page 56, sentence 5: a game

[skdadl]

We Move to Canada has passed along this quite interesting meme/game: go to page 56 of the book you are currently reading or last read, and write the fifth sentence on that page in comments at her place (which I think we should do as a courtesy). Identify your book, o' course.

The results could be fun, and people could do that here too, although maybe choose a different book here than we do at wmtc.

[Mandos]

I added one to their blog, waiting for approval.

Here's another.  Of course, the question of what counts as a sentence is a tricky one.  From, H. C. van Riemsdijk's A case study in syntactic markedness (1978), here's one possible sentence #5 on p56:

"(41) a. omdat ze er erg leuk schijnt uit te zien"

But if you want full English sentences, then the fifth sentence is:

"The examples in (41) at the same time provide a conclusive argument that, despite the differences noted above (incorporation, P''' extraposition, topicalization, limited complement structure), particles belong to the same category as prepositions."

[skdadl]

It's so true. People who do linguistics always end up talking Finno-Ugraic, or something else very Baltic.  

I already did Jane Mayer (which I am reading) at wmtc, so I just turned around and grabbed the other unread book on my work table, which is Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Page 56 is unfortunately the opening of a new chapter, so I skip the title and opening epigraph to count down my five sentences:

As Gary Becker, the conservative economist and Nobel Prize winner put it, "We were warriors in combat with most of the rest of the profession."

Man, but that woman writes long sentences. Sentence 5 barely makes it on to p 56.

And yes, unfortunately, that is a chapter on Milton Friedman.

[Mandos]

In this case, it was Dutch.

[L-girl]

Hey, thanks Skdadl! I am eager to read Jane Mayer's book, but also kind of afraid of it. Shock Doctrine has been sitting on my shelf since it came out in paperback. I read long excerpts in Harper's and other places. Eventually I'll read the book for real.

Here's my sentence, from 1491 by Charles C. Mann, a very good book:

"In his history of Plymouth colony, Governor Bradford himself provides one answer: robbing Indian houses and graves."

Thanks for the link  :)

[skdadl]

Welcome to BnR, L-girl.   :

You know I like your place very much, and I support the great work that you've been doing for the resisters. Please feel welcome to start up a little activity on that front here whenever you have news -- I sometimes try to keep up, but I'm nowhere near on top of things.

Mayer is wonderful; next on my list are Sands and Engler. I have this thing about torture: I don't like it. Actually, I find it helpful and even cheering to read people as good as these guys are on such a tough subject. It makes me feel more sane to know that such good writers and thinkers have resisted the group-think and are speaking so uncompromisingly.

[L-girl]

Welcome to BnR, L-girl.

Thank you! I have been an occasional lurker for a long time, thought it was time to register.

You know I like your place very much, and I support the great work that you've been doing for the resisters. Please feel welcome to start up a little activity on that front here whenever you have news -- I sometimes try to keep up, but I'm nowhere near on top of things.

Thank you so much - for the support, and for the offer. What's the best way to go about that here?

[arborman]

Filing cabinets had been dragged out of the prefab buildings and emptied.

Probably the most boring sentence in the whole book.

[Croghan27]

The story of Ivlov is as follows.

Page 1 to 56 are leading up to this sentence: George Smiley is introduced, the cast of retired regulars at 'the circus' are described and one begins to wonder why it is called: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" This not only important to that book, but to it's follow up, Smiley's People, as well. It is the introduction to Karla - the Soviet master spy.

As always with leCarre that comes out in the process of something else, and it's import is not realized until later in the narrative. It is spoken by Tarr, a minor agent from the far east, as written in a diary of what was supposed to be a minor official in a Soviet trade delegation. The writer is a bona fide trade delegation member .... but her lover, Brod/Ivlov/Lapin is not. He, while stationed in Britain, 'serviced' a deep mole of Karla within MI-6. This is the mole called Gerald ...... and is the fourth member of the Tinker Tailor Soldier ____ quartet.

[Catchfire]

Reclaim the whole place.

Ulysses (1922), James Joyce, Ed. Hans Walter Gabler.

[Bacchus]

"News came through at midday that the Command of the B.E.F. passed from G.H.Q. to 1st Corps  at 1800 hours on May 31st."

Diary of a Staff Officer, anonymous

[skdadl]

Hey, arborman: from which book?

L-girl, if you've got an announcement of a campaign or an action, go to the Activism forum and start a new topic there. If you've got another topic to raise that's more a topic for general discussion, start a new topic under, say, Canadian News or Canadian Politics or U.S. or whatever, or join a discussion that's already underway. A lot of the dunderheaded things that HarperCo announce get noted on a running thread called "It's the new Canadian government, peon," eg, but some new topics are large enough to warrant their own threads.

I don't know where you're navigating from. The full list of forums is on the main index page, but if you want to keep up on the daily discussions, the easiest place to do that is from TAT (Today's Active Topics). From the main forum page you get to TAT by clicking the far-right button on the red bar (as above also); from TAT you get to the main forum page by clicking on the BnR logo.

[arborman]

Hey, arborman: from which book?

A trashy spy/ghost/sf thing called 'The Man From the Diogenes Club' that I picked up on a whim from the library.

[Berlynn]

Hey, L-girl, if I haven't yet said hi, know that I meant to.  So, hi, just in case!

Here's my 5th sentence on p. 56.  (Why do I always have reference books nearest at hand?)

The emperor Constantine I at first defended Arius, because he liked the idea of a single supreme deity whom he might identify with himself.

Walker, Barbara G. (1983). The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.