Comic!
The various legal troubles remain unsorted, having seemingly entered a new phase where a Certain Cabal of Coastal Casters that worship the demon of corporate greed are new trying routes of deception and delay.
Consequently, I’ve decided to move forward with my D&D side stuff. My next KS will launch Jan 31st. For those interested in sort of thing, you can follow it here. If that Cult of Conniving Coastal Casters is going to stall for time while they wait out the angry mob, I may as well make hay while the sun is shining
It’s weird to be on the side with the torches and pitchforks.
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“There is a large number of desperate, dangerous, and not exceedingly clever people among your enemies.”
I have to differ with the forming consensus. “of desperate, dangerous, and not exceedingly clever people among your enemies” is in its entireity, a prepositional phrase with “people” as its object. The remaining pieces of the phrase are adjectives modifying “people”. “The subject of a sentence is NEVER in the prepositional phrase. ” https://www.sunysuffolk.edu/current-students/academic-tutoring-centers/grant/writing-studio/documents/subjects-verbs-prepositions.pdf
The perpositional phrase modifies “number”, which is the subject of the sentence.
There is a simple enough answer for the prepositional phrase issue: The subject of the phrase isn’t “people” but “number” (or “your enemies”, if you want to refer to the more complete descriptor added in a restrictive clause of the subject), with “people” simply being a description of that “number” of whatever.
The base sentence without the conjunction or any other additions is, therefore: “There is a large number.”; or, without the adjective, “There is a number” with “a number” being a phrase that refers to a discrete (limited and unvarying) ‘number’ of entities. The phrase “among your enemies” is a restrictive clause that narrows down the “number” of whatever. “Of people” is the sentence’s prepositional phrase, modified by “Desperate, dangerous, and clever” (with “clever” being further modified by “Exceedingly”, and “Exceedingly” modified by “Not”).
This means that the “is” in the original sentence is the most questionable part of the sentence depending on if you treat the “number” as singular or plural, although calling it ” ‘A’ number” does push toward the expectation that the group is being treated as a singular whole rather than a group of factions. Considering MIUM’s common grouping strategy and likely ability to know exactly the number of persons within the overarching group, it makes sense that he would treat them as a singular known whole rather than a group or groups of allied individuals.
Good news!
https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-will-no-longer-deauthorize-its-open-1850041837
OGL2 is dead and even more. Wizards of the Coast is going to leave the original OGL alone but went further. They took the extraordinary measure of putting D&D stuff into Creative Commons so this situation can never happen again. Hopefully this will be enough to save the D&D community and third party publishers their income streams. There are many YouTube videos on the sudden WOTC reversal and it is highly recommended to check them out.
One wonders how many execs no longer work at Hasbro/WOTC.
If it bleeds it can die… even if what it bleeds is money.
This is game changer and huge relief. Lots of time and legal fees down the train, but this is complete win – no asterisks or caveats.
A billion dollar company got convinced to fuck off by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks (and, you know, lawyers).
Now you don’t need to worry about your Kickstarter! Let’s hope the Creative Commons choice by WOTC can turn around this mess and maybe make things better than before. No more worries about what is and is not allowed.
Article on the topic:
https://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons76.phtml
He doesn’t have to leave the device in a condition that will be usable, simply in a condition that will be trackable. Leaving it in a condition that appears to be repairable might be better because they are likely to take actions which will make it easier to track.
Peter has a number of self-imposed rules that he uses to determine the quality of multiple actions. This is why he gave Naomi the right to veto actions, as a failsafe against his rules yielding wildly unacceptable solutions. Like kill them all and let the next generation work it out.
@PastUtopia: there’s a line i’ve learned from a cartoon special, that fits well with your current situation: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, for now.”
Even your version isn’t really accurate. “The enemy of my enemy is probably useful.”
As an example, the Soviet Union was clearly not our friend during WW II. They clearly understood that we weren’t their friend. But we both still allied with the other because we were useful for each other.
“friend” implies a level of trust that is really not warranted. The enemy of your enemy could even be why your enemy is your enemy. The times I’m aware of this being true, absent the enemy of the enemy, there wouldn’t exactly have been a peaceful, trusting, mutually beneficial relationship, mind you. But there have been quite a few wars in the past 50 years which would have probably just continued being brewing resentment and friction, but for some third country that wanted a war but really wanted to not be the ones who started it. Note that it was not one consistent third country. There’s at least two who played that game a fair number of times, and I’d guess others did also at least once.
In panel 3 Mium’s speech aligns with the Consul’s thoughts. Mium says “not exceedingly clever” and the Consul mentioned the Rogues still trying despite their agents being turned into giblets. Mium is only slightly off when he mentions “forgiveness from the powers that be will soon be in a dwindling supply”. “Soon” is “now” since the Consul decided to let the Rogue Family attacks play out and then Consul’s forces will mop up the mess.
In the last panel, Peter has a better idea than planting his “item” in the bad guys building. Someone is in for a world of hurt. I know the next comic will be out in a week or two but I may still wear out my computer’s refresh button.
Naomi seems to have a clearer grasp of public perception than Peter does. I imagine he will be appalled at being viewed as a hero for merely doing what he perceived as pragmatic.
But I think she is right that his actions (and coordination of Kally’s and Fluffy’s actions) will be very well received by those who learn of them, excepting the powers behind the apparent experimental laboratory.
Thank you for the comic!
That’s Kally talking to Peter there. Naomi is at the ice cream parlor, sitting next to Ila.
Mind you, Naomi might also have a better grasp on public perception than Peter does. Or it might be Peter; after all, he’s pretty good at figuring out how other people think. I’m guessing that simply wasn’t at the forefront of his mind when he found himself suddenly confronting a demon.
Duh.
I meant Kally.
I recall a movie I saw on TV many years ago. I think it was simply called Hero. It featured a rather grumpy individual who just happened to be stuck right next to where an airplane was about to have an emergency landing. I think his car broke down or something, I can’t remember it exactly. His response to seeing the plane crash land beside his car was to without hesitation start making sure everybody got off the plane safely.
He didn’t want any credit for the feat, but unfortunately for him, he Cindarellaed one of his shoes in the mud beside where the plane landed. Fortunately for him, he hitchhiked from the scene with the help of a trucker who happened to have the same size feet, more or less, and valued having a single quality shoe over having a pair that matched, however shabby.
Peter reminds me a lot of that protagonist. Peter’s a lot more cheerful and as far as I can tell has smaller feet. But he doesn’t want to have anything to do with being a hero, yet still rises to the occasion when it’s needed.
Comic, indeed! Yay!
Panel three should read “There are” rather than “There is”.
Panel six is an edge case. Since Cally is referring to something Peter didn’t do, one might argue that Peter HAD a better idea, which he will NOW explain. But technically, he could be referring to a separate, presently-formed idea from the one that caused him to change his plan.
“There are a large number…” is not clearly preferred to “There is a large number…”
“Number” is a singular collective noun and can go either way.
One *could* argue that Peter had a better idea, but as he clearly still possesses that notion, “I have a better idea” is decidedly true.
I believe “There is/are … enemies” is the construct here. It’s referring to the existence of the enemies; “number” is a modifier. So “are” agrees with “enemies”.
As for had/has a better idea: “I had a better idea” would suggest that he acted on it; “I have” suggests he still intends to act on it. I’d assume Past got it right.
I’m pretty sure it’s “there is a large number” and “of enemies” is a prepositional phrase modifying “number” (i.e., acting as an adjective).
[Actually, looking back, “of […] people” is the prepositional phrase in the original context, and “among your enemies” further modifies “people”; “enemies” wouldn’t be the relevant term regardless.]
You are correct, I should have cited people rather than enemies.
Look at it this way: You can omit the “large number of”, without changing the subject.
It makes no sense to speak of the existence of the number. It exists, whether it is zero, one, or a billion.
“a large number of” serves to indicate quantity. It could be replaced by “many”. “Of” is not filling its usual role as a preposition here, in the sense that it “of…people” cannot be removed without altering the subject of the sentence. In contrast, “large number of” can be omitted, leaving the subject intact, and only changing the sense of quantity”.
Consider:
“There is water”.
“There is a lot of water.”
“There are a lot of bottles of water”.
“Water” is not a countable noun. “Bottles” is countable.
“Lot of” quantifies either water or bottles. But the verb tracks what is quantified.
“There is lots of water”.
“There is lots and lots of water”.
This is somewhat idiomatic, but here, even though the plural “lots” is used, the verb follows the subject.
And yes, “water” or “people” is the subject in the sentence. “There” is an adverb. It can’t also be a participant in a prepositional phrase.
If you want a prepositional phrase, consider:
“People are there in large number”.
“Water is there in many bottles”
“Many bottles of water are there”.
The difference between the last two is interesting. We can talk about water, and how it is contained, or we can talk about the bottles, and what they contain.
Also note that the proposition shifts between them. I still remember, 30 years later, the day I finally realized just what a mess English prepositions are. I was sort of lulled into complacency by the similarity of how they work in Spanish.
But in Japanese, there are no prepositions. (“Particles” fill some of the roles, but work differently). So trying to teach Japanese speakers how to use prepositions in English, I found there is no rule of thumb you can give for how to select the right preposition.
For every verb, there are multiple roles by which a noun can relate to that verb. And for each role, learning English requires learning whether that role is filled by a direct object, indirect object, subject, or which of about 150 prepositions are used to denote that role.
All of this serves to illustrate that English grammar is a retrofit. It is as complex as it is, because it has to account for the wide range of usage, but even with all that complexity, grammar rules fail with regularity.
We don’t use grammar rules to either generate or understand English. We only use them analytically, to discover or impose a degree of regularity.
When my then-4-year-old stepdaughter was learning English, my model of language acquisition was upended. It was definitely not how I was largely taught for either Spanish or Japanese.
She would never ask what words meant. She would ask what complete sentences, or large sentence fragments, meant.
Picture me driving home from work down La Cienega in LA past Baldwin Hills toward Hollywood, during evening rush hour. The radio mentions something about the Civil War. My task is now to explain, in Japanese, to a 4-year-old, War, Civil War, and slavery. Not the words—the concepts, relating them to whatever it was that was actually said on the radio.
It is impossible to write an accurate grammar checker for English. They can be useful, but you have to accept that they get things wrong. I did a little work with this at DEC around 1992 or so, looking to extend an existing grammar checker for issues specific to Japanese speakers.
Articles (the/a/an, etc.) are worse than prepositions. There is no gramatical rule you can apply to make the correct choice, not even by listing all the cases. The choice depends on the semantics—what meaning is to be conveyed.
But the first step in choosing is to identify the target. “The big red book”/“a big red book” ⇒ “book”. Is it a specific, unique book, or any book that is big and red?
That’s the first step in subject-verb agreement—the question we face here. But even here, it can be a lot more complex than it appears, when approached as a matter of syntax.
But noun-verb agreement is based on the subject of the sentence. If you understand what the sentence is saying, semantically, it is not hard to pick out the sentence. Refer back to my “water” examples above. “Water” is the subject in all of them, not “lot”. (Except for the example contrasting “bottles” as the subject).
So to recap, neither “number” nor “lot” are the subject of the sentences here. In the comic, it is “people” (who are desperate and dangerous, but not exceedingly clever, as well as being among the enemies, and in large number).
Ha! Nice reply.
I could see the long reply here. And I do love “verbose” turned up to 10.
English is complex to be sure: but I learnt (and teach my son) to simplify sentences to work out what is correct:
(1) “There is/are a large number of desperate, dangerous, and not exceedingly clever people among your enemies”.
(2) “There is/are a large number of people among your enemies.”
‘desperate, dangerous, and not exceedingly clever’ is a fragment that increases the detail of ‘people’ (forming a noun phrase with ‘people’ if I remember correctly).
(3) “There is/are a large number of people.”
‘among your enemies’ is a fragment that adds more detail: I think it’s adding a ‘What?’, so an adjective phrase? Anyway, at this level we can see that “There are” would be correct.
So I vote for:
“There ARE a large number of desperate, dangerous, and not exceedingly clever people among your enemies.”
Because English, after all, is a LIVING language, and we all change it through the way we use it.
I disagree with the phrase “It makes no sense to speak of the existence of the number. It exists, whether it is zero, one, or a billion.” The existence of that number (the reference to “a number” specifying that it is a limited and discernable amount) is the core of the sentence, everything else is a modification to that core.
A number of what? “Of people (who are “Dangerous, desperate, and *not exceedingly* cleaver”).
Any further constraints on that number of entities? They are “Among” (ie: Within the greater grouping) of “Enemies” possessed by “you” (therefore using the possessive form of you: “Your”).
The confusion comes in that, since all three subjects (of the sentence, the prepositional phrase, and the restrictive clause) refer to the same “entity” (giving some modification to our understanding of that entity), we could easily slot any of the subjects (of the sentence, prepositional phrase, or restrictive clause) into any of the other positions and still have a coherent sentence (albeit with a change to the overall meaning).
The only modification necessary would be a change in the verb from singular to plural, considering that “a number” is used as a singular grouping of a plurality of entities, thus leading to the odd nature of the sentence such that subject itself is singular while those references to the individuals within that grouping are plural.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why grammar teachers always ask for short, discrete sentences: they don’t want to deal with untangling the convoluted morass that language can become, far less do they want to have to explain it to a neophyte monoglot (let alone a burgeoning polyglot), than any other professional with the responsibility of overseeing scores of pupils.
I guess we’ll probably always disagree on this; it’s the nature of the topic.
Your observation about grammar teachers is spot on. Learning to diagram sentences in 1967, I got the impression it was all nice and neat. That impression went away when I tried it on more complex cases.
As for my “makes no sense” remark, I was referring to the intentionality. Numbers always exist. Communicating the fact that a number exists is clearly not the purpose of the sentence.
Japanese distinguishes between the topic and the subject of a sentence. The subject is the actor, so “Joe ate the cookie” has Joe as the subject (who may be omitted if clear from context).
But either Joe or the cookie can be the topic, placing the emphasis on either who ate the cookie, or what Joe ate.
One way to look at our difference of opinion is that you place your emphasis on syntactic rules, where I look to semantics as a guide.
There’s a whole branch of linguistics dealing with transformational grammars, from Noam Chomsky. Here, deep structure, representing the semantic content, is translated into surface structure. You reference it yourself, discussing how one could slot the three entities into different slots in the sentence.
We should reflect on the trigger for this conversation: subject/verb agreement. I don’t know what languages have the singular/plural distinction for verbs. English + the Latin-derived languages do, at least.
Japanese, by contrast, does not. In fact, it makes little use of plurals at all! If it’s necessary to distinguish, it can be done, but usually it relies on context.
For example, to turn I into we, we can add -tachhi, to get “watashitachi”. Or to refer to one member of the Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza group, we can say “yamaguch no hito” (Yamaguchi’s person).
But in context, one might say “yamaguchi ga yatta”, referring to the individual present, or already referred to.
“Ga” there marks “yamaguchi” as the subject. “Ha” would mark it as the topic.
(“Ha” here is pronounced as “wa” but written as “ha”, in the only example of a discordance between writing and pronunciation I’m aware of. Usually, in romanized text, it is written as “wa”. The pronunciation shifted but the writing did not in this case).
Similarly, Japanese makes comparatively little use of pronouns, preferring to use names, attributes, or to rely on context.
So the person who did the thing above might be referred to simply as “yamaguchi” throughout the conversation, even when the statement has nothing to do with his membership in that group.
But in a different context, it might be used in a pronoun-like fashion to refer to the group, or to a plural subset present in the room.
It’s surprising just how much context English forces us to duplicate, or even invent, because the surface syntax demands it. Singlular/plural gets reiterated at every reference.
Agree or not, it’s always nice to see people puzzling over how language works. Disagreement itself can be enlightening.
I once took a class from Noam Chomsky. It wasn’t on linguistics, but political issues. I disagreed with him a lot, but it was always helpful to see how the same situation could be analyzed from different perspectives.
(Sadly, I had to drop the class mid-semester because MIT had triple-booked me for part of that time slot, and I just couldn’t make that work. Finals would have been impossible. But it was the most fun of the three!)
My reply keeps disappearing, perhaps because it’s too long.
Short version: You are right that I should have said “people” rather than “enemies”.
But “number” is not the subject of the sentence, nor is “there”.
My full reply can be found here: https[:]//bobkerns.github.io/pages/subject-verb/
It’s long, but if if I haven’t misjudged the audience, I think you’ll find it interesting, even if you don’t find it persuasive.
I think mine is perhaps similarly under review, probably because it contained a link. (Perhaps it got auto-filtered.)
In any case: I’m pretty sure “there” is a dummy subject, rather like the “it” in “it is raining.” It is not an adverb here because we’re not really using it to describe where the people are, just that they exist.
When it comes to the predicate nominative, though [the “object” of the verb “to be”]: the object is indeed “number.” However, “number” is being used as a a collective noun, and collective nouns have special rules about plurals.
So ultimately, the correct verb is “are” (I admit defeat and change my stance) despite the relevant noun to agree with being “number.”
That’s an interesting observation about “there”. I don’t quite agree, but perhaps there should be a category of “placeholder words” that don’t contribute their usual meanings, but just allow references to existence. Sort of how reification works with inferences about existential statements in first order predicate logic. They play the role of the variable in an existential statement.
Likewise for “number”. It’s an interesting analysis that gets to the same point, even if I don’t quite agree with it. If we do accept “number” as the subject, it resolves the inconsistency.
It’s post hoc—but then, so is all of grammar! The real metric to apply is whether it adequately fits actual language.
The term “there” is an object to the subject of “a *large* number”. The easiest way to simplify it down is to remove the adjective (large) and replace the problematic subject with “a group” (another, more common, singular term for multiple entities) or, simplify it further, by replacing it with “she”.
There is a number.
There is a group.
There is she.
The confusion comes from the fact that this is a nonstandard, though still grammatically correct, mix-up of the normal Subject->verb->object order. This is further complicated as the verb (“to be”) denotes equivalency rather than some other relationship between the two things/subjects/ideals. Put in the more traditional order, we can see things much more simply.
A number is there.
A group is there.
She is there.
The word “there” is a nonspecific indicator of location, and this nonspecificity also confuses the issue because it can seem like a filler. Where is ‘There’? Why, anywhere but ‘here’! So why even say it?
Why; because it is a necessary part of the sentence, both included for completeness and so that other modifications can be added, and because indicating the existence of a thing that is not currently present does, in fact, make a statement about it.
Lets demonstrate the importance of the word for location (there) by replacing it with another location or by indicating a lack of location.
She is in Brisbane.
She is nowhere.
She is nonexistent.
So, obviously, the term “there” is actually indicating something and is not a filler. The fact that something exists is a BIG DEAL, afterall.
So why flip the subject and object? Two reasons.
1) It makes the sentence far more readable by allowing the listener/reader to know the full subject-verb-object relationship before going into extreme depth on the nature of that subject. This is made more possible and streamlined and superseded by the second point.
2) In English the first of the subject/object is understood to have more power over the second. This is made even more simplified by the equivalency specified by the verb “to be”. Think on the difference between the connotation of these two sentences.
She is in Brisbane.
In Brisbane is she.
The first comes across as her choice to be in that location, while the second comes across as the location having some control of her. Looking back at the original base sentence, then, gives us a completely new look on that group and their desperation and helplessness related to being included within that “number”. This is especially true two sentences later when MIUM describes the lack of “forgiveness” that “the powers” are soon to dish out to them.
Arkady’s question: Why do they keep coming after us when the results are so bad for them?
Mium’s answer: Existing is a group.
Their weakness in ability is their present.
Their antagonism is the result of their past.
All that is left is the inevitable future.
I disagree with your representation of what “in Brisbane is she” means, but I think that’s an artifact of your example. Word order does emphasize.
But that example reminds me of how Yoda uses essentially Japanese word order.
Either:
Brisbane ni she (ha|ga) is.
She (ha|ga) Brisbane ni is.
Yoda doesn’t flip prepositional vs postpositional markers, but otherwise follows Japanese word order. (And yes, “ni” largely means “in”).
@Josh S:
While “Large number” could be considered a singular subject, it’s not the subject here. “People”, and “Enemies” are the subjects and require the plural verb.
It seems to be a somewhat controversial point, but internet seems to give the edge to “is” being the proper grammar because “number” is the subject, and “of enemies” is an adjective phrase modifying it.
[Although I’m not sure it it’s “subject” here – based on position, it seems to be a predicate nominative, but “there is” might be a special construction in that regard. Not that that’s a particularly pertinent point to whether “are” or “is” is correct.]
“…I have a better idea…”
Few things in this comic worry me. Peter saying that is one of those.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good indication that the chaos is only going to accelerate.
Maybe he is going to leave the “item” at Sophie or Biana’s office. That could cause some fun. Hopefully my old memory is correct in identifying those two as bad people.
Yes, you read the “bad person” tags correctly.
However, what if they find the item useful?
I was thinking of Peter hiding the item, not openly giving it to Sophie or Biana. That way Peter gets to see who shows up and what mayhem is created when they do. Of course, Peter’s “better idea” might … probably will be something us mere mortals would not have thought of doing.