, but I know nobody's imploring Assange to find stuff on Trump and his cronies. I don't know that it'd do any good were they to do so, but the point is that nobody's asking, not whether asking would yield results.

Should we wait for the "paid campaigning season" to start?

You should probably ask someone who's campaigning. I do not believe any time is a good time to solicit and, in turn, expect to receive credible input from Assange/Wikileaks or the Russians.

Unlike the right wing?

 

[usmbguest5318]

Your error, I believe, comes from your misunderstanding of what was modified. You thought it was referring to Trump. It was not. It was describing the attempt by the press to bring Trump down, i.e., a noun, though, of course, Trump is a noun as well. There was no verb modified and thus no action about which to convey temporal information.

What was the press' attempt like? It was full-throttle, it was out-of-the-gate (meaning immediately on day one), it was naked.

By reporting the news? How much "fake news" was actually reported and not retracted; where is wikileaks now?

where is wikileaks now?

I don't know, but I know nobody's imploring Assange to find stuff on Trump and his cronies. I don't know that it'd do any good were they to do so, but the point is that nobody's asking, not whether asking would yield results.

Should we wait for the "paid campaigning season" to start?

You should probably ask someone who's campaigning. I do not believe any time is a good time to solicit and, in turn, expect to receive credible input from Assange/Wikileaks or the Russians.

Unlike the right wing?

Hugh? I don't follow you.

I do not believe any time is a good time to solicit and, in turn, expect to receive credible input from Assange/Wikileaks or the Russians, no matter whether one be right or left wing.

 

[Syriusly]

Just how much good or neutral press does Trump deserve? Given his deplorable character, nonexistent relationship with the truth -- on matters great and small -- and utter failure to complete his own stated goals, my answer is "little to none.".

As the elected POTUS he, (and the majority of Americans who elected him), deserves good and neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

And no President has ever had 'neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

I agree.

no President has ever had 'neutral press.

All presidents get neutral press. What they don't get is neutral commentary, editorials, about what they do, don't do, , how they do or don't do it, when/why the do or don't do it, etc. I realize that political commentary is part of the press presidents receive, but it's not the only kind of press they receive. ).

Historically that just not true.

While I don't buy into the Right wing construct that the media is the enemy, the press theoretically strives for neutral but the press is made up of people. Right leaning newspapers tend to report things one way, left leaning papers tend to report them another way- and historically- god the press was often rabidly partisan.

 

[cnelsen]

I disrespectfully disagree. Trump is the greatest threat we are currently facing.

OK, the Jewish owned press and Jewish lobby are doing everything they can to start a war with Russia--a thermonuclear power--in the same way they got us to attack Iraq, a sovereign nation that posed zero threat to us. (Remember, it was the Jewish-controlled Washington Post that first reported the weapons of mass destruction bunkum, the "reason" we attacked their country, murdered their president, spawned ISIS, and triggered the current Islamic conquest of neutered Europe, fulfilling the long-standing policy goals of Jewish AIPAC, Jewish George Soros, the Jewish ADL, the Jewish Foreign Policy Initiative, etc.) And you, you ignorant little twit, you think Trump is the greatest threat we face? You are an intellectual coward whose bravest position coincides with whatever the Washington Post tells you it is. Pathetic. I despise you. Don't bother rersponding. I already know what your argument will be: "Nazi."

 

[usmbguest5318]

Just how much good or neutral press does Trump deserve? Given his deplorable character, nonexistent relationship with the truth -- on matters great and small -- and utter failure to complete his own stated goals, my answer is "little to none.".

As the elected POTUS he, (and the majority of Americans who elected him), deserves good and neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

And no President has ever had 'neutral press.

No President 'deserves' good press.

I agree.

no President has ever had 'neutral press.

All presidents get neutral press. What they don't get is neutral commentary, editorials, about what they do, don't do, , how they do or don't do it, when/why the do or don't do it, etc. I realize that political commentary is part of the press presidents receive, but it's not the only kind of press they receive. ).

Historically that just not true.

While I don't buy into the Right wing construct that the media is the enemy, the press theoretically strives for neutral but the press is made up of people. Right leaning newspapers tend to report things one way, left leaning papers tend to report them another way- and historically- god the press was often rabidly partisan.

Were you to replace "report" with "opine," I'd agree with you. The two activities just aren't the same things, but plenty, perhaps most, news editorial and commentary includes snippets of news, but only sometimes do they include the full story.

 

[Syriusly]

I disrespectfully disagree. Trump is the greatest threat we are currently facing.

OK, the Jewish owned press and Jewish lobby are doing everything they can to start a war with Russia"

cnelson- Trump supporter- anti-semite.

 

[Syriusly]

Trump should have federal agents raid the Washington Post on Monday morning and have every person there arrested on charges of treason. He should keep them in jail until the end of his term.

Trump supporter- anti-semite- white supremacist- and wants to piss on the Constitution.

No surprise here.

 

[cnelsen]

Trump won and he is doing an excellent job. We have obstructionist democrats and a lying media unwilling to report what a good job he is doing.

Thankfully, the media is starting to die.

Wall Street Journal Editorial Writer Is Found Dead

NBC Washington anchor Jim Vance dies at 75

They just need to do it faster.

Wow you should move to Russia where people are more accepting to killing people just because they disagree with your political opinions. Here in the U.S. however it is considered classless.

Killing people for political reasons? You mean like Seth Rich?

 

[cnelsen]

Trump supporter- anti-semite- white supremacist- and wants to piss on the Constitution.

So?

 

[cnelsen]

cnelson- Trump supporter- anti-semite.

And?

 

[Syriusly]

cnelson- Trump supporter- anti-semite.

And?

Exactly- just another anti-semite Trump voter.

 

[Lewdog]

Trump won and he is doing an excellent job. We have obstructionist democrats and a lying media unwilling to report what a good job he is doing.

Thankfully, the media is starting to die.

Wall Street Journal Editorial Writer Is Found Dead

NBC Washington anchor Jim Vance dies at 75

They just need to do it faster.

Wow you should move to Russia where people are more accepting to killing people just because they disagree with your political opinions. Here in the U.S. however it is considered classless.

Killing people for political reasons? You mean like Seth Rich?

Every time I see a retard on this forum bring him up, all I can hear in my ears is the same repubs complaining about the Russian investigation and how much of a waste it is... Seth Rich got shot in Washington D.C. Surprised? A white preppy guy walking in the bad part of Washington D.C. super late at night by himself got shot in a robbery attempt? Wow... what are the odds of that??? Man... no way...

 

[cnelsen]

Trump supporters do not know what makes up a democracy

Let's see. I know that whether a candidate ever called a Miss Universe "fat" deserves 12 stories in the Washington Post, and whether a multi-billionaire with dual citizenship who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an enormous effort to achieve the unprecedented and radical and dangerous step of eliminating the nation's borders is a candidate's primary donor to the tune of $25 million dollars deserves 0 stories in the Washington Post. Did I pass, pussy?

 

[cnelsen]

just another anti-semite Trump voter.

So?

 

[cnelsen]

Adolph.

So?