Friday, January 07, 2005
Year End Tunings
At the end of each year radio stations like to have a countdown of the best songs of that year. Since obviously no one knows more about music than I*, I traditionally like to choose my own best song of the year. Of course, I have been out of the popular music loop for awhile, so I realized that I could only offer the best Christian rock song of 2004. Which I decided was... huh. Well there was... hmm.
I rather liked "Blessed Be Your Name" by Tree63, but it was played so often on the radio that I began to change the station every time I heard it. "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl was quite catchy but I don't know that it deserves "Best Song of the Year." Incidentally, my favorite Christian radio station named these as songs 1 and 2 of 2004, which somewhat defeats the purpose of my exercise.
So I'm faced with the idea that I've been listening to Christian music for a year and a half and I'm not even sure I like it. I miss Radiohead. So hell wit it... I'm listening to "I Might Be Wrong Live Recordings" right now (for you who wanted to know, and you know who you are.)
Back to the narrative, it occurred to me, "How about something off the new U2 album?" Umm... no. The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" is nice, but my sources indicate it to be 2002 vintage. There's an obscure little band called Cool Hand Luke with the intriguing number, "Cinematic," which I almost choose, but no, on careful reflection I'm going with "Vindicated" by Dashboard Confessional. They just don't write 'em like that anymore...
*I actually had to search online to figure out if "I," "me," or "myself" was correct here. There was a long description involving "who/whom" and "predicate nominative," which, being a product of public education, I naturally didn't understand. I was all ready to go with "me," because it seemed like it was the indirect object of the sentence, but then I found another site that spoke more to my specific situation, and it stated that it really hinges on whether "than" is considered a conjunction or a preposition, which grammarians are apparently arguing over even as we speak. So I'm going with "I," even against the advice of an English major friend, because I think it sounds better, and it's really a lot of concern for a statement that wasn't all that funny to begin with. So if anyone knows for sure, I would love to hear it. "Yes, but what about all of the other grammatical mistakes," you ask? Well... I don't care about thems.
I rather liked "Blessed Be Your Name" by Tree63, but it was played so often on the radio that I began to change the station every time I heard it. "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl was quite catchy but I don't know that it deserves "Best Song of the Year." Incidentally, my favorite Christian radio station named these as songs 1 and 2 of 2004, which somewhat defeats the purpose of my exercise.
So I'm faced with the idea that I've been listening to Christian music for a year and a half and I'm not even sure I like it. I miss Radiohead. So hell wit it... I'm listening to "I Might Be Wrong Live Recordings" right now (for you who wanted to know, and you know who you are.)
Back to the narrative, it occurred to me, "How about something off the new U2 album?" Umm... no. The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" is nice, but my sources indicate it to be 2002 vintage. There's an obscure little band called Cool Hand Luke with the intriguing number, "Cinematic," which I almost choose, but no, on careful reflection I'm going with "Vindicated" by Dashboard Confessional. They just don't write 'em like that anymore...
*I actually had to search online to figure out if "I," "me," or "myself" was correct here. There was a long description involving "who/whom" and "predicate nominative," which, being a product of public education, I naturally didn't understand. I was all ready to go with "me," because it seemed like it was the indirect object of the sentence, but then I found another site that spoke more to my specific situation, and it stated that it really hinges on whether "than" is considered a conjunction or a preposition, which grammarians are apparently arguing over even as we speak. So I'm going with "I," even against the advice of an English major friend, because I think it sounds better, and it's really a lot of concern for a statement that wasn't all that funny to begin with. So if anyone knows for sure, I would love to hear it. "Yes, but what about all of the other grammatical mistakes," you ask? Well... I don't care about thems.
Comments:
On further reflection I would recommend "No one knows more about music than I do". The sentence you really want is "There is not anyone who knows more about music than I know about music"- which of course sounds awful, and the question is how to use pronouns properly to make it sound better.
If you use 'me', you run the risk of people thinking you meant "No one knows more about music than they know about me". If you use "No one knows more about music than I", I think you may be correct, but it sounds confusing to me, since you are using the personal pronoun "I" to anaphorically refer to a clause, and not just a subject. I prefer "No one knows more about music than I do" since it makes this anaphoric reference easier to parse, since you are asked only to substitute the previous verb phrase for the 'do', rather than add the phrase to the new subject 'I'.
You could compare your sentence with a sentence like "no one knows more about music than Timoth", which would be ok, but is more ambiguous than "no one knows more about music than Timoth does". But your sentence is more difficult than either of these sentence because if we use the word "Timoth" we do not face the question of whether to use me or I.
If we substitute another (simpler) sentence for yours, it is a question of whether to use "Timoth knows more about music than me" or "Timoth knows more about music than I do". Let me compare this with "Timoth is taller than me", which I think clearly is acceptable. But there is a difference between these two sentences: in "Timoth knows more about music than I do" we want to abbreviate "Timoth knows more about music than I know about music", but in "Timoth is taller than I am" we don't really want to say "Timoth is taller than I am tall". A verb like "is taller than" has a form like f(A,B), where f is a predicate (which can be thought of as a function) that takes 2 inputs (the proper names being described). But a verb like "knows more about music than" has a form more like f(g(A),g(B)), where f is a predicate that relates not proper names but properties of these proper names (i.e., the amount of music they know).
Thus, in the "taller than" case, I would use me (Timoth is taller than me), rather than I (Timoth is taller than I am). In the "knows more about music than" case I would use "I do" ("Timoth knows more about music than I do", or "No one knows more about music than I do") to make it clear that we are comparing the phrases "what timoth knows about music" and "what I know about music", rather than "me" which is both ambiguous and because when I try to anaphorically substitute the phrase I get: Timoth knows more about music than me knows about music. That would be incorrect.
But really I didn't learn any of this stuff as an english major, and I rather doubt that there are rules written anywhere for these things. Its a matter of choice and justification, not right or wrong. If no one knows what the rule is, is it still a rule? We English majors mostly just learned to BS our way out of any situation, and use words like "anaphorically" that keep other people reaching for dictionaries.
I hope this is the longest, biggest waste of time of any of the comments your weblog ever gets.
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If you use 'me', you run the risk of people thinking you meant "No one knows more about music than they know about me". If you use "No one knows more about music than I", I think you may be correct, but it sounds confusing to me, since you are using the personal pronoun "I" to anaphorically refer to a clause, and not just a subject. I prefer "No one knows more about music than I do" since it makes this anaphoric reference easier to parse, since you are asked only to substitute the previous verb phrase for the 'do', rather than add the phrase to the new subject 'I'.
You could compare your sentence with a sentence like "no one knows more about music than Timoth", which would be ok, but is more ambiguous than "no one knows more about music than Timoth does". But your sentence is more difficult than either of these sentence because if we use the word "Timoth" we do not face the question of whether to use me or I.
If we substitute another (simpler) sentence for yours, it is a question of whether to use "Timoth knows more about music than me" or "Timoth knows more about music than I do". Let me compare this with "Timoth is taller than me", which I think clearly is acceptable. But there is a difference between these two sentences: in "Timoth knows more about music than I do" we want to abbreviate "Timoth knows more about music than I know about music", but in "Timoth is taller than I am" we don't really want to say "Timoth is taller than I am tall". A verb like "is taller than" has a form like f(A,B), where f is a predicate (which can be thought of as a function) that takes 2 inputs (the proper names being described). But a verb like "knows more about music than" has a form more like f(g(A),g(B)), where f is a predicate that relates not proper names but properties of these proper names (i.e., the amount of music they know).
Thus, in the "taller than" case, I would use me (Timoth is taller than me), rather than I (Timoth is taller than I am). In the "knows more about music than" case I would use "I do" ("Timoth knows more about music than I do", or "No one knows more about music than I do") to make it clear that we are comparing the phrases "what timoth knows about music" and "what I know about music", rather than "me" which is both ambiguous and because when I try to anaphorically substitute the phrase I get: Timoth knows more about music than me knows about music. That would be incorrect.
But really I didn't learn any of this stuff as an english major, and I rather doubt that there are rules written anywhere for these things. Its a matter of choice and justification, not right or wrong. If no one knows what the rule is, is it still a rule? We English majors mostly just learned to BS our way out of any situation, and use words like "anaphorically" that keep other people reaching for dictionaries.
I hope this is the longest, biggest waste of time of any of the comments your weblog ever gets.
