Favorite Quotes

[Boikat]

"That which does not kill us has made it's last mistake"

I don't remember where I read that.

[wizardahz]

That is usually the first mistake also'

You can't give high octane fuel to people with Volkswagen brains

DR. Albert Hoffman.

[LightBrigade]

“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Obviously Goethe didn't know not to use plural pronouns with singular antecedants. Or something was screwed up in the translation.

Everything is in order in the quotation.

The singular "a person" is here followed by pronouns referring to this noun, "themselves" and "their", appearing in the plural for two reasons.

The speaker is to avoid referring to "a person" as he or she and himself or herself when the pronoun case is necessary. If the speaker used a genre qualifying pronoun, his statement would mean that the genre not mentioned is not a person but a thing.

If he used ... if she used... : because we do not know the genre of the speaker (I have no idea if the famous person were a man or a woman, for example), we prefer to use the noun "the speaker". Fortunately for me, no pronoun is absolutely necessary here.


The second reason is a phenomenon in the English language which influences such utterances and actually facilitates the reference to a person in a neutral way by the application of the plural number in the necessary pronouns which follow. Let us observe.

Everyone has the right to do as they want.

Everyone is a noun which is followed by a verb in a form which supposes that the subject (everyone) is in the third person singular : Everyone has…/He or She has… This is a particularity of the language which springs from other necessities, like the use of everyone in the sense of _every_ _one_ to focus the attention of the listener to each one, each _single_ person.

Because "everyone" refers to a lot of people (collective noun), any use of pronoun may well be in the plural. Everyone has… they…!

A person has a name which they acquire at birth.

To avoid this phenomenon, one may use the Passive Voice since the main purpose the Passive Voice is used, is to omit the doer, the subject of the verb :

A person has a name (which is) acquired at birth. [The parentheses indicate part of the utterance necessary in formal language.]

[LightBrigade]

...You can't give high octane fuel to people with Volkswagen brains. DR. Albert Hoffman.

Volkswagens take 100 octane unleaded. Obviously someone needs to get their records straight and find another object to demean.

Following my exactly previous post :
A.) ... someone needs to get their records ...

Quod Erat Demonstrandum. (QED - What was to be proven.)

B.) To avoid insulting the quoted (and much esteemed) member, I must say:

Volkswagens take 100 octane unleaded. Obviously records need to be corrected and another object to demean must be found. ('Must' is used to avoid the repetition of an already used word, namely 'need'.)

Political correctness governs also the practice of speaking. This is a third reason I admit I meant to avoid mentioning initially.

- - -

Both this and the exactly previous post have made use of references found at LB Cosmic Library.

[wizardahz]

About that I was Quoting Dr Albert Hoffman the inventor of LSD
and his statement was in reference to the fact that a lot of people in the world are not capable of safely consuming that substance. It in no way expresses my personal feeling about VW in fact a a teenager with my dad we built 2150 cc racing motors, ran them in a thing, a camper van, a bus, my dune buggy and multiple bugs.

Bearing that in mind and despite anything I personally may done in the past I do not endorse or encourage the use of any type of mind altering substances, for any reasons.

AHZ

[aldan]

Thing - a rather odd-looking (IMO) Volkswagen automobile that was quite a bit larger than their other car that they were selling here in the USA at the time, which was the Beetle.

Considering the above statements and responses, I was thinking that the quoted meant that he felt that such an action as putting high-octane fuel into a Volkswagen engine wouldn't improve its horsepower (and, at the time, I think that Beetles were not getting 100 horsepower from their engines out of the factory). At the time of when he was quoted, I doubt that VW had created their Rabbit, the Golf, the Jetta, the Vanagon, or even the 'SuperBeetle' (the re-created/adjusted Beetle of, in America at least, 1973. Therefore, his statement was making a point about how he felt that his 'creation' wouldn't help those who were a little less blessed with 'cranial horsepower,' but for those with such ability, it would do well.

Now, this is all my opinion concerning what I think he meant by what he said, and I do not agree with him about how his drug would affect the brains of its users!

[LightBrigade]

'cranial horsepower,' ...

...I do not agree with him about how his drug would affect the brains of its users!

[Merle]

I bow to the literary committee.

Smeg, I plain ole give up. It's all yours.

Q, I apologize to you and everyone else for correcting the grammar in your post. Actually, I was only pointing out that the quote itself was incorrect, and not correcting you yourself. But never mind that. I meant in no way to demean you or anyone else. I humbly ask your forgiveness.

[Qray]

NP, don't sweat it, Merle.

[who me]

it is much easier to be critical than correct.

[Qray]

"Two tees in a bucket..."
-Colloquialism

[aldan]

"cranial horsepower"

What, are you saying 'neigh' to that??