Trivial matters, Cincinnati style

Trivial Truthmaking Matters

1. Introduction What is true and what is not depends upon how the world is: that there are no white ravens is true because there are no white ravens. That much, Trenton Merricks accepts. But he denies that principles about truthmaking can do any heavy lifting in metaphysics, and he provides powerful, sophisticated arguments for this denial. The hunt for individual truthmakers for specific truth...

Style Matters Teaching English for specific purposes

Few would dispute the need for students of scientific disciplines to learn English. The teaching of English to scientists whose first language is not English is essentially utilitarian. The learners need English as a means of doing their work efficiently and of furthering their specialist education, and the language is not taught with a general educational aim in mind, as a cultural or social e...

A Cincinnati Special Class

ship of twenty-four defective or retarded pupils, comprising ten from the first grade, ten from the second, two from the third, and two from the fifth. The number varied from time to time through dismissals and recruits, until altogether forty-nine pupils have received special treatment adapted to their individual needs. I desire to invite your attention to several particularly interesting and ...

How Trivial Is Trivial

This question is, I feel, in the same kind of idiot category as how long is a piece of string? interviewed recently by a journalist planning to write an article about the women (like me) who conduct 'Auntie' columns in women's magazines, I was asked what proportion of the letters I received each week could be labelled trivial. Her eyebrows shot up when I said that in my view, no human problem w...

Phonological Change in Cincinnati