Alice Stainer

Happy New Year all you @TopTweetTuesday & indomitable editor & host @MatthewMCSmith. Here's to another spanking year of poetry. This is my attempt at the prompt. Perhaps not quite what you envisaged, Matt, but the best I could do in a short time. Look forward to reading others 💜

@KathrynLevy @ae_stallings She's amazing. Just love her prose, has an intelligent twinkle in its eye. Much like Peter himself. And yes, I would, absolutely 😍

@ae_stallings I love that book.

"the massive continuity of ducks":

@stephenkeeler Well don't worry, it is actually sunny at least. It's been wet enough for sooooo long. I don't mind a spring chill if it's not DANK. Happy to think of you frolicking in your shorts! 🥰

@AliceStainer 16° here and total sunshine. Sorry it’s not so good where you are. Can’t help feeling we’ve earned a bit of this up here, though. And anyway, it’ll be freezing again tomorrow. 🤣

At L O N G last - it’s finally shorts and T-shirt weather. Joy unconfined! 😎🌞

Nautilus by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. A nautilus shell reimagined as a Gothic cathedral. Laser-cut steel filigree, coiled into the shell's perfect spiral, merging the geometry of nature with the ornament of historical architecture.

@megha_lilly All I can civilly say to this is that based on your judgement, I would certainly never be tempted to read any of your own writing.

When you read things like Crime and Punishment, the Odyssey and the Iliad, and are confronted with unadulterated beauty, you automatically feel nothing but visceral disgust when you encounter James Joyce. Anyone who disagrees with this is either retarded or a charlatan.

Dorothy Johnstone (Scottish, 1892-1980) "Green Apples," 1921 Oil on canvas 123.2 x 92.7 cm National Galleries of Scotland

The Bronx Zoo is currently caring for a stowaway red fox that was discovered in February aboard a ship arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey from Southampton, England. (1/5)

Going to show this tweet to every woman worried about asking for a pay rise

@iaindavie10 @g_gosden 😂 More national than provincial, even...

@g_gosden Cos play would suggest they’re pretending to be village idiots, all the evidence points to that they’re the genuine article.

Cos play village idiots

@amwilson_opera Including the 'recent' option under Following? (Not to suggest you're an idiot, or anything...! But at one point this option didn't exist. I think that was the one that made a difference to my feed).

@AliceStainer I've tried both - both the same.

Is this place looking weird for anyone else at the moment? It's showing posts from many hours ago and nothing recent.

@nadsat11 @OliverKamm @krishgm I'd say the first, because the emphasis is redundant in this case. As previously noted...

@AliceStainer @OliverKamm @krishgm You're missing emphasis for adjectives you wouldn't usually grade. Let's say you attend a lecture on a complex subject. The lecturer, superbly, covers all the bases. After, do you say, 'Fantastic - that was complete', or 'Fantastic - that was very complete.'

I know all these ghastly phrases have become normal as English evolves but “very complete” is very ugly. Complete, almost complete : fine. But “very complete” when something is not complete at all bothers me. I’m probably tired! Goodnight.

@AnnaGunin @OliverKamm @krishgm Yes, an illuminating way of reading it.

@OliverKamm @AliceStainer @krishgm ‘Very’ is modifying the noun phrase ‘complete and triumphant’ in this case. Not just the word ‘complete’ in isolation.

@nadsat11 @OliverKamm @krishgm Well yes, I know all that obviously, but adjectives in themselves are not all equal just because they're the same part of speech. Clean clearly has different gradations. Nice, also. Complete is finite by its very nature. I remain unconvinced, I'm afraid!

@AliceStainer @OliverKamm @krishgm 'Very' qualifies adjectives (and adverbs). Complete is an adjective, as are nice, clean etc. Very just adds the sense of going beyond the bare minimum to be so. Oliver's examples also have nouns - spat, debate, response. That said I would be very careful to avoid very complete.

@OliverKamm @krishgm An interesting example & one I appreciate, but...I'm not a lover of D.H.L. (sorry, people) & I don't think that's a convincing instance. I think he uses 'very' for rhythm there, rather than any other reason (maybe the poet in him rearing its head?)

@AliceStainer @krishgm You’ll certainly know DH Lawrence’s The White Peacock (chapter 6): “The mother’s dark eyes, and the baby’s large, hazel eyes looked at me serenely. The two were very calm, very complete and triumphant together.”

@jayn19 @OliverKamm @krishgm Your choice 😊

@AliceStainer @OliverKamm @krishgm I don't use it myself.

@nadsat11 @OliverKamm @krishgm Yes, to your latter point. But interested in your former. Examples? (Not trying to be an arse, here. Using interested sincerely! Happy to think again).

@AliceStainer @OliverKamm @krishgm He is right but uses the wrong type of example, which essentially turn nouns into adjectives. You can intensify complete to convey that it's more than adequate. Of course Trump is talking rubbish but that's assumed.

@jayn19 @OliverKamm @krishgm That is emphatic & used in many languages including English 😊

@AliceStainer @OliverKamm @krishgm "I myself"? Am I very unique in being nervous about pointing this out directly?

@OliverKamm @krishgm I myself am v guilty of modifiers that aren't really needed, BTW. It's a peculiarly British fear of direct statement, I feel. 'It's really quite astounding'. 'This is rather underwhelming' etc. etc. It's a hope of lessening the blow, but actually doing a disservice to language 😒

@OliverKamm @krishgm Those aren't comparable, Oliver (& you know that, I think). 'British' is hardly measurable in the same way. Open/public are also (in particular contexts) much more capable of nuance. Once something is complete, you can't get more so. I'm glad Krishnan makes this observation.