If Only I Had Bloopers

After thirty - seven attempts (and counting), I finally achieved what I think is a video blog. But you know what they say, thirty -  eight is the charm.

Just by the way  if I had bloopers this wouldn't be considered a blog about Tony Morrison's Song of Solomon, but a comedic one.

A Descriptivist Way

What are dangling modifiers? 

Do you know?

Does anyone know?

Is it even necessary to know?

The truth is I had no idea what a dangling modifier is before I read the blog in The New York Times. Even after reading the blog, I still had confused thoughts of its real meaning. What I understood as dangling modifier after reading this article is that a dangling modifier, is one that tries to "modify" a certain part of a sentence but it ends up modifying another one that wasn't wrong in the first place. I'm not sure if this is what a dangling modifier is, but with a little help of my friends (google) I cleared my doubts. If my interpretation wasn't good enough for all of my fans out there, then I'll give you a taste of what my friend says it is. "An error caused by not placing the noun being modified next to it's modifier," thanks grammar-monster you da best. In this blog Phillip B. Corbett, the author, gives different examples and explains why they are "grammatical woes" and why for the people that accidentally uses them makes their writing seem "slipshod." Don' worry I didn't know what slipshod meant either, but according to The Free Dictionary it is and adjective that represents "careless."

For all those that see examples and think that you use them, then welcome to my world. In my opinion it doesn't make any one's writing look careless. I think this is a very descriptivist way to see grammar. They are useless. I think of it as descriptivist because of the name. Personally I dislike labels and this a label, why not just call it a simple, more than common, "grammatical error." Nevertheless we need to know them, and there is no better way to learn that by using examples.

        "Hoping to garner favor, my parents were sadly unimpressed with the gift."

Ask yourself why is it a dangling modifier. If your thoughts were that we don't know who or what was hoping for a garner favor then  you're right. A way to express your thoughts without using these would be:

       "Hoping to garner favor, my sister brought my parents a gift that sadly unimpressed them."

Now comes my dirty secret: I, Emiliana Pacheco, uses dangling modifiers.

But you know what?

I like living my life on the edge.

A New Perspective

As far as I have read of this book, we can see a complex classification of race and gender. We can even say they compliment each other. Within what I have read of the first chapter, it is principally introducing us the characters and the conflicts they might face later on.

I have to wonder what were the authors intentions by introducing us the book with such a flare for the dramatic. Seriously, a man jumps off the roof of "No Mercy" hospital and they have their first black patient. At first when I started reading and found out of Mr. Smith's idea, I won't deny that I was startled. Being prepared for an African-American novel, I wasn't expecting such radical people of this race. We've been raised with the idea that people of color were abused, which is true, but they didn't show us that they did stand for themselves. Movies like The Help are a good example of this phenomenon, which is a subject that we had previously touched in class. This books by Toni Morrison makes ask ourselves "You believe that?" pg (10).

I don't know if

Names

Song of Solomon, sounds like a religious book but it is about an African American men living in Michigan from birth to adulthood. I am in no way taking out the fact that there are a religious characteristics within the book, but it is not the main topic. The truth is Solomon in the bible is the king of Israel and the son of David. He plays a major part in a story in the Hebrew Bible called Judgment of Solomon. In this story two women came before him to decide who was the real mother of a baby, he suggested to divide the child in two with a sword. One of the woman said she'd rather give the baby up that to divide him, that's how Solomon declared that woman the true mother.

You might wonder why I told you a story about the Bible, but theres a reason for my doings.  In the very beginning of the book there is a scene in which Ruth gave birth to his baby boy, being the first colored expectant mother allowed in the "No Mercy Hospital." I still don't have a clear purpose for the title of the book, but the birth of this boy also known as Milkman Dead. Clearly there is a connection between the story of dividing a child, and the birth of a child that in a way made history in an unnamed Michigan town. Also the name Ruth is biblical name, an according to my best friend Wikipedia she was "Moabites". Morrison, the author of the book, clearly has a purpose by choosing this names so related with the bible and a certain significance to it.

"I hate quotations" (353).

Fantasies Within Realities

For this blog entry we had to read three different chapters and choose one fragment that we strongly agree with. In Chapter G, also know as "blur", there was various fragments I agreed with but one stand out. In fragment 191 Shields said, "I'm interested in the generic edge, the boundary between what are roughly called nonfiction and fiction."I like how it relates to the title of the chapter, that in my interpretation is the blur of reality. Is there really a difference between fiction and nonfiction? Is there such thing a the complete truth? As I get more into the world of language I realize there is not, there is always something not accurate, made up, or even exaggerated. Personally I as well am interested in the that boundary that distinguishes this to genres, or if one even exists. After all, itsallalieaplanguageandcomposition.

Now let's continue with Chapter H. I found a fragment that reminded of a certain conversation we had in class, "Our culture is obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any." This is completely true. Let me ask all of you (no one really), how many of you watch CSI or any other crime show? I'm going to assume that everyone answered "me", because if not it would just be awkward. Then there's an other question, how many of you have ever confronted such a situation like the ones in this shows? Once again I am assuming everyone answered "not me". All though we haven't experienced any events like these, people are obsessed with this shows. How said in class, if such thing happen to any person he would be traumatized for life. It does happen they are real event, but most probably we wont confront with such. This is why I agree with Shields #242 fragment.

How Shields say, "Facts now seem important." I like how he points that "now" is that they are seeming important. I agree with him, once again. Living in a world in which you expect to be lied to, having facts to rely on seems necessary. And yes I like the "now" which is also the name of the chapter, because it's so specific. Are current present is so full of lies, that one almost feels oblige to have the facts to back you up.

Oh Grammar

I completely agree with your corrections. I did not gave my essay a second proofread when it was necessary. Some of my sentences made no sense, and some of them needed to revised especially in syntax. If done so as you said my grade in grammar would have been higher. That's what always gets me, grammar. Also maybe going more into specifics, because some of the examples are not only a CNG Spanglish, but a more general Colombian Spanglish.

Overall, I was given good feedback to know what I did wrong and also what could help me improve in further works. My only problem was when the three minutes of the audio corrections were over, I wasn't sure where the written commentary belong to in the paper. Nevertheless I appreciate for the commentary in my paper.