NYT Page 8: Interesting little column about the Churchills discussing the difference between the way the British and Americans wrote their dates in numbers.
I’ve wondered why we do it the way we do, but it occurred to me that the way the date looks when it is written out matches the way we number our dates: (ex. March 23, 2015 is 3/23/2105). Americans have a nasty way of doing things their own way that often actually makes sense.
We declared and won our independence, and that spirit when reinforced by our isolating oceans, enabling constitution, and entrepreneurial economy guaranteed such sensible innovations.
"[O]ften actually makes sense," yes, but often no. For example, our language's use of the adjective preceding the noun it modifies is silly: blue pen versus pen blue, as in Spanish ("pluma azul"), for example. The main fact is the object, while its color is secondary: "oceans isolating, constitution enabling, economy entrepreneurial, innovations sensible."