So, Drew Peacock has drawn this to my attention when he reported me for non-Trump spam. I know, I am guilty of it too.
Let me get this straight, tho. On these political forums, could you guys PLZ stop posting irrelevant language learning-related spam. These forums are for politics, and I think they are being abused, unfortunately. Whether it’s a “grammar question” or some “ask a tutor thing” it should stop, because these forums are for talking about Donald Trump, not for your language learning questions.
You are correct. The forum is welcoming of, and limited to, Trump threads.
If you are interested in languages, the best place might be “Lessons.” You can access it on the blue bar across the top of the screen.
If you continue to post language-related questions or topics on the forum, expect to receive a gentle reminder from time to time. But LingQers seem to be a pretty forgiving crowd. If, on rare occasion, you post a language thread, I don’t think anyone will terribly mind.
Not to change the subject, but Demolitionator’s comment reminded me of George Orwell’s “Potitics and the English Language”.
He wrote:
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
A webpage of a university department in the U.S. describes “Language and Politics” as follows:
What politics means is an open question, but there is no doubt that politics is meaningful. Politics and language are thus inseparable, and our faculty examine their relation in various and complementary ways. We study how language constructs our political and legal reality, as well as how it occasionally disrupts it. We study the use of framing in political communication, as well the politics of framing. We study the role of protests in the Middle East, as well as the impact of new media for the American democratic process. We bring insights from ordinary language philosophy to the project of an empirical social science, and we read classics of social science for new insights in the philosophy of language. We are open to students with diverse methodologies, backgrounds and interests, and are a generally likable bunch. https://polsci.umass.edu/research/clusters/language-and-politics
I think that the following point is interesting:
“how language constructs our political and legal reality, as well as how it occasionally disrupts it”.
I totally agree. I mean, I’ve had a gutful myself of people posting language learning questions ad nauseum on LingQ. If they have language-learning questions they should go ask someone at the friggin’ library, their teachers or Rosetta Stone. My yearly LingQ subscription entitles me to daily unadulterated political posts about His Highness Trump, but these language-learning losers are giving me a case of wanderlust. Who knows, I might actually start learning some language, sheesh. But that’s not what I’m here for.
The expression “unadulterated political posts” is interesting. I know some people are interested in what you might call “adulterate” stories as well as adulterated alcoholic beverages. There is no accounting for taste.