Not that I really had one before, although English teachers are always violent about active versus passive voice. But for tenses, it’s not like we go around lauding the benefits of the subjunctive (there was that one guy, but not as a whole. I hope he’s doing well. (lame subjunctive joke)).

This morning I learned more about the aorist tense, a verb tense in Ancient Greek that signifies an act being whole or simple. The fact that the apostle Paul uses it in his letter to the Ephesians to describe some pretty big stuff makes it an even cooler tense. God is acting in a big way and yet the act is whole and simple.

I stumbled across a really cool blog today about the New York Times stylebook. It’s interesting to see a non-MLA organization’s take on the written word. Check out why they capitalize Marine now, as well as a quiz to see if you can catch the real grammatical errors that showed up in The Times.

Check out After Deadline

Also, the Times revised their rules for whiskey vs. whisky (but long-time readers of the bloggh were already well-informed).

Slade, you’ll be pleased to hear Penny Arcade’s reactions to RE5:

Contrary to the industry’s building momentum toward welcoming new players into beautiful, gently designed spaces, this game is having none of it. This is not a game where you play some rascal zephyr in a flower’s dream. This is a game where you run for your [crazy] life, for hours, until you die.

And it’s co-op. Finally. No goofy Resistance 2 failings. Straight-up running from zombies. They’ve actually got a really interesting take on the race issue.

We’ve killed Middle Eastern terrorists in video games for how long?

booyor (v) – to take a seemingly ridiculous technology project and make it work using only the materials at hand

Usage: MacGuyver was stuck in an underground bunker and had to booyor the safety mechanism on the bomb.

Unanimous for the second option: “The teacher brought in footage from last night’s championship game, but brought it in five minutes before the announcements, so the librarian had to booyor the footage to watch the buzzer-beating three pointer over the cable system.”

This is in response to a couple of things from yesterday. First, Mike texted me yesterday about his favorite sports show (Doug and Wolf…wait…isn’t Stackpole The Wolf?) referencing Michael Stackpole as an authority in debunking hypnosis. Stackpole being a household name.

Later, Teddi was talking at worship team about how mentioning “googling” something in a movie should require royalties for trademark use. (Although that would be an interesting copyright fight for Math textbooks.) Jeremy challenged me to work my name into usage until it became a household name. If you remember previous forays into grammar, once it’s published, it’s grammatical law. (It just depends upon how sweeping that grammatical law’s jurisdiction is.)

So, before we make law, I have provided a sample grammar test that you will be able to find in all of the workbooks a few months from now. (Actually, my name is in the district final exam. [Ha ha Nelson laugh])

I was thinking this morning about very important matters, one of which being the extent of English being a living, constantly changing language. (My assistant is out sick today so you, faithful reader, reap the rewards.)

The Double G Intensifier Unleashed
Since this is now published, you’ll be seeing it in textbooks everywhere. I swear.

Consider dig:

and digg:

or

dog:

dogg:

flag:

flagg:

Whenever you want something intensified, add a double ‘g’ unleashed. (Except after ‘c’ and sometimes ‘y’.)