johwee

but here I am at /r/EnglishLearning and somebody is asserting that the sentence "When they anchor in Sydney Harbour, they will have been sailing non-stop for three months" is totally wrong and unnatural, such that no English speaker would ever produce an utterance like that, and that instead what one ought to say is "will have had been sailing".

They've apparently never learned to quit while they're behind, either, and now have, uh, requested that people provide them with natural examples from the wild.

This leaves me a bit stymied, because how the hell does one search up natural examples of grammatical features in speech? But if anybody has any links, by all means, please provide them.

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( News links )

It's beautiful out there! And I'm going to waste it at work!?

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"Lovely War meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this new YA fantasy from acclaimed author Frances Hardinge, about the people caught in a game played by the gods where castles are moved around the world like chess pieces" and I gotta say, I'm offended by that blurb. The obvious DWJ parallel is Homeward Bounders, and this book has little, if anything, in common with Howl's Moving Castle.

Definitely worth a read, though.

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that Frances Hardinge had a new book out!?

                i. Spring

the tips of each pine
the spikes of telephone poles
hold gathering crows

may’s errant mustard
spreads wild across paved road
look both ways

roadside treble cleft
feeding gopher, paws to mouth
cheeks puffed with music

yesterday’s spring wind
ruffling the grey tips of fur
rabbit dandelion

                ii. Summer

turkey vulture feeds
mechanical as a red oil rig
head rocks down up down

stiff-legged dog rises
goes grumbling after squirrel
old ears still flap

snowy egret—curves,
lines, sculpted against pond blue;
white clouds against sky

banded headed bird
this ballerina killdeer
dance on point my heart

                iii. Fall

leaf wind cold through coat
wails over hills, through barren trees
empty garbage cans dance

damp September night
lone farmer, lighted tractor
drive memory’s worn path

sky black with migration
flocks settle on barren trees
leaf birds, travel songs

october moon cast
over corn, lighted fields
crinkled sheaves of white

                iv. Winter

ground painted in frost
thirsty morning sun drinks white
leaves rust golds return

winter bare branches
hold tattered cups of summer
empty nests trail twigs

lace edges of ice
manna against darkened sky
words turn with weather

now one to seven
deer or haiku syllables
weave through winter trees

Northern follows jig
body flashes with strike, dive:
broken line floats up.

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Link

so much as the way those fascists talk about it.