Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[sophie]

My question was just to make absolutely sure it isn't like grammar in school. There's nothing more insane than making seven-year olds identify the precise structure of the predicate and subject in a sentence.

Well syntax deals with that sort of stuff but on a far more intense level. BTW understanding and recognizing that stuff makes learning a language way easier, imo.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Teaching grammar is much easier if you don't even bother trying to do so before starting to teach a second language like Latin.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Having just finished Master of Rome, and with it John Stack's Punic War naval trilogy, I am contemplating my next. For nonfiction it will be Gallipoli, by Alan Moorehead, and fiction will be Under the Eagle about the Roman invasion of Britain.

 

[Zkribbler]

The 2nd Rumpole Omnibus

 

[JohannaK]

Linguistics is an exciting and diverse field, yet Applied Linguistics is the only course I dread. Possibly because the professor is so unengaging and makes it all so boring.

 

[Flying Pig]

Teaching grammar is much easier if you don't even bother trying to do so before starting to teach a second language like Latin.

Trying to learn Latin without a reasonable understanding of grammar would be very difficult! There's much less room for 'muddling through' than there is in English.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, but is is much easier to pick up an understanding of grammar while learning a language that makes such knowledge absolutely necessary. There is much less motivation to learn it in a language that comes naturally and can be used properly without thinking about grammar rules.

 

[Gori the Grey]

There's nothing more insane than making seven-year olds identify the precise structure of the predicate and subject in a sentence.

There's one thing more insane, which is letting students get to, or even through, college without being able to do so--as our present educational system by and large does.

 

[Mouthwash]

There's one thing more insane, which is letting students get to, or even through, college without being able to do so--as our present educational system by and large does.

Please explain its usefulness to me, outside of Latin or syntax.

 

[Borachio]

"The cat sat on the mat".

If you don't know how to distinguish predicate from subject, did the cat sit on the mat or the mat sit on the cat?

Or did the cat mat on the sat? Or did the mat cat on the sat?

I really don't know which is the predicate, the object, or the subject. So these sentences are all pretty meaningless to me.

 

[sophie]

Please explain its usefulness to me, outside of Latin or syntax.

Really helps with proofreading and understanding declensions. You'll understand why it's

"My friends and I" and not "Me and my friends" And also you'll learn why people saying "Thee shall find me" and "I'm giving it to thou" annoy the hell out of me.

 

[Takhisis]

Of course, Owen's speaking about Standard English.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Trying to learn Latin without a reasonable understanding of grammar would be very difficult! There's much less room for 'muddling through' than there is in English.

I can at least say, after learning trying to learn German and Irish at least, it's much simpler for me to understand English rules of grammar, because you at least have a sense of the alternative.

Growing up without second language instruction, grammar lessons seemed to be about learning esoteric names for things I already used daily, more then anything else.

Learning a second language goes great with learning grammar, precisely because you can't muddle through. So you actually have to stop and think about the rules.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The Science of Soccer (yeah, American publisher. Writer's a Brit though, who somehow still uses Imperial units. 2002 Britain apparently wasn't very metricated. At least the mathematical section is in SI units.) by John Wesson. Interesting, but short. Only a few hours the past two days and I'm already half-way to 180 pages. Enjoyed the physics of kicking a football, but I feel it was too simplistic (not even taking into account shoe shape and other such factors). Writer seems to think the intended reader doesn't understand probability. Okay . Does lead into the most interesting thing I've read about football though. Low scores are actually good since they allow the underdogs to win more often compared to basketball scores.

 

[tony_]

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, a collection of essays on the Catholic social doctrine (or distributism, which advocates ownership of private property being as widely distributed as possible), and haven't decided what is next. I was starting Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead last week...

 

[Takhisis]

I recommend the Saga of King Haralð of Norway, son of Sigurð, which ends with his defeat at the hands of Harold, son of Godwin, in 1066. Penguin Classics rule.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Finishing up Black Finance by Donato Masciandaro, Előd Takáts, and Brigitte Unger. It's about making money squeaky clean. And simplified, abstract mathematical models. Gets better in the second half.

 

[Traitorfish]

Been looking at Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. It's one of those interesting books that becomes very important in its specialisation largely for being wrong, but for being wrong in interesting ways.

The thesis is basically that the culture of British North America (well, the future United States; he's conspicuously silent on Canada) was formed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by four distinct migrations, each from specific parts of the British Isles and to certain parts of North America. This is, in a lot of respects, pretty dubious! But it's also very interesting, because it forces us to think about how colonial cultures form, about how much of it people bring with them and how much is developed anew. So, worth a read.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The Strange Career of Jim Crow, released in 1955 by a southern liberal who sought to argue that segregation was not a southern tradition, but a relatively new institution (~1900s) that could be dismantled as quickly as it had arrived. He's currently placing the blame of its birth on an upsurge in racism around the turn of the century, based in part on the United States becoming an imperial power over various colored nations, and internal politics in which the black vote, courted by various factions (aristocrats, whigs, and even radicals) became old hat. I'm only halfway in so far. One of his key points is that segregation was born in the north and drifted southward only during reconstruction, gaining popularity only during the last period of the 19th century. While race relations were not 'good' in the interim, they were better than they were, Woodward says, because southerners were comfortable relating to blacks in a way northerners never would be. It took decades of politics -- setting the blacks against the poorer whites, for instance -- to disrupt that former ease, despite the attempts of radicals like the Populists (and unionists, I'd wager) to unite the black and white working classes against the wealthy. Potent little book, but I'm only halfway through.

Been looking at Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer. It's one of those interesting books that becomes very important in its specialisation largely for being wrong, but for being wrong in interesting ways.

The thesis is basically that the culture of British North America (well, the future United States; he's conspicuously silent on Canada) was formed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by four distinct migrations, each from specific parts of the British Isles and to certain parts of North America. This is, in a lot of respects, pretty dubious! But it's also very interesting, because it forces us to think about how colonial cultures form, about how much of it people bring with them and how much is developed anew. So, worth a read.

I've considered that given my interest in southern history, but it's monstrously big. Have you read Cracker Culture? I've given it a miss, but I think it shares some points with that one.