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Joined: Mar 2000
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zombie rules ?!? laugh Oh, please, enlighten me! What a wonderful term, even if it turns out I am one.

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What a wonderful term, even if it turns out I am one.

Rules that never die. And, they eat their victim's brain. Or something like that ...


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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And they're wrong. They never were rules of the English language, just things made up by, usually, some 17th century dude. Things like not splitting infinitives, which for non-restrictive clauses and that for restrictive clauses, not ending a clause with a preposition, not starting a sentence with a conjunction. Stuff like that.

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Are there rules for surviving a Zombie attack?

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Are there rules for surviving a Zombie attack?

Sure, correct the zombie's grammar. Usually works for me. They stare at you in disbelief and go looking for easier prey. It helps if you can cite the peever who made the rule up out of whole cloth. I have quite a collection of peever books of "rules", although most are available online at Google Books.


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Things like not splitting infinitives, which for non-restrictive clauses and that for restrictive clauses, not ending a clause with a preposition, not starting a sentence with a conjunction.

1. to boldly peeve: never have tracked this one down either.

2. that/which hunting: Either Fowler or Strunk-White.

3. not ending a sentence with a preposition: Dryden, who actually went back and "corrected" all his earlier works. Sheesh. Even Robert Lowth didn't believe this one. In the paragraph where he writes about the "rule" he actually ends a sentence with a preposition.

4. conjunctivitis: never have traced this one down.

Your best defense is Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. It's available cheap in real-world book form and online ([url=http://books.google.com/books?id=2yJusP0vrdgC&source[/url]). Chock full of the history of most of these "rules", and if you zombie doesn't respond rationally, you can hit them upside the head with it.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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which hunting Good one! [cackle e]

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Good one!

I wish it were mine, but alas some other linguoyob came up with it before me.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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If you want fertile hunting ground for which hunting try Jonathan Swift's Proposal for Correcting, Improving, & Ascertaining the English Tongue.

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