“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Woman in a Meeting: “I’m sorry, it really feels to me like we’re all equal, you know? I just feel really strongly on this.”
“I have not yet begun to fight.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Dave, I’m not going to fight you on this.”
“I will be heard.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Sorry to interrupt. No, go on, Dave. Finish what you had to say.”
October 13, 2015
Some Interpersonal Verbs, Conjugated by Gender
THE SAMPLE SENTENCES BELOW demonstrate the proper English usage of interpersonal verbs, inflected for mood, tense, and gender.
UNIT 1
He is drinking; he is drunk; he was drunk.
He is just seventeen; he was just seventeen.
Remember that he is just a kid; remember that he was just a kid; you must remember he was just a kid.
He cannot know what he is doing; he could not know what he was doing; he cannot have known what he was doing.
See your way clear to letting this go; you must see your way clear to letting this go.
He has his future ahead of him; he had his future ahead of him.
This will ruin his life; this is going to ruin his life.
He makes a mistake; he made a mistake; people make mistakes; mistakes were made.
He did something; she had something done to her; something happened.
These things happen.
She is drinking; she is drunk; she was drunk.
She is fifteen; she was fifteen.
She is putting herself in this position; she put herself in that position.
She should know better; she should have known better.
She must think about his future; she must think about her future.
She must say nothing; she will say nothing; she says nothing; she said nothing.
What happens here will stay here; what happens here stays here; what happens here stays.
She carries this; she will carry this.
An incident occurred; an incident derailed her life; her life was derailed.
These things happen.
She should not say anything; she will ruin his life; it will not be real unless she says something.
She should not have waited so long to speak; she should have said something; it could not have been real if she did not say anything.
These allegations will ruin his life; making these allegations will ruin someone’s life; she will ruin her life making these allegations.
She went on to lead a productive life, so how bad can it have been?
She did not go on to lead a productive life, so how can we trust what she has to say?
If it is true, why would she want to remain anonymous? Now that we know her name, we are coming to her house.
It happens. It happened. It was a long time ago.
She waits. She says nothing.
She should not have waited. She should not have said nothing.
She remembers it happened. She remembers it happened to her. She remembers he did something.
She says something.
How can she remember? Does she remember? Is it possible to remember? I don’t remember—who can remember?
She wore something. Did she wear something? What did she wear?
Did she drink? Was she drinking?
Did he drink? Was he drinking?
She should have been responsible. He cannot have been responsible.
It is very hard to imagine that anything happened. Did it happen? It was a long time ago. She said nothing.
He does not remember.
He remembers that it did not happen. He remembers that he did nothing. He remembers that he was absent.
UNIT 2 (ADVANCED)
If it happened (although it did not happen), it would not have been wrong.
If it happened (it may have happened; he did not do it, but it may have happened), it was only to be expected.
These things happen. (He did not do it.)
These things happen. (Even if he did it, it was only a thing that sometimes happens.)
We cannot know what happened; she does not know what happened; he knows what happened.
Nothing happens; nothing happened; something happened to her; he did nothing; this is how it always happens.
This is how a thing he did became something that happened to her; this is how something he did becomes something that happens.
This is how this keeps happening.
September 19, 2018
How to Fact-Check
ONE OF THE IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS of journalism is to check facts. Sometimes people make statements that sound true, but in fact are not—and vice versa! The role of the fact-checker—like us, here at FactFind—is to make certain we can tell which is which! Here are a few examples of tricky sentences to fact-check.
The Age of Man Is Over. The Time of the Orc Has Come!
Rating: two truthcicles of a possible five!
It’s very difficult to quantify when an “age” begins and ends. In geologic time, ages last for millions of years, whereas Man has only been here on Middle-earth for a small fraction of that. To say that the Age of Man is over, Man would have to have existed for a long enough period to impact Middle-earth, already a dubious proposition, if you consult any trained geologist. As to the second claim, it is certainly true that Orcs are more numerous now than they have ever been—and the new race of Uruk-hai is making enormous strides! So although nobody has been alive for an Age, it is possible to say with some accuracy that the Orc is having a moment. A full age? Maybe not. Still, this isn’t entirely a false premise. And if men keep faring as badly as they did at Helm’s Deep, they may not be long for this world! By the way, who said this? Was there any more context?
All Newsmen and Immigrants Deserve to Be Burned at the Stake
Rating: three untruth-slices of a possible four!
It’s extremely difficult to state with certainty what anyone deserves, let alone a large, heterogeneous group of people like journalists and immigrants. To do this, you would need a lot of data, much more data than we at FactFind currently possess! Technically, we are journalists, and I sure wouldn’t like to be burned
