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I had no idea who Chonsky was until I saw his name being mentioned on LFGSS recently.
Nor me, but I imagined him as a fatter version of Noam Chomsky. Or maybe that's Chonksy.
Seriously though: he basically invented modern linguistics, is a long time anti-war activist and political thinker (since 'nam) and a hugely respected academic - among the most cited authors ever, dead or alive. Why would we listen to him?!
He also coined the wonderful sentence "colourless green ideas sleep furiously", proving that grammatically 'correct' sentences can also be semantically empty, a major one in the eye for grammatical prescriptivists such as @Oliver Schick
IMO he was a better linguist than a political thinker.
(N.b. he is also divisive and tends to scorn and belittle people who disagree with him, but perhaps educate yourself on who this academic, philosophical and political heavyweight is before writing him off).
Fox-
but perhaps educate yourself on who this academic, philosophical and political heavyweight is before writing him off).
I'm the one trying to convince people to listen and understand what he is saying (as opposed to agree with it) rather than fall for possibly deliberately misleading articles and twitter posts...you're preaching to the choir!
And yep, I didn't know who he was. I bow before your superior intellect.
Stonehedge
I had no idea who Chonsky was until I saw his name being mentioned on LFGSS recently. Perhaps thats why I'm a bit on the fence about him...I don't know anything about him other than what I have heard him say recently.