BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests

Subject: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,God
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:21 AM

Hello dwellers of the mudcafe, this is a message from God, it was none other than I, the great and powerful wizard of heaven who has been requesting all the songs, to see if you were worthy, you were doing fine until recently when you got fed up, negotiations are being made between my good friend Satan and I, pertaining to your souls. Have a great day. God

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,Bill Cohen
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:25 AM

Hey I'm not this god person. I asked for the chords to one damn song.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,Ryan
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:28 AM

You old timers are terrible, someone actually reccomended this place to me saying the frequenters were nice, friendly people, when I get here, I discover you are allowing an obnoxious fuck or two to turn you into accusatory pricks. I asked for the chords to a few songs. I do not enjoy being accused of what I have been accused of and I sure as hell did not write most of the chord requests, or the message from God. Thanks for listening

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,The REAL God
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:31 AM

It's between Satan and ME, dummy. If you were really God, you'd have better grammar.
A.K.A. Joe Offer

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,God
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:38 AM

Do you really think, that I have nothing better to do than to worry about the silly gramatical rules of you humans? god

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 10:53 AM

My grammar thought she was God, just before she went to meet the original.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,LEJ
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:40 PM

Actually, few are aware that God, although educated at some of the finest prep schools in New England and holding a Law Degree from the prestigious Harvard Law School, is only able to spell at a 4th grade level. This punches a large hole in the entire concept of an omniscient creator, though his claim to omnipresence and omnipotence apparently remains intact. This conjures up an image of God not unlike that of a bad college dorm-mate: ie a total ignoramus who is always there watching Ricky Lake while you are trying to do your Physics homework, when he's not occupied with crashing your computer or breaking your CD player.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 03:50 PM

Well, being omniscient doesn't mean being omni-compliant! Anyone who doesn't think God has a devilish streak in him should study up on Pickle History!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:11 PM

Of course, LeeJ, that is what SHE leads everyone to believe. Makes it SO much easier to get on with things.

katlaughingatanotheruselessthreadhavinglifebreathedintoitbythoseofbrilliance

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Caitrin
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:15 PM

Hey, I have it on good authority that my mother is god, and she always uses perfect grammar. (What? You didn't know that every parent with a teenager is certain he or she is god? Where have you been?)

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Caitrin
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:15 PM

Strictly a joke, there...I don't wish to offend any parents of teenagers. (One of them might smite me!)

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:20 PM

Caits, have you seen DOGMA, the movie? Gotta watch out for those Last Scions, too! Wait til you see who portrays God in that one! It's great!

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:43 PM

Thread drift: my favorite bumper sticker of all time:

Sorry, Mister, My Karma Just Ran over your Dogma

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,Fivensevn
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 04:58 PM

LOL Got ya all.....

When God made man.....my dear friends.....SHE was only joking!!!!!

The Blonde!!!! WOMAN!

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:00 PM

Oh, Amos, you need to do a forum search for Favourite Bumper Stickers I and II threads! Ran into the hundreds and some are absolute gems, including the one you've posted above.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:06 PM

Dang, I might have known you brilliant folks would have covered that ground all to pieces! Thanks for the lead, kat laughing!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mbo
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:06 PM

In my family, I'm the king of grammar. When I was younger, I would skip the writing assignments in my English book, and instead do all the grammar exercises. And when I got to the end, I'd do them all over again. I did them many times, and hence became a grammar junkie. All my family would come to me to proofread their stuff. When I was done, the paper would be filled with tons of marks! They called me "The Hatchet Man." Especially in Okinawa, when were writing the Newsletter, I was the editor, making the last corrections before printing. Of course, while studying for the GED I finally learned how to write. They can criticize my writing style (often to flowery and Tolkien-influenced) but they can't get me on the grammar & spelling. Of course, on the 'Cat, that all goes out the window!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: MMario
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:10 PM

Mbo - that last sentence fragment saved you a big bunch of ribbing, you better believe it!

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:14 PM

>(often to flowery and Tolkien-influenced) but they can't >get me on the grammar & spelling. Of course, on the > 'Cat, that all goes out the window!

All us pickers get the Mudcat Tremor and fatfinger things we would never ordinarily send out. My many offenses, like yours, are not born of ignorance but of haste. Since coming tot he Mudcat I am compelled to squeeze two lifetimes into one spacetime continuum, and it ain't easy!! BTW there is no infinitive form to the verb "flowery". (See above). But if we need one for a song, I'll make an exception!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Caitrin
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:21 PM

Mbo...that is sick. Sick, sick, sick. : ) People who do grammar exercises for fun should have their heads examined!

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: MMario
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:23 PM

Caitrin, my thoughts exactly!

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Max
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 05:55 PM

Dear God. I appreciate you help up to this point, but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave me alone... again. I thought we discussed this already. We agreed. You get universal control of all normal living beings... and I get all the Mudcatters. Now get out.

Satan, uh, I mean Max.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: paddymac
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 06:13 PM

It's called "stream of consciousness writing". Here, it gets transmitted without the benefit of leisurely review and editing. And then there's that awful confusion between inkerrect spelling and typographic inexactitude. Put them all together and, Akdnweshuiertjs fksn. Not really a problem unless it gets in the way of communicating and, most especially, understanding. Those two "words" don't mean anything - just evidence of twitching fingers. No, no, no. Don't anybody go there. :>)

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mbo
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 06:36 PM

Well, it's not exactly fun....it was either do grammar (which was easy, at least for me), write a composition (Horrible! Most horrible!), or do nothing and get in trouble! And now for my next act, I'm going to extoll the virtues of the semicolon...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 06:49 PM

So you're having part of yours removed or what Meebo? I had a chunk of small intestine removed last May and it didn't seem to make any difference......Lemmee know if the large intestine remval works out for you. Maybe you oughta' practice the colon first. Have someone give you a high colonic.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mbo
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 06:57 PM

'Spaw, with my "condition" I find those jokes not very funny.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 07:02 PM

"If I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep." -George Gordon (Lord Byron)

I live by it....I got more conditions then I want to think about myself.....so they're serious...so what? Whaddya' gonna' do, call a cop? Laugh...can't hurt.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,ddw
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 10:55 PM

Hey, 'Spaw, you can't pull that old colon-cut routine and have us believe you're any less full of it than you used to be.....;-)).

david

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: bbelle
Date: 31 Jan 00 - 11:12 PM

meebo ... if you're the grammar king, I'm the grammar queen. People have paid big bucks to NOT have me grade or edit their papers. Out! Out, I say ... with pregnant pauses, dangling prepositions, run-on sentences, and misused adverbs. The well-written sentence will catch people's emotions; the poorly written sentence will catch their eyes ... moonchild

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:16 AM

Thanks, Moonchild! Maybe I'm not so wacky after all! BTW shouldn't that be dangling participle? And what about "the gerund," which I always say wrong "je-RUND" to annoy people. It kinda sounds like Jerome! :{>

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:32 AM

Amos, I'm sure Mbo is being too kind to tell you, but "flowery" is part of the compound object of the preposition "to," and not part of an infinitive. Weren't you, Mbo? I often tell people that I have a malformation in my brain that causes me to proofread automatically (spelling and grammar, of course). Not the kind of thing that's a big hit at parties, but what can you do?

You all know, don't you, about the time Winston Churchill ended a sentence with five prepositions? He was but a child, and his mother had come upstairs with a bedtime storybook that was not the one he had requested. Little Winnie cried, "Mother, what did you bring the book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?"

Aloha
Mark (closet grammarian)

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:39 AM

Then why did he later say it was something up with which he would not Put? And my B**t is a compound object, too :>)

But not very flowery to! :>)

Thanks for not pointing out my failings Mbo!!! I have enough volunteers for that in real space!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: paddymac
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:40 AM

Arrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhh. We non-grammarian mere mortals surrender. Given gerund gender variation, stimulated dangling participles can be functional.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,ddw
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:40 AM

Wasn't it also Winston Churchill who also, when someone pointed out that he had ended a sentence with a preposition, who replied: "That's the kind of thing up with which I will not put"?

david (who makes his living trying to put other people's writing into something akin to understandable English and still doesn't always get it right).

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:44 AM

'S alright, Amos. The 'Cat is a strange place where the laws of the natural world are constantly defied!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:48 AM

I was specifically told I would NOT be asked back by a high school English teacher whose papers I graded because I was "too hard" on the kids. "They would've been devastated" if she'd given them back their essays I'd graded, because of all the red marks. Really made me mad. There were some kids who had excellent voices, just need guidance in putting it all on paper. This was at the beginning of the year, so they would've had the whole year to learn. I was so PO'd that I called the ehad of the English dept. at our local college. He told me the dumbing down was common and that they had kids coming into their freshman class who couldn't write a decent paragraph if their lives depended on it. My daughter had independent study for several classes from junior high on because she was so bored with what they offered, an that was at what were considered top notch schools here and back East.

katgettingoffofsoapboxnow

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 12:59 AM

Rant on, Kat!! I can't believe the degree of inane stupidity we (collectively) have let loose on our own futures. I hired a writer last year who seemed well qualified by experience to do technical documentation, and she in real fact didn't know the difference between a comma and a semicolon, nor could she use articles correctly; I could vent for a while about this because I felt duped at having to train her in the things she presented herself as knowing, although I didn't want to kick her out because she was good hearted and did work "hard" -- just not very well. For a working adult to be so adrift in basic language skills just boggles my mind!

My daughter, at fifteen, writes a better paragraph than that. But she did not learn it at school.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 01:13 AM

Hey, you guys, I came across a great bargain at Edward Hamilton, Bookseller - it's THE NEW WELL-TEMPERED SENTENCE: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed, by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. It's the funniest grammar book I've ever seen, and it's a steal at $4.95. Well, her Deluxe Transitive Vampire might be funnier, but it's $15.40 at bn.com.
Allow me to give you some examplse of the examples in thse books:

I fondled his lapel before I caressed his socks.
If she capitulates, we will reward her with a lollipop.
The debutante took to the great outdoors as if she'd been raised by wolves.
After the podiatrist pounced on her, he buffed her heels and tweaked her toes.
If this is love, I've made a terrible mistake.
If you let out the cat, I'll let out the last word.

...a bit strange, perhaps, but a great way to learn grammar. Lots of Jerry Silverman songbooks on sale at Hamilton, too.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,Anon
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 02:35 AM

I requested 2 months ago, or more, that poster's return e-mail addresses be given besides any 'handle' one may choose to give or not to give. Just see what we've missed now- God's own e-mail address. I'd love to have it, as there are a few issues I'd like to take with him, or her, or it.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Brendy
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 05:26 AM

I talk to him all the time. His E address is [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 10:38 AM

I suspect this Thread is the OT Catchall Deluxe Off-Thread Trash Compactor, Grinder, and Combination Blender and Can-squasher, all in one neat package for 9.99!! Order yours today!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Hagbardr
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 03:50 PM

I go even higher up. I talk to [e-mail]

What's the difference between God and root?

God is forgiving.

Hagbard

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Caitrin
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 05:21 PM

No wonder my emails weren't going through! I was sending them to heaven.net! That explains it!

Both my parents were English majors. They are absolutely vicious on papers. (Particularly my mother, who, like Mbo, gets a big kick out of grammar. She really enjoyed Latin, too. Personally, I think anyone who describes the ablative absolute as "fun" has problems.) However, I appreciate the fact that they've been hard on me...my writing is much, much, much better as a result. I'm good at grammar, but I don't like it. The only grammatical error that really bothers me is pronoun/antecedent disagreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 05:29 PM

C:

Bless them for holding a line on it. I'm a great believer in the dynamic flux of living language and the color and rhythm of plain talk. But there is a faint, fine line between extending the language, stretching it in positive ways, and abusing it.

Sometimes it is hard to make the distinction. But my sense is one needs to pay the dues of learning the real scope and discipline of the language he inherits, in order to build from there. I hate to see our beautiful tongue made less just because of crass habits, laziness, and the refusal to know how it works.

It just plain distressses me -- like seeing someone scratch up a Martin, our pound nails with a crescent wrench.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: bbelle
Date: 01 Feb 00 - 08:51 PM

Caitrin (what a pretty name) ... I, too, took four years of Latin. "My mother made me ...!"

Regarding the posting of one's email address. In case you don't read or listen to the news, there are people out in cyberspace who stalk. There are people out in cyberspace who murder. There are people out in cyberspace who lure children out of their homes. If you don't feel the need for protection or that anyone else needs protection, bully for you. I do ... moonchild

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,of a Guest
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:01 AM

My experience has been that the most insipid of writers are those who are the proof editors; they have the mechanics down, but their content is as dry as the western prairie winds, it is as if they can only connect with a tumbleweed, and of course, they consider themselves to be the gods of the writer's world.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Robo
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:28 AM

The proof, it's said, is in the pudding. Any writer worth his or her salt thanks his editor. Copy?

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Robo
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:30 AM

"Make that 'his or her editor.'

-- Rob-o's proofreader.

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: Áine
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:33 AM

Exactly Rob-o -- Even 'God' can make mistakes. Take for example the title of this thread. Shouldn't it have been 'Coming CLEAN about all the song requests'???

-- Áine

(Those who have a good story to tell, write. Those who know how to make a good story great, edit.)

Subject: RE: BS: Coming Clear about all the song requests
From: GUEST,songster bob
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 12:47 AM

That email address for God -- [e-mail] -- is probably wrong. It should be [e-mail], and be thankful that it's not (Moral Majority types notwithstanding) [e-mail].

Bob Clayton