On 11/13/2014 9:46 PM, ChrisB wrote:
Oh my sainted aunt!
Mostly I just like the phrase If I have to pick, I'll pick my great aunt Etta.
I had no idea my post would kick up such a firestorm. Not that I mind. ;-)
But it got all serious! :-)
It was supposed to be a little funny bit, a take-off on McLuhan's famous dictum.
As to the grammar, Chris is quite correct:
"And if the quote had been in inverted commas the tense could have been the present – as you point out. But since Moose
wrote it as reported speech, i.e. without quotes, the tenses should have matched."
As he didn't actually say what I tongue-in-cheek attributed to him, I choose to eschew quotation marks (Inverted commas,
it appears, in Brit speak.)
Had I used ironic quotations marks, everyone would have known it was a joke, which would take all the fun out of an
obscure reference funny.
That no one apparently got the joke, and the thread spun off into grammar, is a shame, as his thoughts on media are
worth thinking about.
Miss Quoting Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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