Ok, so its a primative question.. but still, Its bothering me.

Doing some Macbeth work.. and I cant quite get the possesion of some words down..

like..

"Macbeths greed"
Is it
"Macbeth's greed"?
Doesnt the " 's " signify 'Macbeth is'

Next... "Confusion in the lifes of Macbeth"

life's
lives
lifes

???

Dankie!!

Andrew

"Macbeth's greed." The same way you would say "Andrew's car." And I believe it's "Confusion in the lives of Macbeth," unless I'm reading it wrong.

Maybe?

Ok, well i was right on the lives part.. lol

Thanks!!!!

In the case of posessives, the 's is not a contraction of is, it is a contraction of his. In the old times, they would say "a man his dog" but today we contract it to "a man's dog".

I know this is useless information to you, but you should really avoid reading Shakespeare. It'll rot you brain.


Andrew

I was so sick of everyone telling me Shakespeare was so great... its the SAME STORY over and over again. I'll take a well written post modern short story any day.

Andrew, what are you studying again? Arent you almost done with those english classes?

Hmmmm.....that's odd, I thought the official language in CA was Spanish...or was it Tagala! (okay....the Tagala reference is only funny if you live near a Naval Base )

I did bueno on the SATs and my honors english classes. I dont think literature should be taught in a class room... but thats just me.

Matt, if you don't like Shakespeare, your teacher isn't working at showing you the wit.

The idea is, you SEE the wit, and it inspires you to be witty. Language is a game, and a fun one!

Here, like this breakdown of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner teaches.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridg...nt_Mariner.html

I never understood the story, 'til a crazy person, that had committed it to memory explained. Holy shit! You mean the ship was going south? I'd have never known!

That was maybe 23 years ago, and I am a different person, for the cause of it. I think it may even be the basis of my love of higher knowledge I ended up with around that time.. when I had thought there was nothing more to it.

"I conjure you, by that which you profess, Howe'er you come to know it, answer me!"

And that is how, but how I do loathe the poet. Flowery crap, without the meaning, SUCKS ROCKS.


M

Oh, I see Miles!

Kind of like:

There was a young man from Nantucket....



Okay....maybe not.

To drinketh another ale, or not to drinketh another ale....that is the question.
Hark..I hear yon wenc....ummm..fair maiden calleth thee, to bedeth I headeth.

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 22 2005, 02:07 AM)

Is it "Macbeth's greed"? Next... "Confusion in the lifes of Macbeth" life's lives lifes

primItive. work on your spelling too :-) ...
oh - and it's grammAr -- grammer is your father's mother...

you want confusing ?

if it is PLURAL - as in, we are talking about ALL the Macbeths -- it would be
Macbeths' greed. Possessive-plural moves the possessive apostrophe after the plural s.

one of life's (possessive) mysteries is that "life's (contraction) but a dream" and cats have nine lives (plural).

so - it all depends on what you're trying to say in the context.

personally, i recommend the New York Times Style Guide and Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." these are VERY slim books that contain concise examples in context of the most common usage problems.

probably not one person in a hundred uses 'comprise' properly.
remember this: "The whole comprises the parts."

Why Miles you do occupy your mind! After numerous posts of folks poking fun at you as if you where a drug induced, burned out hull of a rocker. Not so say I...not so!

Seriously I know Shakespeare was doing it all for the liturary and entertainment effect. Couldn't he just wrote the stuff so people didn't have to hire a professor to decypher it?

Oh I had it in school, but I also recall falling asleep more than once.
In other words I'm just too damn dumb to understand it....so therefore I slumber

As a confirmed ridge runner from Virginia, we don't cotton to Shakespeare too much.
That feller just talks too dang funny.........

and anyway, i was quite disappointed with "Romeo and Juliet" since it was such an obvious ripoff of "West Side Story" ...

QUOTE (Steve Thacker @ Mar 22 2005, 02:52 AM)

Why Miles you do occupy your mind! After numerous posts of folks poking fun at you as if you where a drug induced, burned out hull of a rocker. Not so say I...not so! Seriously I know Shakespeare was doing it all for the liturary and entertainment effect. Couldn't he just wrote the stuff so people didn't have to hire a professor to decypher it? Oh I had it in school, but I also recall falling asleep more than once. In other words I'm just too damn dumb to understand it....so therefore I slumber As a confirmed ridge runner from Virginia, we don't cotton to Shakespeare too much. That feller just talks too dang funny.........

I have to agree, Miles, you just blew me away, I didnt know you had it in you. Wonders never cease. If you continue to do that and say things like that, people are going to think you are intelligent and lose their long standing impression of you. Are you sure you want to do that??

QUOTE (skline @ Mar 22 2005, 07:02 AM)

QUOTE (Steve Thacker @ Mar 22 2005, 02:52 AM) Why Miles you do occupy your mind!  After numerous posts of folks poking fun at you as if you where a drug induced, burned out hull of a rocker. Not so say I...not so! Seriously I know Shakespeare was doing it all for the liturary and entertainment effect. Couldn't he just wrote the stuff so people didn't have to hire a professor to decypher it? Oh I had it in school, but I also recall falling asleep more than once. In other words I'm just too damn dumb to understand it....so therefore I slumber  :D As a confirmed ridge runner from Virginia, we don't cotton to Shakespeare too much. That feller just talks too dang funny......... I have to agree, Miles, you just blew me away, I didnt know you had it in you. Wonders never cease. If you continue to do that and say things like that, people are going to think you are intelligent and lose their long standing impression of you. Are you sure you want to do that??

I on the other hand am not surprised... You don't do the things Miles has done, and go the places he's been because you know three cords on a stringed insturment. Miles shows his literary side alot if you read between the text.

QUOTE (Special_K @ Mar 22 2005, 12:05 AM)

Hmmmm.....that's odd, I thought the official language in CA was Spanish...or was it Tagala! (okay....the Tagala reference is only funny if you live near a Naval Base )

That would be "Tagalog" ....................... The Cap'n

indeed -- miles is a sharp cookie, but probably not too tasty.

english in elizabethan england showed its germanic roots more than today, so things will be *different*. don't get hung up on that, these are extraordinary works, and very witty as miles said.


on that note, one thing that has always bugged me is the nailed thread: "Members 914 pictures". should it not be, "Members' 914 pictures"?

QUOTE (ArtechnikA @ Mar 22 2005, 02:34 AM)

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 22 2005, 02:07 AM) Is it "Macbeth's greed"? Next... "Confusion in the lifes of Macbeth" life's lives lifes primItive. work on your spelling too :-) ... oh - and it's grammAr -- grammer is your father's mother... you want confusing ? if it is PLURAL - as in, we are talking about ALL the Macbeths -- it would be Macbeths' greed. Possessive-plural moves the possessive apostrophe after the plural s. one of life's (possessive) mysteries is that "life's (contraction) but a dream" and cats have nine lives (plural). so - it all depends on what you're trying to say in the context. personally, i recommend the New York Times Style Guide and Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." these are VERY slim books that contain concise examples in context of the most common usage problems. probably not one person in a hundred uses 'comprise' properly. remember this: "The whole comprises the parts."

The language is full of all kinds of oddball rules.

In possessives, the usual rule is 's for singular, s' for plural or if the word naturally ends in an s. If someone is named "Wood", then "Wood's" is correct. If someone is named "Woods", then "Woods'" is correct. However, if we're talking about a family named Wood, then it's "Woods'". It's also "Woods'" if we're talking about a family named "Woods", as the plurals don't get added together with the natural "s" ending. Thus, "Woods's" is always incorrect.

The exception is "it". Here, the possessive has NO apostrophe: its. You see "it's", but that's a contraction of "it is", not the possessive form of "that belongs to it".

btw, all of this is American usage. British usage is somewhat different, which may explain Shakespeare. In Britain, the apostrophe is dropped in some cases. For example, the name of a firm is often pluralized (pluralised) w/o the apostrophe. A company owned by someone named Wood would be Woods. If it were owned by someone named Woods, however, it would still just be Woods. The apostrophe is never used. In Shakespeare's time, rules for spelling, grammar, and usage were still informal and not universally followed. There were no comprehensive dictionaries of any language, let alone English (Samuel Johnson wrote the first one around 150 years after Shakespeare died). Spelling and usage are still changing today. As recently as the early 20th century, the British spelling for "connection" was "connexion", which has only recently fallen out of favor for the American spelling.

QUOTE (Cap'n Krusty @ Mar 22 2005, 07:35 AM)

QUOTE (Special_K @ Mar 22 2005, 12:05 AM) Hmmmm.....that's odd, I thought the official language in CA was Spanish...or was it Tagala! (okay....the Tagala reference is only funny if you live near a Naval Base  ;) ) That would be "Tagalog" ....................... The Cap'n

Uhh...yeah....Tagalog.....never could understand those LBFM's.

Thanks Cap'n

P.S. - Way to go Miles, you blew your cover , so much for the witness relocation program!

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Mar 22 2005, 09:04 AM)

Thus, "Woods's" is always incorrect.

Not according to Strunk and White.

Page 1, Rule 1, Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's.

Charles's friend
Burns's poem

Joe Woods's 914 had so much rust he had no choice but to part it out.

-Jeff

Lol, thanks for all your help guys, Its been turned in..

Boy you guys get off topic fast

QUOTE (redshift @ Mar 22 2005, 12:24 AM)

Matt, if you don't like Shakespeare, your teacher isn't working at showing you the wit. The idea is, you SEE the wit, and it inspires you to be witty. Language is a game, and a fun one!

Literature is more than just the wit. Chaucer is witty, does that make him great? I am much more a fan of post modern american literature though and they often conflict. Think Shakespeare "What?s in a name? That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." versus Ezra Pound "a rose, is a rose, is a rose".

One of my lit teachers in high school was a HUGE Shakespeare fan, but I still dont like him.

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 22 2005, 01:37 PM)

Lol, thanks for all your help guys, Its been turned in.. Boy you guys get off topic fast

Don't you mean it's been turned in? Didn't we teach you anything???

QUOTE (nebreitling @ Mar 22 2005, 07:39 AM)

one thing that has always bugged me is the nailed thread: "Members 914 pictures". should it not be, "Members' 914 pictures"?

Yup. Members' 914 pictures it should be...

These things are a bother.... Macbeth owned a 914, of that, I am sure.

-look of horror-

'These hands....'...


Macmiles' retort

Yeah, a day of working on a 914 and i wash my hands but they never come clean. But I dont think it has anything to do with guilt, just 30 years of road grime and a bad push rod tube seal.

QUOTE (Special_K @ Mar 22 2005, 12:05 AM)

Hmmmm.....that's odd, I thought the official language in CA was Spanish...or was it Tagala! (okay....the Tagala reference is only funny if you live near a Naval Base  ;) )

You mean like...."five dolla..love you long time Joe!"

Lisa

Two comments about this thread:

1) I'm surprised that so many are surprised (about Miles). Anyone who doesn't recognize that Miles is very inteligent isn't reading closely. Every time he writes something I study it for the wit (sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden). I'm rarely dissapointed.

2) Let's keep the ethnic/racial talk respectful. Hindi mo alam kung sino ang makikinig. (You never know who's listening.) *

-Ben M.

*I'm not Pinoy, but I've been around.

I'm just a refined smartass, respectfully.


M

QUOTE (airsix @ Mar 22 2005, 07:45 PM)

2) Let's keep the ethnic/racial talk respectful. Hindi mo alam kung sino ang makikinig. (You never know who's listening.) *

Noted ...my apologies.

and as for Miles' user name -

"The Cosmological Redshift is a redshift caused by the expansion of space. The wavelength of light increases as it traverses the expanding universe between its point of emission and its point of detection by the same amount that space has expanded during the crossing time. "


......

AHA!

And that is where I picked this name from.


M

Gee.......I thought Redshift was your real name and Miles was a alias.

Or you were a fan of the UK band.......... http://www.redshift.biz/

Never heard of 'em..

This board is full of people who can better than half-way think their way out of a wet paper sack..

all in one breath... back to bed now..


m

The problem with Shakespeare, well at least his plays, is that they are plays. You drone along in iambic pentameter, reading the words and not acting the words. The tragedies are tragic and the comedies, well, its a comedy if everyone winds up married in the end, are also tragic.

You want non-flowery prose, read Hemingway. A contemporary of Ezra Pound (aforementioned), he created IMHO the best writing style of the 20th century. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is one of my favorites. That might tell you something of my sense of humor.

BTW: Iago was a fag.

Vonnegut! Otis Redding, Barry Goldwater....

Leonard Bernstein, wow... his lectures on asthetics, and music as a language, at Harvard!

"The Unanswered question : six talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein"

I am shivering just thinking about him holding his hands out... and the music begins.... I could write all day about Bernstein, he is my idol.

Seriously, another life changing event..


M

Ok, you people are getting WAY too deep for me...it's freaking me out!

I'm all about education and junk, but when I come here, I expect to see guys cursing at 30yr old car parts, boobie avitars, fart jokes, and little smilies giving me the finger!

Again, I am amazed and confused by this club.

Oh, almost forgot...

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"
-HS Thompson

(I also like Kurt V., and what about Jack Kerouac?)