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#148081 09/21/05 12:47 AM
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Jackie Offline OP
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Can someone explain this cartoon to me, please--that is, the why of the second word balloon?
http://www.comics.com/creators/bc/archive/bc-20050919.html

Edit: it's the cartoon of September 19.




#148082 09/21/05 01:13 AM
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Maybe because "people" is a collective noun, like "team"? I'm sure either El padre prescriptivo, or Der preschriptiwischt Punschter will be along soon to explain the full horror of the preamble.


#148083 09/21/05 01:44 AM
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the grammar police are obviously hustling over to our declaimers, all previously depicted as ESLers (especially Grog), to pointedly inform them that they must insert a verb; to wit, we ARE the people.

HTH,
ron obvious


#148084 09/21/05 02:55 AM
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or a comma

I, A. Positive


#148085 09/21/05 04:07 AM
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Can someone explain this cartoon to me, please--that is, the why of the second word balloon?

Others have suggested that there is something in the phrase "We, the people" which is grammatically incorrect, Jackie, but that is not what the cartoonist has in mind. His touch is far lighter than that.

What brings the guard out is the rebellious expression "We, the people". They have been dispatched to suppress the expression of freedom, not the expression itself.

It is the play between the shallowness of the cave-dwellers and the principle of free expression which creates the humor here.


#148086 09/21/05 06:42 AM
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Bollocks. It's exactly as tsuwm said. Go away.


#148087 09/21/05 10:39 AM
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Bollocks

I'm with Rock Island, here. It's the missing comma. And I should know. I went to a Computer Science Club Halloween party once as a missing comma.


#148088 09/21/05 11:08 AM
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"Wordminstrel" is still another of the sock puppets (or alternate handles) of an individual who has been banned by management from this board -- and others -- for flagrant abuse.

#148089 09/21/05 06:51 PM
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Faldage
please, please, pleeeeease describe your costume.


#148090 09/21/05 08:10 PM
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The phrase "the people of the United States" is an appositive which, in your better constitutions, is set off within commas.

El padre prescriptivo



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