Some words don’t have all the forms that writers need. Take the auxiliary verb must, for example. It can only be used in the present tense. The second draft of my paper is due tomorrow; therefore, I must revise my paper. But tomorrow my mother will call and want to know what prevented me from calling her. I’d like to tell her, “My paper was due the next day; therefore I musted revise my paper.” But she won’t understand. I also won’t be able to say, “My paper was due the next day; therefore I must revised my paper.” The word must is forceful; the alternatives in the past tense are weak. I had to revise my paper, It was imperative that I revise my paper, and Necessity was laid upon me that I revise my paper—those options just don’t sing. I can imagine the right phrase, some inflected form of must, but it doesn’t exist. If anyone can suggest an alternative or explain the grammar to me, feel free to comment. And Mom, I hope you’ll understand.
Last night I worked on revising the rough draft of my senior paper. One sentence caught my eye. There was nothing wrong with it, but it didn’t quite flow right. I made a few changes to the wording. Still not satisfied, I gave the sentence a new subject, and deleted a clause here and there. It still lacked something, so I added a participial phrase and tweaked some of the wording a bit more. After twenty minutes of work, the sentence was exactly how I wanted it.
I sat back to admire my handiwork for a minute, then glanced at my printed rough draft. To my chagrin, the rewritten sentence was exactly the same as the original sentence.
I suppose the twenty minutes of work should make feel better about the sentence, but something is still wrong. I have it marked to go back to later. Maybe if I try rewriting the whole paragraph . . .
While teaching a class about Bible doctrines in my church this past summer, I discussed why Adam’s sin is imputed to the human race. In summary, theologians have advanced two possible explanations: first, God imputes sin to all men because Adam is the genetic ancestor of all men; second, God imputes sin to all men because Adam is the covenental representative of all men. In my teaching, I favored the explanation that Adam is the covenental representative, and I probably still hold to that understanding. But I also said that it which explanation one believes doesn’t really affect the rest of his theology. I was wrong.
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Collegian staff writer Jeanne Petrizzo recently interviewed me by email for an article about BJU’s Scholastic Bowl. I thought you might like to read the full interview before Kellen and I meet in dubious battle on the stage of the FMA tonight.
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Becca Phillips is now contributing to a blog entitled Frittering Away. I’m not sure what the blog’s purpose is or who the other contributors are, but it has some humorous scenes from Becca’s law classes. The way I see it, reading the blog is a chance to experience all the funny parts of law school without doing work or paying thousands upon thousands of dollars.
This past week I made a new friend, Kellen’s little brother Nathan. We played catch in the office, wandered around front campus, threw leaves into the fountain, and went to the mall together. I think he liked Philip’s chair best, though.
