One of the things I have enjoyed most about blogging is looking back at those who are looking at me. A great way to do that is to look at the search hits that come in. Here are some recent ones that made me chuckle, perfect for a Saturday morning.

I am glad that discourse devices is my top search term, but saddened that for some reason funny pictures, funny pics, and funny outrank markedness. Funny pictures should never be a higher priority than markedness, especially an assymetrical view. I must post on this again soon to redress this travesty, and to win more people over to my view. The one acceptable search was funny discourse, of which I hope this is an example.

Sometimes I wonder if those creating a search string were involved in a horrific crime to their person in the midst of composition, since they seem to end mid-thought:

  • difference between described and prescri
  • theoretical framework for helping and cr
  • grammar times like these or times like t
  • what is the reason for difference betwee

Then there are the ones that just make you wonder what they were thinking about when they did the search. What was the exact nature of the query? Take a look:

  • sneeze patterns: How they ended up here, I have no clue. More than that, why would someone invest time in this quest. The answer to this question is obvious, as least for me. I nearly always sneeze in pairs, perhaps in some subconscious effort to avoid being “odd.”
  • grammar badly versus bad: What a mess, mixing adverbs and adjectives, and no helping verb like “doing.” Go figure.
  • he should not have vs. he should have no: I know not of whom the searcher is speaking, certainly tis not of me! To my way of thinking, if he did something he should not have done, it is only natural for there to be a consequence, i.e. “he should have no _______.” Rather than asking “versus,” it should be an “If he should not have, then he should have no ____.” Just seems more proper.
  • power and markedness: Be assured, dear reader, that I use my powers of markedness for good, not for evil or personal gain. Feel safe in my sphere of influence.
  • funny for you: This may be what some of you are saying right now, “…but not for me.”
  • good vs bad grammar: I picture this as the searcher looking for a grammatical cage match, an ultimate fight smack down of biblical proportions. My bill-of-choice would be Luke versus Mark! Now that would be good versus bad, perhaps even versus evil grammar in Carl’s opinion. With a fisherman against a physician, I have my doubts that good would triumph in such a match. Luke would probably show up to a knife fight with a quill.
  • mark greek bad text: A related search that could also be turned into a formula: mark+greek=good text+bad grammar.
  • i think grammar and discourse important: i think capitalization and copulative verbs important.
  • discourse markers+functions+okay: again, I wonder how they got to my site. Now if it had been discourse markers+functions+exceptional, then I could see it.
  • weaknesses of grammarians: Now I think this is getting a little personal. Far from being something noble, like krytonite, my weakness is ice cream.
  • can anyone commenton galatians 6:7? This is a great question. Is there anything more so be said than the text itself? How could one possibly dare to offer their thoughts? Well, time will tell if Con Campbell will do this thing, but it will probably be a few years down the road at his current pace.
  • which and that bad language abuse gramma: I always though the idiom was “this and that.”
  • grammer: as bad as him or as bad as he: I think this is about as bad as it gets! Arghh! Unless we are talking about James Brown being his old bad self, this is unacceptable.
  • gospel mark rhymes greek: No it does not rhyme with “Greek”! What were they thinking, have they never take a literature class?

If these queries represent the current state of our educational system, then I share Dr. Conrad’s despair about the future of civilization.