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Today
By Fr. Dennis | March 22, 2007
Several things.
- Forty-one years ago today, my mother was a new mom. Congratulations, Mom.
- Big test this morning in my Old Testament Prophets class. Pray for me.
- This evening is the annual Tenebrae Service, which my classmates and I are responsible for. In our practice here, it is a dramatic reading of the Passion according to Luke, in a candle-lit Archabbey Church. Each section of the story is interspersed with great hymns like “What Wondrous Love” and “O Sacred Head.” I was responsible for making the music happen, so pray that all that goes well too.
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March 22nd, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Happy Birthday to you, Dennis!
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Happy birthday from us, too.
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 am
Happy Birthday Dennis! Glad you will always be older than me!! : )
PS. My little spam code today was EENOK. Wonder if you should read up on Enoch?
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:43 am
I dunno… MY spam code just now was PBLHH, and that doesn’t help me discern ANYTHING.
Isn’t Enoch apocryphal? I’m not even sure where I’d find anything about him. Unless…
What if I used the Internet?
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm
My spam code was REDRUM. And then it wouldn’t post until I hit Enter several times. It just kept saying REDRUM, REDRUM, REDRUM…
Then I had this urge to get out of the house for awhile.
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Happy birthday, Dennis.
Hope the old testament prophets test and the Tenebrae service went well.
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Are you allowed to end a sentence with a preposition? “…..and I are responsible for.” Just wondering. Happy Birthday. Did you get Luke’s message? And if you did, why no return call.
Redrum - that was funny.
My code was…… Out of respect for Dennis (and the fact that Dennis would have edited it anyway) I decided not to share the code.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
First, contrary to how many people are taught in school, grammar is not a moral issue. There is no moral superiority of one system of grammar and usage over another. People who speak one way are not superior to people who speak another.
Second, the “rule” against ending a sentence with a preposition, and many other “rules,” was imposed by English-speaking Latin scholars, who reasoned that if something wasn’t allowed in Latin, it shouldn’t be allowed in English. They did this without taking into account that English is a completely different language, with Germanic origins, and represents a completely different way of thinking.
Whether I may end a sentence with a preposition is not the question. I certainly may, and it’s not a moral failing, nor does it represent a misuse of the language. A better question would be “should I?” That depends on a lot of things. What is my purpose in writing? Who is my intended audience? Will the sentence be MORE clear or LESS clear to my intended audience if I rework the shape of the ideas in the sentence in order to conform to a rule that isn’t really a rule but makes me look smart and superior if I conform to it?
A lot of what passes for the “rules of English grammar” is pretension. Not all of it, but much of it. Especially the bits that people make “mistakes” with frequently. Frequent mistakes by native speakers of English around a certain point of grammar indicates that there is something artificial and contrived about whatever “rule” they seem to be breaking.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:05 am
“Isn’t Enoch apocryphal? I’m not even sure where I’d find anything about him. Unless…”
ARRRRRGH!!!!!!!!! Dennis! Genesis 5:21-24.
AMDG,
Janet
What do they teach them in those seminaries?
March 24th, 2007 at 10:55 am
No, Janet, you misunderstand me. ARRGH back at you.
There is the Book of Enoch. I thought Carole was referring to the books, not just the passing mention of him in canonized Scripture. His passing mention is so fleeting as not to be that useful, so you’d have to wonder why the Holy Spirit would want me to spend time on it.
Yes, he’s mentioned as an ancestor to Noah, and he’s mentioned again in the letter to the Hebrews as having been taken up to heaven like Elijah.
When I said “Isn’t Enoch apocryphal?” I was referring to the Books of Enoch, not the person of Enoch. I should have been more clear.
Anyway, my previous post was tongue-in-cheek (duh, where could I found out about Enoch?).