I stole the idea from this thread. So Cainntear has Benny & Krashen punching bags at home. I have Benny & Steve Kaufmann. Peregrinus has a Benny & The Fun Slow Crowd. Seems to be a pattern there. I doubt if anybody has an Iversen or Solfrid Cristina. I wonder about the rest of you…?
I don't know. Over time there have been disparaging posts on HTLAL about "vocabulary freaks" from the "word a day crowd". And I guess some could find Solfrid's habitual niceness cloying. I mean doesn't she ever express some not-so-nice thoughts except toward those not being nice ? While for those involved in language learning there are actually concepts and theories that many of us dislike and disparage, people associated with those concepts and theories provide a handy avatar for same to punch. For myself, I don't really view the "fun slow crowd" with disdain, as they represent a group that has made a choice. As long as they don't present their own choice as the best way or deny the existence of the choice, explicitly made or not, then I only feel the need to contrast their choice with the most common competing choice, i.e. learn a lot of vocabulary as fast as one can. Benny to me represents the "language grifter crowd", who can be recognized by 1) attempting to shear any concept of proficiency from the definition of "fluent" and not appropriately limiting "fluent" with adjectives and disclaimers like "yet can only get the bare gist of most newspaper articles not written for kids", 2) characterizing the amount of vocabulary a high school graduate or college graduate recognizes passively (10K & 34K) as outlandish numbers in comparison to their paltry 3K, when the real top level is 56 to 100K ish (the amount a college grad has learned by his/her 60s and the amount many highly literate writers use), and 3) having a vested financial interest in promoting exaggerated claims of fluency via selling books, courses or teaching classes for pay. Actually punching punching bags takes a lot of effort. Maybe I need to get me some Voodoo dolls to stick pins in instead . Can do that while relaxing in front of the telly sipping a beer. Edit: changed 15-20K to 34K to be accurate about the passive vocabulary of a college grad instead of the lexical threshold figure.
Wow, you're probably the laziest person I've ever met. I mean, c'mon, buying punchbags that punch each other regularly as clockwork to save yourself the effort...?
Benny and Steve? I always thought they were decent enough folks insofar their blogs and youtube videos can reveal.. Seeing that you're studying classical hebrew I'm guessing this is in reference to the Bible - or am I missing out on some linguistic jargon?
Benny in particular forms a little "bubble" or safe zone. Challenge it, and he gets ratty -- even if you're trying to help.
Fair enough, I haven't seen that side of him so I can't really cast judgement. In saying that though, most people don't take criticism all that well and since he strikes me as an extrovert (which in my experience have even greater trouble dealing with "negativity" than introverts) I wouldn't be too surprised if that were the case. All in all though, he does still strike me as a fairly nice guy trying to motivate others to go on and succeed in their language learning goals - even though I personally take with a grain of salt his goals and achievements.
You probably would have gotten it if it didn't just say ancient Greek It's a reference to the kind of text used for NT Greek.
Thanks, I'll check it out Yep, that's what I meant by saying Bible but perhaps I should have been clearer. Once upon a time I was involved in debates about the TR vs MT (mainly with KJ Onlyists, if you're familiar with them) and all that but it's been a while so I wasn't sure if that was a reference to the Greek text or not (I see now that you study Ancient Greek as well, but initially I didn't, but the Hebrew was a bit of a giveaway)
I haven't a punchbag, and I don't think that to hit something like this would feel good or help when I become annoyed. But if I had such a thing, then it would be for the judgmental people who are ignorant and strict minded. Also for the snobs, all types for example the money ones, intellectual ones, all. Then also for the bossy ones, arrogant and the ones who never shut up.
