Comments on: Gee, Some Folk Take English a Bit Seriously

By: peninsular aborigine

peninsular aborigine — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:07:02 +0000

# 17,

Great quote. I first heard it like this: Kierkegaard said Hegel would have been the greatest thinker ever if he had prefaced his work with one little word. That word is “if.”

# 19, That drink would be well deserved.

By: MrMao

MrMao — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:34:05 +0000

I know that guy! He’s a good fella to drink with.

By: luke drift

luke drift — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:23:27 +0000

This guy’s a hoot. It’s hard to believe these bizarre, sweeping and perfunctory statements (”The modern Korean is confused”, “Germany is the Cult of Goethe” and so on) were written by an American or Anglophone–with a graduate degree to boot, I assume–or even in the last 100 years. We sure brother Taru isn’t Korean?

By: trachys

trachys — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:56:31 +0000

Yes, discourse analysis isn’t done in language classrooms here. No, pronouncements by industrial designers will not cause a shift in paradigms.

Yes, English is fetishized. No, Konglish is not a “mongrel” but (within a World Englishes framework) an emergent national variety.

“Wittgenstein is the pivot of international discourse as it pertains to industrial design”? Monty Python is one response. So is Kierkegaard:

“If Hegel had written the whole of his Logic and in the Preface disclosed the fact that it was only a thought-experiment (in which however at many points he had steered clear of many things), he would have been the greatest thinker who ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.”

By: globalvillageidiot

globalvillageidiot — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:40:02 +0000

“I gotta say…he seriously needs to get laid.

That’s easier said than done in Jecheon.”

But easily done just a stone’s throw away in Wonju…

By: peninsular aborigine

peninsular aborigine — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:46:27 +0000

Make up your minds! Does he need a trim or some trim?

By: robert neff

robert neff — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:42:27 +0000

My head hurts….

By: The Metropolitician

The Metropolitician — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:41:32 +0000

Indeed, either way, one can get the “hookup” one needs in the barber shop. Haircut and happy ending. Korea, Sparkling!

By: CactusMcHarris

CactusMcHarris — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:52:18 +0000

Re#9 and 10,

Although I never myself partook of them, legend in the 80s had it that there were barbershops that would provide services that went far beyond that of a regular haircut. I think that Mr. Manifesto Writer might well avail himself of them.

By: SomeguyinKorea

SomeguyinKorea — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:46:57 +0000

I think that when reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus one should keep in mind the historical context in which it was written, just as one should do when reading Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures (Chomsky’s greatest achievement, in my opinion, was steering linguistics away from the established dogma). These books were published over 50 years ago. Linguistics has grown since then.