Posts by Ron Davis
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
"Inetrfaith dialogue"
I guess the fact remains that even the evangelicals and bigots (not necessarily interchangeable terms) can vote. Particularly, Pacific Islanders are heavily influenced by their churches, and specific churches hold sway on specific Island groups. The "interfaith" bit probably panders to the island groupings more than to faith per se. There could be a certain kind of wisdom in the (shadow) ministry title, although it kind of escapes me at present. -
Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Matt Crawford,
"I think it (Mahuta's achievement within Maoridom) has come at the expense of her profile at the national level"
Thank you for a sensible comment on the issue I had wondered about briefly and without particular judgment much earlier, and that had invited Giovanni Tiso's unhelpful personal attack in response.
And if Mahuta was indeed responsible largely for the return of the Maori vote to Labour as somebody else has suggested, then I salute her. However I did think that that was as much a consequence of a degree of self destruction within the Mana and Maori parties as well as the hard work of all the (now) Maori Labour members.
But, as before, I make no particular claim about it. And it was dyslexia that confused Mahuta and Huata earlier on, not a deliberate discourtesy.
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Sacha,
Can't deny any of that. Kia kaha.
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Sacha,
Thanks for picking up the cudgel re Mahuta's accomplishments Sacha. But, for your trouble you have now invited the beginnings of ad hominem arguments about negative attitudes to both Maori and women, which one struggles to discover in your postings. Life, huh?
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I've posted an apology for misnaming Mahuta in response to RB. "Snide" needs explaining. Do you know of significant House performances by Mahuta that've passed me by maybe?
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Russell Brown,
OMG. Yes, of course. Apologies to both.
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Hard News: Team Little: pretty good, in reply to Russell Brown,
Robertson committed himself unequivocally to the policy core while on the leadership hustings. I also picked up that Little and Parker had become buddies during the same period of shared transport and overnight lodgings, and have a date to go skiing together next season. Little also allowed that his views on CGT and super entitlement were his at this point, seeming to hint that the majority view would always be adhered to. There's a lot of water to go under those particular bridges before the party hardens up on its next policy platform.
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The "use by" date of Little's first lineup is a master stroke. A year is time enough for rewards to outlive their geneses, and punishments to outlive their purposes. Thus, should Huata's effectiveness in the House match her history, she can be quietly relegated, and Parker can be promoted without too much rancour, as well as the undoubtedly effective Jacinda. King will gracefully stand aside for Robertson and there we have it: as good a chance as Labour is likely to get two years later to take the treasury benches.
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Hard News: News from home ..., in reply to NSA,
Oh, and by the way. Anyone want to see great holes blown in the battlements of the self aggrandising grammar police? And a good chuckle as well? Borrow a copy of Fowler's "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage".
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Hard News: News from home ..., in reply to NSA,
"Prescriptivists...Give us another grammar lesson."
Beware what you wish for. Those righteous grammar police with 6th form English under their belts do indeed tend to the prescriptive. But, English speakers, lacking a recognized language authority to officially prescribe usage for them (unlike the French), should recognize that what they call "rules" of grammar are not rules in the sense that laws of state are.
"Rules" of English grammar, were they derived from the language as it is used today, would often appear to differ markedly from the "rules" formulated in late 19th century Britain which dominate the thinking of today's language moralists. Back then you did not end a sentence with a preposition, now it's acceptable. Back then you did not split the infinitive, now you do. An example of that sits several lines back which I guarantee nobody so much as turned a hair (hare?) at. <Oops, and there's a pesky concluding preposition.
The sentence "s/he's a man I could have a beer with" also ends with a preposition, but didn't excite much debate on that count. The sentence made sense in every respect of the language because "context" is the final arbiter of meaning in any language - both for words as well as clauses.
So, the sentence was not, practically speaking, so much a grammar teaser as a poser for analytical philosophy. You done good, NSA. You don't need no grammar lessons.