There was nothing wrong with yesterday, but that’s about all I can say about it. I’ll save you the pain of trying and keep this post as short as it deserves to be.
A dual-purpose morning walk with Swan: get some exercise and schedule my blood work appointment. I’ll be fasting for ten hours before they poke the needle in me. The walk was 5K and ended at Sit-n-Bull, where I got a take-out chicken burger to bring home for lunch.
Swan declared it a “Me Time” evening: She went to visit some girlfriends, and I was on my own for finding venues to quench my thirst for beer. I decided to do the seldom-visited bars on the near side of town.
I started things off at Hangout Bar. Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain, but managed to make it inside before getting soaked. I was the only customer at first, then one other guy came in, had a beer, and left. Hangout is a nice enough place, with two pool tables, several large TVs, and good music at the proper volume. Not sure why no one else ventured in, it’s been busier on my other rare visits. I just sat by the front window and watched the world go by outside as I sipped on an hour’s worth of San Mig Zeros.
Next stop was Nipsey’s. I’m not sure what’s up with this place. There were a couple of drunks in the back by the pool table, dancing with what may have been their girlfriends or bargirls, not that it matters. I was ignored, which is fine until my beer runs out. Anyway, I didn’t stay long and likely won’t be back anytime soon.
Then I went on to one of the newer joints in town, Gold Bar. They were comparatively busy, but I was given a friendly welcome and good service. Several dancers on the stage were putting some effort into their work, which is a rarity these days. The pool table was also seeing some action. Since my last visit, Gold Bar has expanded into the vacant space next door and turned it into a very nice darts room. If I ever take up the game again, I might make this my home venue. I enjoyed my visit and will definitely be back.
I finished my night out at Queen Victoria, another venue that puts some effort into satisfying their customer’s needs. Lots of dancers for those who enjoy watching, plenty of waitresses to take care of your needs, and, of course, a great big room for live music that starts after my bedtime. Swan joined me here for the nightcap before we grabbed a trike home.
And that’s how the day went down. It felt a little strange to be out on my own, but that just makes me appreciate having my gal at my side all the more.
Back to the January 2016 archives, where I posted this trip report about my visit to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Overall, I enjoyed my stay and added Cambodia to my list of possible retirement destinations. Visiting the infamous Killing Fields proved to be traumatic; the inhumanity on display was beyond disgusting. Luckily, Phnom Penh had plenty of bars where I could take refuge and drown my sorrows. My good friend, Dennis McPeters, was there to show me around, and I ran into another Itaewon buddy who was teaching there. Overall, one of my better trips and a much-needed escape from the sadness I was experiencing in Seoul.
Today’s YouTube video is a nine-minute journey into the dark days of Pol Pot’s reign in Cambodia. It is a stunning example of the depths of inhumanity perpetuated to achieve political goals.
Damn, we definitely need something to cleanse our palates after that video. Maybe these will help:
And there you have it. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain, but managed to make it inside before getting soaked.
Didn’t we just go over this? Spot the error. And a hint: there are at least two ways to correct the above.
Not sure why no one else ventured in, it’s been busier on my other rare visits.
Sigh… spot the error…
“who’s mind are they reading?”
At least this isn’t your error.
Another hint for that first error: remember FANBOYS. What does that stand for, why is it significant, and how does it apply to the above problem?
I don’t speak tagalog.
What you say pad thai piece of shit subhuman
Please save Cambodia. Thailand is aggressor. Cambodian only aim for the pece. We are the gentle nation. Do not trust Lieland pice of rubbish dirts
Even al jazeeran know truth
Good luck, Kun. I hope peace prevails.
Kevin, damn, it seems like I’m getting worse and worse the harder I try. Anyway, at first glance, I’d say putting an “I” before managed is better. Or making it two sentences.
I had to look up the meaning of FANBOYS. The search AI said: “FANBOYS refers to a group of seven coordinating conjunctions in English: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. These conjunctions are used to connect words, phrases, or independent clauses, and a comma is typically placed before them when joining two independent clauses.”
Well, I had the comma before “but,” but I guess without the “I,” I assume it wasn’t a proper independent clause. But here’s the thing: the sentence as originally written is perfectly understandable, so what’s the big deal?
“Not sure why no one else ventured in, it’s been busier on my other rare visits.”
Replace the comma with a semicolon is the fix.
Whose mistake is that? 🙂
Did you take advantage of the mistletoe to get even more bang from your buck for the lady drinks purchases, Big John?
Good morning John,
This morning while attempting to connect to your blog on the PC, I received a warning from my anti-virus program that it is trying to redirect me to a spam/scam site and that I should close your site.
I know you have had this blog for a considerable time, so just curious if this is a regular occurrence, or today is an anomaly?
(I am using my phone with a Virtual Private Network at the moment, and not getting any such warning this time)
Cambodia’s experience with dogmatic ideological extremism and blind allegiance enforced by terror should be a required subject in high schools the world over. Seriously. There are so many lessons there.
On to the bad grammar minefield.
Kevin spotted some good ones but I was more troubled by “the depths of inhumanity perpetuated to achieve political goals.”
Perhaps you meant “perpetrated?” But even that sounds weird. How does one perpetrate a depth? I’m not quite sure how to phrase it better. The depths of inhumanity to which political ideologues have sunk to assume power and enforce social control?
Your use of the phrase “depths of inhumanity” certainly evokes the sheer evil that Cambodia endured. Sadly, I’m not sure much of the world is aware of it anymore.
Recommended reading: The lost executioner, by Nic Dunlop.
Cheers.
Drain, you are spot on about the Cambodia nightmare. And yes, my lack of writing discipline made my point lose the meaning I was trying to convey. I appreciate you adding some needed clarity.
Yvon, thanks for sharing your experience. I had some malware issues recently and upgraded my website protection service. This is the first I’ve heard of a problem since then. I’ll pass this info along to my SiteLock service.
Hope you’ll be back!
Aloysius, that’s not how I roll these days. And I’ve never needed mistletoe to get a kiss.
Good catch, Drain. And there’s so much to catch. As I told John in a different comment, I deliberately don’t catch everything, or I’d be here all day.
John had originally written:
Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain, but managed to make it inside before getting soaked.
I can see three corrections, but I’d asked for only two. Here are all three:
1. Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain but managed to make it inside before getting soaked. (no comma, compound predicate)
2. Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain, but I managed to make it inside before getting soaked. (compound sentence, 2 clauses)
3. Just before I arrived, I got hit with some unexpected rain. But I managed to make it inside before getting soaked. (make into 2 sentences, and yes, the sentence-initial conjunction “But” is okay; let’s not overcorrect)
I then asked John to give me three things:
…remember FANBOYS. What does that stand for, why is it significant, and how does it apply to the above problem?
1. What does FANBOYS stand for? John looked up the answer. Okay. Why he didn’t look it up in my material—but instead chose outside sources—is beyond me. I would never ask John about anything I hadn’t taught him myself. Maybe he didn’t remember.
2. Why is FANBOYS significant? No answer.
3. How does it apply to the above problem? (a sort-of answer given, indirectly)
In looking up FANBOYS, John would have seen that the coordinating conjunction “but” is one of the FANBOYS. Like “and.” Elsewhere, I’ve been talking about the difference between compound sentences (which have two clauses) and compound predicates, so coordinating conjunctions are relevant to this since they appear in compound sentence. A clause has a subject and a related predicate.
• Nellie sat down and farted. (1 clause, compound predicate, i.e., 2 actions by the same subject, and no comma)
• Nellie sat down, and she farted. (2 clauses, compound sentence, separated by a comma-conjunction)
The same applies to “but”:
• Nellie sat down but didn’t fart. (1 clause, compound predicate)
• Nellie sat down, but she didn’t fart. (2 clauses, compound sentence)
So what I was looking for was:
1. What does FANBOYS stand for? for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (coord. conj.)
2. Why is FANBOYS significant? Because “but” is part of FANBOYS, i.e., coordinating conjunctions, and one job of coordinating conjunctions is to separate independent clauses—which is relevant to John’s faulty sentence.
3. How does it apply to the above problem? FANBOYS applies as shown in my examples above, and as shown in John’s corrected sentence.
Well, I had the comma before “but,” but I guess without the “I,” I assume it wasn’t a proper independent clause. But here’s the thing: the sentence as originally written is perfectly understandable, so what’s the big deal?
So “School B,” basically. “Why can’t someone else pick up my mess?” or “I refuse to acknowledge that there even is a mess.”
About that missing “I”: It’s not a clause at all without a subject, which I think also answers your “What’s the big deal?” question. I mean, I can’t stop you from writing sloppily, and if you want to be willfully sloppy (“Hey, they’ll understand my gist”), that’s your prerogative—a bad, rebellious student to the very end. I’ve just never understood why some people choose certain things to rebel about. I can understand rebelling against social oppression, which is a real problem, but against proper speech and writing? Is every teacher a representation of The Man? At some point, to be a constant rebel is to be a slave because you have to live your life in reaction to others. I correct the grammar; you resist the correction. React, react, react— never act, act, act. An existentialist would say that a life of reaction is not authentic.
Anyway, I didn’t make up the comma-conjunction rule;* I merely learned it and am passing it along. What you do with that information is up to you, and if you’re completely satisfied with the quality of your English, feel free to tell me to shut up.
Otherwise, if you’re willing to listen, think of it this way: language is an ever-changing system of agreements. In US English, we look at a loaf or slice of bread and agree to call it “bread.” In France, everyone agrees it’s “le pain.” In Germany, “das Brot.” And so on. Even though the system of agreements is always changing (some layers of that system, like slang, change faster than others, like basic word order), because it’s a system, there are rules and structures to be mindful of, or people can’t communicate clearly. If I see a TV, I can’t randomly call it a “dinosaur” and expect people to understand what I mean. This applies not just to vocabulary but to grammar, mechanics, diction (perpetrate/perpetuate), etc. All aspects of language are affected.
Does this mean your language has to be absolutely picture-perfect for everyone to understand you? Of course not. No one’s perfect, and most people are comfortable with a certain level of ambiguity because, to some degree, we’re all mentally sloppy, and we’re not all 24/7 vigilant. But how much sloppiness is tolerable? How many cases in your life involve conflicts that arose from vagueness and miscommunication? Language does matter; it affects you every day.
Think about your favorite writers and song lyricists. If they used sloppy English, would you appreciate them as much? If Bukowski wrote like a drooling, ungrammatical moron, or if Joni Mitchell had done a worse job of writing “Both Sides Now,” would these people be in your mental pantheon? Reasons to express yourself well pass beyond mere “communicability” to questions of beauty and eloquence and euphony. There’s more to life than merely being “understandable.”
But some folks are happy just to paddle around in the shallow mental kiddie pool, satisfied with who they are, where they are, and what they’ve got. The future for such people is just stagnation—mental, physical, spiritual. If that’s what they want, if the kiddie pool is what makes them happy, well, who am I to deprive them of their happiness? Paddle on.
__________
*You can also look up FANBOYS by looking at my relevant posts on Substack instead of in your email. Click my emailed Substack newsletter’s post title (e.g., “PTOSP Pronouns, Part 5”), and you’ll see that it’s a link to the same post, but on my Substack site. Once you’re on my Substack site, you should see a search window somewhere at the top. Type in “FANBOYS,” and all of my posts referencing “FANBOYS” ought to show up. That way, you can review what I’ve taught you instead of trolling the internet for something that’s already sitting right in front of you.
For what it’s worth, here are some FANBOYS references in my Substack work:
BOE #13
BOE #17
BOE #36
And from my main blog:
9/16/19
12/5/19
5/10/23
Plenty of references just in my own work. I’ll never ask you to dredge up knowledge on anything I haven’t covered myself. If you still prefer to consult outside sources, feel free, but the knowledge is all right here, on your doorstep.
Thanks, Kevin. My memory ain’t what it once was.
Kevin, sorry to be such a disappointment. But at least I’m not totally worthless–I can still serve as a bad example!
No excuse for my sloppy writing habits. I’ve carried them with me my whole life, and the prospect of significant change at this late stage isn’t good. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to improve, but don’t expect a miracle.