? Alleluia ?

It's not the word I was thinking of, but by googling I see that this (the presence of 'Allah' in the bible) is hotly contested, mostly it seems by fanatics. My best guess is to that as arabic and hebrew are closely related languages, similar 'God' words in each are reasonably likely to be cognates - words derived from a shared root.

Yes, comparatively it could be characterised as sinuous, catlike.

And so did the serpent say unto Eve,
"The fruit of this tree is to be eaten.
Hissss."

Latin and Greek have a lot of fun with
passive, esp. in deponent verbs. Don't
know why English has to vilify it so...

Like everything else in the language, it's got it's place. The vehemence comes, I think, because for a number of decades around the turn of last century passive writing was seen to be more formal and more official, particularly by those who wanted to display their half-education. This lead to overuse and what we're seeing is the backlash. Looking back on what I've written, I see that the last two sentences each have passive clauses. Recasting them into AV would be a lot less comfortable.

I find myself disliking the term "muscular prose"; it smells propagandist, and I don't think it's an accurate descriptor, although it makes a great sound bite. I think taking active voice as the general groundwork form is a good way to go, but in language things should also sound good and be easily followed, too. You can have an excess of AV, just as you can have an excess of PV. Too much of either would be a chore for both writer and reader.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
perhaps odor is in the nose of the smeller.

That's a pretty way of saying,
"He who smelt it dealt it."

All of which says maybe I'm the one with a working nose, here.

Are we talking spider barks again?

Well, you guys seem to be.

So after a long day at work...teaching AP English, I search out the Chiff and Fipple forum for a little light reading about music

and BAM....I see a "grammar" thread. Naturally curious, I read the whole dang thing (even the miscellaneous unwindings that lead to spider barks...) and I think, good grief...is THIS what will become of all my students?! Remind me to keep my burial location a secret...

Loved the broken rules site...printed it to share with students tomorrow. The AP test is coming up, so they need a bit of levity...

Oh, and since I'm definitely no prescriptivist, I also teach French...

I love it, but English steals words, not grammar. French has the Académie Française to fence out teh al!en wurdz, but English simply declares that if it's stuck between our prepositions, it's an English word now. You get a lot more done that way.

Oh really? On the day that English was born, English grammar was all intact and just needed more words to grow. I did not know that.