Word: grammar
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...thrill of solving the mystery before Chan did but the homely wisdom of the sub-gumshoe, a man who always had an axiom to grind. With articles and conjunctions thrown to the wind, Charlie's observations usually made up in specific gravity what they lacked in grammar...
Women sit by great kettles of food, or display brightly-colored cloths, or guard piles of oranges, bananas, and mangoes. Throngs of people crowd the markets and mill in the little shops where shoes, mahogany products, straw hats, sisal baskets, and old French grammar books are sold. There is movement and excitement in the streets--but the energy has no focus, it leads nowhere...
...Animal. Basically, linguistics is the study of the underlying principles of language. The discipline concerns itself with dissecting the grammar and logic of the world's languages, tracing their shifting patterns and distribution, studying their impact on individuals, groups and institutions. Ultimately, it seeks to explain the ages-old mystery of precisely how and why man developed the unique facility of speech as an expression of thought, which, more than any other activity, separates him from animals...
...Chomsky school, as it happens, is not much interested in whether linguistics is much of a help in teaching grammar. It is, says his M.I.T. colleague Jerry A. Fodor, "like teaching the driver of a car the theory of the internal-combustion engine before letting him drive." Chomsky's own goal is far grander than grammar: to refine a philosophy of language and to fathom the workings of the mind. But he is not arrogant about his task. "It may be beyond the limits of human intelligence," he sighs, "to understand how human intelligence works...
...children and adults, watch TV to degrees that the TIME article would find "excessive." Excessive anything-smoking, drinking, pogo-stick jumping-can be indicative of personal problems. Excessive TV viewing may also be indicative of great interest, and serves as the greatest educator since the invention of the Latin grammar school...