> A small research grant in the offing maybe? Then the Rodent School Of
> Instantaneous Linguistics? I see a bright future for you in my crystal
> bowl.
>
> Roger
For some reason, this reminds me that I was trained in the sixties in the
Wrong School of linguistics -- scale-category grammar rather than
transformational grammar.
[It was only when I arrived at York that I discovered that Noam Chomsky
wasn't *simply an incisive and witty political commentator, author of
+American Power and The New Mandarins+. Talk about parochial ... ]
So when the rest of the world was devouring +Aspects of the Theory of
Syntax+, I was trying to get my head around "Theories of a category of
grammar".
Bloody Maoist linguistics -- only Glasgow, Edinburgh and London taught
Halliday and MacIntosh, while the rest of the universe was into
transformational grammar.
[Hey, anyone on the list able to get their head round Andrew Radcliff's
+minimalist linguistics+? And able to explain this to me? I knew a
linguist wance was taught by Radcliff, but she's no longer speaking to me.
Way it goes.]
M.A.K.Halliday is interesting to do a where-are-they-now? trace on. Or
perhaps to only someone with my chronological and geographical background.
He seemed to drop out of sight, even in Glasgow, some time in the seventies,
and as far as I know never gets mentioned in most linguistic circles.
[He really was a card-carrying Maoist, but I don't know if this is
connected.]
Maybe five years ago, gap of more than twenty years, I was reading Rosemary
Huisman's +the written poem+ (another book worth looking at) and turns out
he's teaching in Sydney University, and still writing books.
Except that they're intelligible now.
No wonder he isn't mentioned in linguistic circles.
Which brings me to a sticker recently seen on the cover of a cheap
notepad -- "My other notebook is a moleskin."
Anyone who happens to be in Tesco at the moment can fire their creativity
for only £1.45. That's what it currently costs there buy a fountain pen
with four ink cartridges [47p] and a 200 page (80 gms) ring-bound
microperforated A5 notebook [98p].
Is this the end of capitalism as we know it? For the life of me, I can't
see how this makes any kind of commercial sense but I'm not about to argue.
... not mean but careful ...
RR.
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