 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009"The perfect age for college is..."
An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid has to be a kid?" The answer to that question (given beneath a picture of a 50-ish looking man) is: "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're ready." That answer bothers me. The grammar seems off. Comments?  SignatureMaria C. Resident of southeast Michigan, near Detroit; native of east Tennessee. A household hint from "Maxine": Stop dusting, and you can use your coffee table as a message board. > An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid > has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Comments? Yup. I might change it to "The perfect age for college is whenever you're ready." SignatureSkitt (AmE) >An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid >has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >Comments? It seems that there are too many or not enough words. Possibly better choices are: "The perfect age for college is whatever age you are." "The perfect age for college is whatever age you already are." "The perfect age for college is whatever age you are already." and using the inelegant contraction, "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're already." The last choice is what may have been originally selected but was overlooked on proof reading. > >An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid > >has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're already." Beyond inelegant for me in this situation. I don't think you can contract "I am", "you are", etc., when the complement comes before the pronoun and verb. > The last choice is what may have been originally selected but was > overlooked on proof reading. I think they really meant "ready". "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're ready at." Then someone told them not to end a sentence with preposition (and they decided not to add "a.shole"). -- Jerry Friedman >An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid >has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >That answer bothers me. The grammar seems off. It's so off, they might as well drop all standards and go for brevity: "The perfect age for college is whatever." James >>An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid >>has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > brevity: > "The perfect age for college is whatever." I think they elided themselves an "at": "The perfect age for college is whatever age you are ready at", or the more pedantic but syntactically strained, "The perfect age for college is at whatever age you are ready." Attempting to unstrain this particular blob of jelly, we produce "The perfect age for college is whatever age is that age at which you are ready" and finally "The perfect age for college is the age at which you are ready, whenever age that is." At this point we remember Frosh Comp fondly, and recast along entirely different lines: "Kaplan U.: We're ready whenever you are." ObSwifty: "I always confuse 'lision with syncope", said Tom, faintly. SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. > An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid has to be a kid?" > > The answer to that question (given beneath a picture of a 50-ish looking man) is: "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're ready." > > That answer bothers me. The grammar seems off. I don't give a f*** about their grammar, in my profession Kaplan are the dark side. They're progressively taking over English Language Teaching provision at UK universities, deprofesionalising the job, driving down salaries and removing any job security from what is already a shaky career. DC -- >> An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid has to be a kid?" >> [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >I don't give a f*** about their grammar, in my profession Kaplan are the dark side. They're progressively taking over English Language Teaching provision at UK universities, deprofesionalising the job, driving down salaries and removing any job security from what is already a shaky career. Speaking of the dark side...how about setting your line length at about 72? I'm tired of scrolling to read an entire line. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >>> An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid has to be a kid?" >>> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >Speaking of the dark side...how about setting your line length at >about 72? I'm tired of scrolling to read an entire line. He could probably go to Kaplan University and learn all there is to know about line lengths. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland ... > Speaking of the dark side...how about setting your line length at > about 72? I'm tired of scrolling to read an entire line. His headers are: User-Agent: XanaNews/1.18.1.6 X-Face: %9ohG<b=tJVK@NrSw>W[t]YT!+h17qo?9vAt4Zay$K{FJj47|%KOci*9BJikH]J>M}*[*z@|e70< MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The raw message text has no long lines, for example: > An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid = has to be a kid?" Long lines are split by " ="+newline, which is an artifice of the quoted-printable encoding. My Thunderbird headers are Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit which allows me to type my message without thinking of line lengths. I think most newsreaders will render my messages with fairly even right margins, if they understand "format=flowed", but usually the text is not very ragged when it's sent, anyway. I see no real need for quoted-printable and 7bit nowadays. Very few newsreaders will show his X-face, by the way. Tony Cooper: > > Speaking of the dark side...how about setting your line length at > > about 72? I'm tired of scrolling to read an entire line. > His headers are: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > The raw message text has no long lines... Long lines are split by > " ="+newline, which is an artifice of the quoted-printable encoding. Which instructs the newsreader to rejoin them, so producing the long lines that Tony correctly complains about. > My Thunderbird headers are > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Which instructs the newsreader to *wrap* the text, and is a work of people so evil as to think that formatting of postings should be under the reader's control rather than the writer's. SignatureMark Brader | "It never occurred to me that a living person could be Toronto | used as a blowtorch, but we admit human beings are a msb@vex.net | bit special, don't we?" --Hal Clement: STILL RIVER My text in this article is in the public domain. > Tony Cooper: > > > Speaking of the dark side...how about setting your line length at [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > people so evil as to think that formatting of postings should be > under the reader's control rather than the writer's. All of which pretty much wooshes me. I last had this problem about six months ago and eventually fixed it. Two weeks ago I had a disc crash and am slowly working through resetting everything. I use the XanaNews reader which I like in every respect except the way it handles posting settings; I think it's OK now - but please tell if not - I see lines wrapping at 72 characters. DC -- > I use the XanaNews reader which I like in every respect except the way > it handles posting settings; I think it's OK now - but please tell if > not - I see lines wrapping at 72 characters. It seems correct. With XanaNews, you should have, under Posting Settings, Maximum line Length set to 72 (or whatever) and Text format set to NNTP. The latter avoids any use of MIME. Brian SignatureIf televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won't shut up. -- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com) > > I use the XanaNews reader which I like in every respect except the > > way it handles posting settings; I think it's OK now - but please [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Settings, Maximum line Length set to 72 (or whatever) and Text format > set to NNTP. The latter avoids any use of MIME. I see from your dark green display you're another Xana user, Brian. Thanks for getting back. DC -- > An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid > has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Comments? I suspect they really mean "The perfect age for college is not one minute older than the youngest age at which you can cough up the money to purchase our brand of it." >> An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid >> has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > minute older than the youngest age at which you can cough up the > money to purchase our brand of it." <laugh> I suspect you're on to something there. SignatureMaria C. >>> An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college kid >>> has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > <laugh> I suspect you're on to something there. It's called "truth in advertising". Thing is, is, these days it's not just for-profit schools like Kaplan that are willing to do a bit of the old Mad Av to try to get more fee-paying students in. SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. > > An online ad for Kaplan University says this: "Who says a college > > kid has to be a kid?" [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > minute older than the youngest age at which you can cough up the > money to purchase our brand of it." Amen. -- Maria Conlon: > The answer to that question (given beneath a picture of a 50-ish looking > man) is: "The perfect age for college is whatever age you're ready." > > That answer bothers me. The grammar seems off. I agree. It needs an "at" at the end. (There are other choices, of course.) SignatureMark Brader "You mean he made love to you?" Toronto "Well, he went through all the emotions." msb@vex.net -- EVERY DAY'S A HOLIDAY |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.