Shakespeare, Hardy, Dickens, and more recently people like Rowling

Wow, what a way to put “decline and fall” in perspective.

À propos, being acquainted with the breadth your spelling abilities, I was unsure when you described “an American with a large lexis,” whether you were acknowledging our superior vocabularies or decrying our taste in luxury cars (the plastic ones that we patrol our property with and wave guns at people from).

Oh and P.S.

I sincerely hope the new MoD will enforce some disciplinary actions on you people.

Whatcha talkin bout “you people”? :evil

@Dragoon

Wow, what a way to put “decline and fall” in perspective.

Are you arguing that the author of a series of books which have sold in numbers world wide second only to the bible is an all time low for Britain?

À propos, being acquainted with the breadth your spelling abilities, I was unsure when you described “an American with a large lexis,” whether you were acknowledging our superior vocabularies or decrying our taste in luxury cars (the plastic ones that we patrol our property with and wave guns at people from).

You disagree with me pointing out to Tim that not all Americans are simple and not all Brits speak Elizabethan?

“Dictionary.com” wrote: Lexis:
–noun Linguistics.
the vocabulary of a language, as distinct from its grammar; the total stock of words and idiomatic combinations of them in a language; lexicon.

@Tim

“Tim” wrote: Like I said, if you could lock their IPs and prevent them from going back and lying about their age, you’re fine.

1) You never said anything about IP’s.

2) IP’s are ludicrously easy to change.

3) You have no idea when an IP address will “come of age”.

You haven’t read much american literature have you? Twain? Vonnegut? Hemmingway? Joseph Heller? I don’t care whether you are of the “inventors of the english language”, that doesn’t automatically mean you can write better.

America is not world famous for it’s literature. Ask someone from anywhere in the world to name a famous author and I’m guessing Dickens will spring to mind long before Heller. Could you also point out anywhere where I have said that inventing something immediately makes you best at it? Oh yeah, and you missed Steinbeck.

Why not picking up an american novel once in a while? I’ve read more english novels than I have read American novels and I sure as hell know which kind of writing I prefer.

If more Americans read British than British (or anyone else) read American, what does that tell you? Are you really going to argue that an author’s style of writing is solely dependant on which side of the Atlantic you come from?

And do you remember that the a large portion of americans have english blood, except an upgraded, updated, awesome-ized version of english blood? Have you considered that my sonny bucko boy playa hata?

I have read and re-read that, and have failed to find anything that warrants a reply. I’ll give you this instead.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I don’t really think I need to explain myself, but I’m not actually being serious about the ban everyone under 13, if you couldn’t tell.

Well there’s a turn up for the books…

Legoman, who actually comes from Austria and has never read an English novel in his life.

And PS, Cometgreen wins the thread.

No, you are.

Oh, thats nice to know… I’ll stop bashing Tim for being so naive now that I apparently share his views.

This is especially clear when you were somehow unable to differentiate between using a lot of adjectives in a row and being a good writer.

Sorry, what?

“Tim, managing to merge the subject of words which where to long for him with literature, and amazingly managing to compare a famous author with a post in a forum” wrote: No. Using a redundant number of adjectives does not help your cause, bucko. Please read some american literature, like Vonnegut. Such authors don’t abuse the english language with an annoying number of descriptions and adjectives.

Also when you attempt to settle the America vs. UK debate by comparing Dickens and Joseph Heller (seems slightly out of balance since you get a national icon and we get a one-hit wonder).

Replace Heller with any author you like.

Legoman, noting that it was in fact Tim that sent us on this nationalistic tangent.

No more so than Dragoon, Cometgreen, Lech or you. :shrug: