a list!

[fox]

1. As I was saying to wordplay yesterday, the third week of the hormonal cycle can bite me. Dear endocrines, what are you on about?, it's actually better that we're not ovulating, so stop making me so cranky kthx. [eta2: My GOD, I am not normally like a chocolate fiend, but for the past 48 hours, I've been, like, I am ready to turn my pen or my phone or my left hand into chocolate and then eat that. AUGH. Hormones SUCK. (And was it last week?, I pinged wordplay to say "I WANT PIZZA LIKE BREATHING but only about three bites, which makes it not at all worth having a whole pizza delivered", and she promised that when she rules the world, there will be pizza delivery by the slice. The fact that this is not yet available makes me suspect she is not yet our new benevolent overlord. [eta3: Overlady?])]

2. First rehearsal of the season last night, and -- oh, dear. Well, look -- just because the man was a Beatle and his choral music is what some (including our chorus master) might call overt, doesn't mean he wasn't sincere. No doubt we'll get all the snickering out of our system (including the director, who at the point of the gratuitous key change -- and, incidentally, when you modulate for dramatic effect, who modulates down?! -- turned and looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrow at the above chorus master, and some of us had to change how we were holding our music so we could get through it without laughing at them) during the rehearsal process, so that in the performance we can sing it as it's meant.

3. I've had it with my camera. It's not the fact that it only has 3.1 megapixels that gets to me -- what non-professional needs more, really -- but the slow shutter speed is annoying and the fact that it eats batteries is making me crazy. Fully-charged batteries (relatively new and just out of the charger) almost completely drained after five or six pictures the other day. NOT ON. So please feel free to recommend me something (a) less battery-demanding and (b) smaller, in physical dimensions, because being able to put the thing in my pocket would be relatively cool.

[eta: 3a. Look how I just used "recommend" with a dative object but no preposition. Is that normal? Hmm, trivalent verbs:

VERB + NP(acc) + PP(=P+NP(dat))
VERB + NP(dat) + NP(acc)

So, "I gave the book to him" or "I gave him the book" (the examples are always "give" and "book"; I don't know why). "I sent the minions to her" or "I sent her the minions".

It's not a question of whether verbs can do this, in other words -- of course they can. It's a question of whether "recommend" fits in the same class as "send" and "offer" and "present" and the other GIVE-group verbs. Recommending is more of a speech act than a motion act, isn't it? But are there speaking verbs in the GIVE group? Does "tell" fit? ("She told the child a story" or "She told a story to the child".) How about "suggest"? "Propose"? "Submit", which could be more like GIVE or more like TELL, I guess.

Maybe it just feels weird to me because I had a friend as a kid who used to have "explain"+dative, which was really genuinely weird. (*"Explain me how this works.") What do you guys think? Is "recommend me a camera" okay?]

Comments

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

If my brain doesn't fail me, I'll check to see what kind of camera my wife has. The has decent battery life and shutter speed. The shutter speed suffers a bit in low-light conditions, but I think you'd have that problem with most digital cameras.

Oh, and it would definitely fit into your pocket.

[sadcypress.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I missed the look you describe. Probably because I was trying not to snicker into my music. What I keep telling myself is that even though I want to giggle, everything really is coming straight from the heart. As it were. ;) So then I just feel guilty for laughing and sober up until the next time... (but that section with the basses and tenors going back and forth? UNFORGIVEABLE)

Your command of English grammar puts the fear of god into me. ;)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

T was over by us, and R would have had his back to you once he turned to give him the stink-eye, so you likely wouldn't have got the full effect anyway. But, yes, as you say: poor Paul. (But besides the bit you mention, I'm having a hard time with the fact that he wrote in a bit about life being a magic mystery. If there's one word after the interlude about yellow submarines, I'm not doing this concert, Holst and Walton be damned. [g])

When you have three degrees in linguistics, you can ramble about trivalent verbs, too. The question is, will it be worth it?

[sadcypress.livejournal.com]

Seriously. The line with references to both 'Revolver' and 'Magical Mystery Tour' was just... wow. And yes- any hint of a yellow submarine and I will walk with you. ;)

[jumperkid.livejournal.com]

Hi! I am still new and also, nosy. Who do you sing with? (If this is an impertinent question, feel free to smack me with a rolled-up newspaper.)

*uses chocolate-y icon*

[misscake]

My GOD, I am not normally like a chocolate fiend, but for the past 48 hours, I've been, like, I am ready to turn my pen or my phone or my left hand into chocolate and then eat that.

According to this researcher, "...chocolate is a highly desirable food, but which according to social norms should be eaten with restraint...However, attempting to resist the desire to eat chocolate only causes thoughts about chocolate to become more prominent, consequently heightening the desire."

If only the hours spent obsessing about chocolate negated its caloric effects.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

"Recommend me" sounds perfectly reasonable to me, but then as a Southerner I accept a much broader category of verbs as giving verbs. I remember my grandmother saying things like "Bury me this bucket of scraps" and "Sweep me that porch." (I suppose that strictly speaking that's short for 'for me' rather than 'to me.')

"Explain me" sounds weird unless you were playing with words. Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, explain me an explanation.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

Yes, "for me" and "to me" are two different datives, I think -- that is, they're both dative (syntax), but "for me" is Beneficiary and "to me" is Recipient (semantics). And by those lights, "make me a match" and "find me a find" are absolutely unremarkable, because they're both "for" situations instead of "to". I don't think there's a limit on that class -- get me a sandwich, pour me a beer, light me a cigarette, peel me a grape, plant me a tree, spin me a web, build me a house, catch me a fly ball, dig me a tunnel, etc., etc., etc.

Set up us the bomb.

:-)

Anyway. I think the GIVE (and TELL) verbs are different than what you're talking about, and Southern-ness has nothing to do with it, because as I said Recipient vs. Beneficiary. Some semanticist may come in here and tell me I'm wrong, wrong, wrong, however.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hey, are you confident that 'recommend me' isn't actually 'recommend for me' rather than 'recommend to me'? (Of course, that still leaves the problem of why 'explain me' sounds so wrong.)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I actually now think "to" might entail "for" (or, more accurately, Recipient might entail Beneficiary), but not the other way around. I'll have to give it some more thought (and hope a semanticist does wander in -- which might involve pointing wordplay at this entry explicitly [g]). But you're right, it doesn't solve the problem of "*explain me".

Isn't this great?! :-D

Our Digital Camera Model

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

My brain didn't fail me: We have an Olympus FS-230. There were several other good cameras of similar size and quality, but we chose the Olympus because it could use our 2GB memory card.