Have you seen the new Modest Mouse video, where Issac's a crow? I hate crows, they're the worst birds ever. They're smart, too, which makes them even worse.
Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004 - 21:41

Ah knowledge, a little of you can be so annoying.

I read something the other day, a review of someone's weblog on a weblog reviewing site, but I didn't get past the first paragraph. The description of the reviewed weblog started out, "If it wasn't for..." and blah blah blah something enticing ensued. And the reviewer, in reviewing this description, said, "Though 'weren't' is the form of 'to be' that should be used in an If Clause, just had to point that out."

Now I sort of have a problem with review sites anyway. Self-righteousness isn't very appealing to me. (I know, I'm self-righteous myself.)

Plus, it's just too much, seeing people try to correct each other's grammar when they don't really know what they're talking about.

The subjunctive... When I was a wee lass I jokingly but almost seriously started a campaign called Save the Subjunctive! because I was disturbed by its waning presence in modern English.

But then I became a linguist and realized that languages are fluid beasts and can't be controlled by me or by English teachers or by weblog reviewers.

We don't use 'thee' or 'thou' anymore either. And we're still alive! I am, at least. Probably everyone else is a robot, but language change isn't the reason for that. Yes, Great Spirit in the Sky, I know you're testing me, me, the only human, and I will pass your test, I will, ha ha.

At a certain point in your education, you learn that you don't know anything, and the more you learn, the more you learn you have to learn. (Or maybe that doesn't happen to people with healthy self-esteems, I don't know.)

No, now that I'm thinking about it more, and have I never thought about this before?, because I've thought about the subjunctive a lot, yes I have, and now I'm thinking that, wait, the subjunctive, it isn't going away. Because we still have conditional clauses, we still have the contexts for the subjunctive, it's just the form that's changed. The form, we use the past tense, but if it's being used subjunctively, then it's subjunctive and it's just that the

Never mind, I quit, remember? so I don't have to think about this.

But far be it from me (oh I am so clever) to tell people to lay off the language. Language change is natural, but so is human intervention into language change, isn't it? Yes, it is.

Okay, carry on.

And in other news, my elbow hurts like a bastard still, although there's no bruise in sight. Still we wait.

Damn I'm annoying, I'm going to play Age of Empires because my computer has decided to no longer allow the Sims to work, right when I want to start playing the Sims again, right when I have nothing better to do, but no, so AoE it will have to be. Or Age of Kings. God save the king.