The mole

The way things are going it is looking increasingly likely they will award the Nobel Prize not to the guy who builds the first fail-safe mole trap but to whoever finds a way of turning contemplation of a churned up lawn from exasperation to mole hill therapy.

I’ve got the mole sussed ... I think. Too often now I have brought the hoe down too soon. Next time I will feint on the zig and whack on the zag.

 

The good folk of my town have declared it a mole-free zone. They have an instinctive fear of slick, pink-faced things sneaking up dark, subterranean passages. Tensions are high as the town braces itself for the mole’s response.

A Concise Introduction to Logic, Patrick J. Hurley, Wadsworth, 2006, 9th ed,. 8.7, II, 6, p. 447

 

1.     (x)(Ax ⊃ Bx) 2.     Ac • ~ Bi ∴ c ≠ i 3.     c = i 4.     Ai ⊃ Bi 5.     Ac 6.     Ai 7.     Bi 8.     ~ Bi • Ac 9.     ~ Bi 10. Bi • ~ Bi 11. c ≠ i

AIP 1 UI 2 Simp 3,5 Id 4,6 MP 2 Com 8 Simp 7,9 Conj 3-10 IP

Small talk about Kant, larks and owls, words

None of my EFL students has pointed out yet that, whenever I start a lesson with a warm-up that involves small talk about Kant, Nietzsche or Hegel, the lesson proper invariably turns out to be very thin. I wonder if they’ve noticed the connection.

All larks I know would be quite happy for mornings to last forever, yet no owls I know could contemplate nights without mornings, from which I take being a lark to be a genuine desire, and being an owl – only an affectation.

 

Words are mightier than the sword, and in English, one-syllable words cut deeper and with more savagery than multi-syllable ones.

A Concise Introduction to Logic, Patrick J. Hurley, Wadsworth, 2006, 9th ed,. 8.7, II, 5, p. 447

 

1.     (x)(Gx ⊃ x = a) 2.     (∃x)(Gx • Hx) ∴ Ha 3.     Gm • Hm 4.     Gm ⊃ m = a 5.     Gm 6.     m = a 7.     Hm • Gm 8.     Hm 9.     Ha

2 EI 1 UI 3 Simp 4,5 MP 3 Com 7 Simp 6,8 Id

President eject, vote count, voting irregularities

President Eject – a sitting president who refuses to concede after he has lost at the polls in a presidential election

Count – a prime example of an English word that exhibits the grammatical properties of different parts of speech: it is a noun when used in the phrase ‘Stop the (illegal vote) count’ and a verb when used in the phrase ‘Count the (legal) votes’, as any US president would tell you.

 

Voting irregularities – an expression that doesn’t lack synonyms: electoral fraud, election fraud, election manipulation, vote rigging, election irregularities, voter fraud, voter suppression. But what is its antonym? Voting regularities?

A Concise Introduction to Logic, Patrick J. Hurley, Wadsworth, 2006, 9th ed,. 8.7, II, 3, p. 447

 Two methods:

1.     (x)(x = c ⊃ Nc) ∴ Nc 2.     c = c ⊃ Nc 3.     c = c 4.     Nc

1 UI Id 2,3 MP

 

 

1.     (x)(x = c ⊃ Nc) ∴ Nc 2.     ~ Nc 3.     c = c ⊃ Nc 4.     c ≠ c 5.     ~ ~ Nc 6.     Nc

AIP 1 UI 2,3 MT 2-4 IP 5 DN

Ripped jeans, saving for heaven, cobra tattoo

I was mocked when I wore knee-pit-ripped jeans in the age of knee-ripped-jeans, so I switched to wearing my jeans back to front and everyone was alright with that.

I haven’t been saving up to go to heaven so, when I die, I will not have an annuity to see me through. I’ll have to make any vouchers I get for good behaviour on Earth go a long way.

 

A flared neck of a cobra tattooed above the panty line fires up imagination – what untold fauna can possibly lurk beneath!

A Concise Introduction to Logic, Patrick J. Hurley, Wadsworth, 2006, 9th ed,. 8.7, II, 2, p. 447

 Derive the conclusion.

1.     Ke 2.     ~ Kn ∴ e ≠ n 3.     ~ (e ≠ n) 4.     e = n 5.     Kn 6.     Kn • ~ Kn 7.     ~ ~ (e ≠ n) 8.     e ≠ n

AIP 3 DN 1,4 Id 2,5 Conj 3-4 Id