[Hereford Eye]

An admirable look at our language structure courtesy of Elanor Arnason:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040329/grammarian.shtml
I particularly enjoyed the daughter with adverbs, thinking the whole time how people of a certain renown on these boards might react to her performance. :p

[Dawnstorm]

Ooh, thanks for that. Eleanor Arnason is one of my favourite short story writers. I'll be sure to read it later (no time now).

[Rocket Sheep]

Hilarious! (got that one at a market)

At first I thought it was going to be a rude story... what with the five daughters, same as Mrs Palmer. And then a preposition moved on me as I was reading and it did become rude... let me point out that "all in different subtle ways" has a whole other meaning to "all different in subtle ways" especially with regard to having children. :eek:

I liked especially liked how the adverbs ran free and multiplied and interbred with adjectives... naughty little things they are. :D

[Dawnstorm]

Great read!

None of them got a purse with articles (you don't need a bag for "a", "an", and "the"). Lucky, I suppose. What about conjunctions? Or Pronouns? Were participles with the verbs or the adjectives? Or are they the offspring of both? What kind of grammarian was the mother? Did she put "up" in both the adverb and preposition bags ("jump up" - adverb; "jump up the tree" - preposition) or just into the preposition bag (the sensible choice, IMO).

The third sister was unfair to slimy; she has no idea how her nose would hurt without slimy. Slimy lubricates. Slimy is important.

Interesting that verbs bring change. How can you remain or be without the verbs "remain" or "be"? There's somebody been removing all the dynamic verbs, I tell you. A conspiracy.

And none of them got interjections. Imagine them opening a bag full of "ouch" and "wow" and "hey" and "argh".

[Hereford Eye]

Significantly, what is most significant is that the grammarians in the tale are all female. All of the editors I know, save one, are significantly also of the female gender. If it wasn't for Dawnstorm - who may just be more in touch with his feminine side than other males - I'd say unapologetically that grammar, these days, is a female obsession. For example, the modern movement against adverbs is purely a female concoction. Why? There are more men that don't care than men that do. And, there are more women who do care than women who don't.
How do I know this? you may ask. And I will answer. I've assiduously done an almost scientific perusal of the threads here at sffworld. I can almost categorically state that the observation given above has an error rate of no more than */- 3%. Since this is the same error rate the news readers cite for all their public opinion polls, I must be as correct as they are.

[Rocket Sheep]

I like to think of Dawnstorm as one of the girls. ;) Perhaps most women just have more room in their heads for things like grammar. Men must use lot of brain power thinking about sex every 90 seconds (a newsreader gave me that figure).

Women reading the story would surely empathise with at least one grammarian. What about you HE? Any of the grammarians make you think, "if I were a grammarian, I'd be that sister"?

[Dawnstorm]

It appears, my online gender's customisable. I was given a female pronoun only recently, on another board.

It wouldn't have occured to me it's the grammar obsession, though. Hmm...

[Rocket Sheep]

I was given a female pronoun only recently, on another board.

Take good care of it. Collect enough of them and you may be able to set up a market stall too.

[Hereford Eye]

What about you HE? Any of the grammarians make you think, "if I were a grammarian, I'd be that sister"?
I'd be the adopted daughter who had a bag full of sentence diagrams. I'd pull one out and break it every now and then as a stress reduction technique. Cheaper than martinis.

[Dawnstorm]

Take good care of it. Collect enough of them and you may be able to set up a market stall too.

Oh, I have quite a few of those already. A couple I got on this site. ;)

I'd be the adopted daughter who had a bag full of sentence diagrams. I'd pull one out and break it every now and then as a stress reduction technique. Cheaper than martinis.

Heh, then I'd probably take a couple of immediate constituate analyses. I don't need a bag, since they contain each other. The outer one ought to be robust enough.