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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch
From: hutch@shark.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Grammer Quiz (Try it if you dare!)
Message-ID: <820@shark.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Jun-84 15:08:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.820
Posted: Fri Jun 15 15:08:36 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 03:36:06 EDT
References: <428@bunker.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 68

[People who play with glass grammars ought not to rock!]

This appeared in net.flame, thereby becoming fair prey!!  Let us prey.

| Are the following pronoun references correct?
| 
| "The team won its first game tonight. Afterwards, they went out to
| cellebrate."
| 
| Can a singular pronoun, its, and a plural pronoun, they, both reference
| the same noun, team?
| 
| Keep the home fires burning.
| 
| Gmm
| 
| ...  to conform to standards, but I choose the calm approach. Just
| consider it a flame that I put you to the test with a simple grammer
| construct and expect you to fail.

** Warning: flames follow.  Assume %-> for all following libels.

First, it is "celebrate" not "cellebrate" since the latter seemingly
refers to some obscure action performed by a cell and the former is a
real word.  How dare you pick on grammar (not "grammer"; grammer refers
coloquially to the mother of one of your parents, assuming you HAD
parents) when you cannot even correctly spell the word!?

Furthermore, how dare you presuppose that we will automatically get it
"wrong"? This is net.flame, not net.religion; presuming upon the
responses of others is inadequate to constitute a flame and is
inappropriate for this newsgroup!

Based on your article I determine that your inadequate understanding of
syntax and semantics as theoretical systems does not allow you to
accurately analyze the two sentences.  Therefore, I will do it for you.

	1: 
	2: 

The first sentence is a simple enough construction that even a ninny in
grade school ought to be able to parse.

The second sentence contains context from the first sentence, which I
have included as [$1].  It is more complicated than the first and I
have taken a shortcut in parsing it.

The actual issue you are raising is "is it proper to change the
number-attribute of an agent-noun in the middle of a complex phrase?"
and the answer to the issue is "WHO CARES?!"

Indeed, who really gives a <> about what some anal retentive grammarian
dictator says about what is proper and what is not?  The important
thing is the communication of the underlying semantics, the IDEA, the
INFORMATION.  The conventions, and they ARE only conventions, about how
to express ideas, are appropriate to the situation!  If this were a
legal document, or a treaty, or a computer program, then it would be
more important to worry about agreement of number across references,
but in such a case, the idea would be expressed more carefully in the
first place!

This is NOT such a case.  This  is merely a casual colloquial exchange
and it is a waste of our time to flame about the "mistakes" in it.

On the other hand, WE are perfectly justified in flaming you about your
petty idiocy in ever posting such an article.

Hutch