Monday 26 March 2012

Rules are meant to be broken...

There are many rules concerned with the English language. They were a 19th Century invention created in an attempt to order the messy English language and based on the way formal Latin works. Take, for example, the one that dictates you should never split an infinitive. The reason for this rule is because it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin, whereas in English it is very possible and often desirable - as in, "to boldly go" rather than "to go boldly".

Another so called rule that is often trotted out is the one that goes, you should never end a sentence in a preposition. I love Churchill's answer to this when challenged by a pedant grammarian, which was, "it is something up with which I shall not put".

The absurdity of applying rules from the language of one culture to the language of another is only surpassed by the absurdity of applying the rules, norms and mores of one sexuality to another. This has been in the news lately with the vinegar squeaks from religious leaders as they try to enforce what they believe to be the rules that govern heterosexuality onto a homosexual culture.

Oh, if only it were that simple! Human sexuality is a fluid and changing
matter. It refuses to be boxed in by the strictures of a set of narrow rules trying to govern the ungovernable. Witness the heterosexual couples sunbathing no more than 500m from the gay beach today; the wives read their novels in the full knowledge that their husbands are on walk about.

As I sit here on my hotel balcony I can't help but think that rules are, indeed, meant to be broken.
Today's run at 17:03
Distance4.19 kmTime25:15
Pace6:02 min/kmCadence79 spm
Comments: Warm & sunny.

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