Smart Man!

It's supposedly just come out that Kim Jong Un speaks--or at least understands--English, but Fiorella wants to remind you that she posted that infomation either here or on FB a while back. How did she know? Because years ago, she'd read that he was schooled in Switzerland under an assumed name, and she knew a European education meant that he'd picked up a couple of languages there, including English because that's the world's power language. Or at least it was.
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Fio knows Trump wants the conference to be guy-to-guy, apparently with no one else in the room, but she doubts that's a-gonna happen. KJU will want his killer squad around to keep him safe,which means that Trump will have to come equipped with his own squad.
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When you get right down to it. KJU is the winner. Trump has elevated him from being a world pariah to being someone who has munipulated "the leader of the free world" into giving him equal standing. 

Linguisitic Puzzle

Fiorella is curious about which way the reduction of the English case system will go.  We've already subsumed the second singular thou into you, and now we are working on the first person.  Confusion reigns supreme right now, as in "Her and me are going to the store" or "Give it to she and I."

A la Noam Chomsky

T(M)(have-en)(be-ing)V is the most powerful formula Fiorella has ever encountered.  It's linguistic talk for the construction of the basic English verb form.  "T" stands for "tense," either present and past.  "M" stands for "modal," of which there are five: may, can, will, shall, and must.  "V" stands for the individual verb form, like "eat" or "love" or "sing."

The formula is very easy to apply, and Fiorella taught it to all her composition classes.  First, choose a tense.  Past tense is represented by "-ed" and present by a "-0."  Then decide if you want to use a modal and, if so, which one.  Next, decide whether or not you want to use "have-en."  Same for "be-ing"--the constructions in parentheses are optional but must stay in the same order.  The final step is to select a verb.

Let's try "eat."

Using past tense and a modal--how about "can"--and all the bells and whistles, we get [-ed+can+have-en+be-ing+eat].  Now we leap-frog [-ed,] [-en,] and [-ing] to get [can-ed+have be-en+eat-ing]. The past tense of  "can" is "could," so we end up with the string [could have been eating].  Switch out past tense for present tense and we get [0-can+have-en be-ing eat; can have been eating].  Leave out the model and we get [have been eating] or [had been eating], depending on your choice of tense.  Leave out the [have-en] and you get [can be eating] or [could be eating].  Leave out the [be-ing] and you end up with [can have eaten] or [could have eaten].  Leave out the model and the [have-en] and you get [be eating] or [was eating.]  Leave out the model and the [have-en] and the [be-ing] and you get [eat] or [ate].  Duck soup.

Try your hand with "love" and "sing," remembering that [sing-ed] becomes [sang], [sing-en] becomes [sung], and" [love-en] becomes [loved].

This simple all-encompassing formula is the reason Fiorella majored in linguistics.








Also write about my method of defining use of apostrophe for possessive.

Coming and Going

As Fiorella used to teach her students, there are four major dialects of English: American, British, Indian, and Australian.  And, like tectonic plates,  these dialects are drifting further and further apart each year.  Eventually, they'll be four separate languages.  But there's a pull in the opposite direction too, and you can blame it on the media.  Yes, several sub-dialects used to exist within these four dialects, but we're all talking more like broadcasters and movie actors now. 

Happy Fourth!

Russian, English, German, Gypsy, Swiss,
Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Jew
Fiorella's an all-American miss
Hooray for the red, white, and blue!