Bromley's blog posts
Confirmation Bias: everything "What's wrong with the world" (aka "to a hammer everything is a nail") [809 words]
(created by Bromley on 2023 Nov 19 Sun 20:10:43 GMT)
GK Chesterton noted that the "upshot" of the title of his study of "What is Wrong with the World" is that "What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right" (see https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm). Chesterton's lengthily investigates the social and economic ills of 1912 England and their right and wrong solutions, much of which is still wrong in the world today. Nevertheless, we can take most seriously that of his introduction, "What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right" -- and we will indeed find so much wrong about and around us. Alas, to know what is "right" is the problem. read more
Imperatives, inflections, declensions and the simple complexity of the English language (grammar) [901 words]
(created by Bromley on 2022 Oct 25 Tue 17:39:38 GMT)
A Reddit users asked what is the grammatical form of the word "stop" in the sentence, "Stop peeling the potatoes": The rule here is that the "imperative" form a verb to express a command, as in "Stop peeling the potatoes" drops the subject, "you", which is implied in the command "stop" (i.e., "You stop!") But it's a good opportunity to build a greater command of English with a deeper look. read more
Infinitives as nouns, adjectives and adverbs (grammar) [682 words]
(created by Bromley on 2022 Oct 25 Tue 17:36:14 GMT)
Infinitives are the "to" form a verb, such as "to do" or "to play". The "to" is called a particle, and it serves to show a verb in the infinitive form. Here's the thing: the infinitive is a verb, but it is not an action verb (known as a "finite" verb). However, it still maintains a "sense" or implication of its verb. Try to think of infinitives, adjective participles and gerunds as "verby." Even if the verb form is acting as another part of speech, it retains its verb-origin quality of action or state of being. We see this use of verbs in "gerunds" and "participle adjectives", which are easier to conceptualize than infinitives. For example, read more