Comments on: ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST: August 21-26, 2000

By: Leslie Piper

Leslie Piper — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 15:05:03 +0000

‘Chairface Chippendale’ is the rightful name of a murderous character from ‘L’il Abner’, circa 1948. Yup. I was delivering papers then, and learned to love comics.

By: eekee

eekee — Mon, 14 May 2018 17:30:37 +0000

That obscure reference was worth its explanation, I think. The mental picture is hilaridorable! 😀

By: Sailorleo

Sailorleo — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 00:17:49 +0000

In reply to Anonymous. Many of which aren't actually grammatical errors in English. The language has been targeted by efforts to change it's nature and structure from Germanic to peudo-Romance several times in the last 80 years. It's also one of the reasons the language has so many French loanwords in everyday use.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 10:41:42 +0000

In reply to Conor J de Poer (nevanus). There's nothing inherently wrong with starting sentences with 'and'. Your teachers told you not to do it because it leads to other grammatical errors.

By: Conor J de Poer (nevanus)

Conor J de Poer (nevanus) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 18:28:21 +0000

ANTONIO SMITH’s act would be far more convincing if he didn’t start a sentence with “and.”

By: Eli Morris-Heft (dispatchrabbi)

Eli Morris-Heft (dispatchrabbi) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 18:28:20 +0000

I'd be happier if ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST was actually a linguist rather than an over-confident English teacher. Run-on sentences? Dangling participles? Punctuation mistakes? A linguist cares not for these things!

Forensic linguists do exist, but we look at use of certain constructions, at identifiable quirks of morphosyntax. And we don't tend to quote Shakespeare - unless you're me.

P.S.: Indiana Jones was a bit of a linguist too, and Michael Shanks's Daniel Jackson ('Stargate SG-1') is the most badass linguist on screen.

By: screaming turnip (screamingturnip)

screaming turnip (screamingturnip) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 18:28:19 +0000

by the by, we would have just taken it for Marlowe or something if you hadn’t have told us. Omissions destroy the greatest of con artists.