Shakespeare’s language preserves one of English’s most interesting grammatical shifts: the “experiencer shift” in verbs of emotion. Centuries ago these verbs worked backwards from today, and the plays still show the older pattern alive on stage.
In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio brushes off a servant with the line “Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.” He isn’t telling anyone to be scared of boys carrying insects. He means “scare boys with bugbears”. Use imaginary terrors to frighten them.
Jul 29, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Since I'm being contrarian on main, universal literacy and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
I spent a decade being a teacher in public and private schools. For the vast majority of students there is a hard limit to their educability.
(Yes, there's a hard limit to *everyone's* educability but for the vast number of students, what can be taught to them falls off way before senior year. The % who can't be educated past 6th grade is near 50% in public schools I taught at and 0% in private schools I taught at.)
