9 famous quotes that are (technically) grammatically incorrect

  

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1. To boldly go where no man has gone before.This line (and its newer version, with no one in place of no man) is as famous for being "wrong" as it is for being from the intro to each episode of Star Trek.
What's "wrong"? It's a "split infinitive," with boldly improperly between to and go.
Is it really wrong? No. The "rule" against split infinitives is just a grammatical superstition. It was invented in the 1700s by a grammarian who wanted to "improve" the language along Latin lines. English, however, is not Latin, and the option of putting words between to and the verb root has always existed and has often been made use of by respected authors. There are times when a sentence works better if you don't do it, sure; that doesn't make it a rule, and the Star Trek line is not one of those times, either. "Boldly to go"? "To go boldly"? No.
2. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.This is from "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost.
What's "wrong"? It starts a new sentence right before a conjunction ("But...").
Is it really wrong? No. It has always been an option in English to start sentences with conjunctions, and the most respected authors in the language have done so on occasion to good effect.
3. This was the most unkindest cut of all.Marc Antony says this in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
What's "wrong"? Double superlative: most unkindest.

Why babies in every country on Earth say 'mama'

  

Every language has a word for water. In Swahili they call it maji. In  Danish, it's vand. The Japanese say mizu. Even though these words describe the most common and plentiful life-giving substance on Earth, they have nothing in common linguistically. But why should they, evolving as they did on three separate continents among people with incredibly diverse histories and traditions?
But there is a word, and only one, spoken the same way in nearly every language known to humankind. That word, of course, is "mama."
"Mama" is a universal word, describing the woman who gave us the most cherished love in our most vulnerable state. Almost every language boasts a recognizable form of it. While it's true that most languages vary when it comes to the formal word mother, the intimate mama stays the same in each language.
But "mama" doesn't spring from love. It happens because of two things: Lazy little baby mouths, and boobs.
The definitive study on "mama and papa" as universal terms was conducted by Russian linguist Roman Jakobson. He explained that the easiest vocalizations for a human to make are open-mouth vowel sounds. Babies can make vowel sounds (cries) from day one. And they do. Constantly. As they begin to experiment with making other noises, babies will test some of the easier consonant sounds. Usually they start with the sounds made with closed lips, or "labial sounds" such as /m/ /p/ /b/. Babies summon their energy to push out that new consonant sound "MMMM" and then relax into an open mouth vowel, usually "ah" — which is the easiest. When you combine that with a baby's natural repetition in speech, or "babbling," you get " ma-ma", "ba-ba" "pa-pa," and so on.
So why do babies gravitate to the "m" sound instead of "p" or "b"? Because of breasts, of course! The "m" sound is the easiest for a baby mouth to make when wrapped around a warm delicious breast. Even as adults, we still associate "mmm" with something being yummy and good. So does your baby.
Jakobson's work suggest that your baby has no idea your name is Mama, (or Dada for that matter). Mama doesn't mean "I love you, sweet angel-woman, sacrificer of sleep, career, and buttock firmness." It means "food."
So when a baby calls its father "mama," and gets increasingly disturbed when the father does not become mama, the child is not actually asking for its mother. The child is recognizing that the hairy flat-chested lunk trying to sing "Little Bird" to it is NOT Primary Food Dispersal Unit #1. And Primary Food Dispersal Unit #1, or the suitable latex substitute she usually holds, should be brought forth as quickly as possible.
The Jakobson study predates the feminist movement, and doesn't touch much on the role of men as primary care givers. We can assume the same pattern of speech develops, but is re-arranged through parental guidance, so that a baby soon learns that saying "da da" will bring food, even if no boobs are involved.
Parents encourage the baby's speech, and help refine its inflection to their particular language. Soon "mama" and "papa" begin to represent the actual people in the child's life, no matter how diverse those lives are. So whether or not the child wakes at night asking for vand, mizu, or maji, it will likely be Mama they're asking to get it.

Beyonce Knowles is pregnant again

  

It's the second coming!

Beyonce Knowles is pregnant again

Another baby for Bey-Bey? Apparently so. According to E! Online, "multiple sources" have confirmed that Beyonce Knowles is pregnant with a second child, confirming speculation that her "dehydration and exhaustion" was pregnancy-related (and not just being-a-famous-globetrotting-performer-related). Now that the Beyonce's second baby is officially on the horizon, fans can begin speculating about possible names for it.

See soldiers on their way to Yobe:Boys are not smiling:

by Isi Esene
The deployment of troops to the Northeastern part of then country after a declaration of a state of emergency by President Goodluck Jonathan has begun in earnest.

Military men in their droves were seen heading the region to keep peace and quell the activities of Islamic militant sect, Boko Haram

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Why is there so much poop in swimming pools?

 

A CDC report finds that more than half of public pools are basically toilets

Who would've guessed Caddy Shack would prove so prophetic?

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than half of all public pools had tested positive for E. Coli, the bacteria most commonly associated with fecal matter.

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In the study, the CDC sampled water from filters in 161 public swimming pools, both indoor and outdoor, in the Atlantam, Ga., area. Of those samples, 58 percent showed signs of E. Coli. Though the researchers could not definitively blame human waste for the results, they wrote that it "signifies that swimmers introduced fecal material into pool water."
"It is time to stop treating the swimming pool as a toilet," Michele Hlavsa, head of the CDC's Healthy Swimming Program, told NBC. "Nowhere else except for the pool is it acceptable to poop in public or pee in public. In other places if we did this in public, we'd be arrested."
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So what's the blame for the stinky problem?

Children, specifically diapered babies and those who aren't toilet trained, can easily introduce poop into the water — a "formed fecal incident," as the CDC kindly calls it. (There's a reason for the kiddy pool.)

New Jersey Hospital Is the Costliest in the Nation

BAYONNE, N.J. — The most expensive hospital in America is not set amid the swaying palm trees of Beverly Hills or the luxury townhouses of New York’s Upper East Side.
It is in a faded blue-collar town 11 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
Based on the bills it submits to Medicare, the Bayonne Medical Center charged the highest amounts in the country for nearly one-quarter of the most common hospital treatments,  according to a New York Times analysis of 2011 data, the most recent available. No other hospital was at the top of the price list more often.
Bayonne Medical typically charged $99,689 for treating each case of chronic lung disease, five times as much as other hospitals and 17 times as much as Medicare paid in reimbursement. The hospital also charged on average of $120,040 to treat transient ischemia, a type of small stroke that has no lasting effect. That was six times the national average and 24 times what Medicare paid.
For those prices, the quality of care at Bayonne Medical is no better — or worse — than that at most other New Jersey hospitals. In a 2011 state hospital quality report, Bayonne Medical scored only in the top 50 percent. But profits at the hospital, which was bankrupt in 2007, have soared in recent years, in part because it has found a way to turn some of those high billings into payments.
The increasingly contentious issue of hospital charges drew renewed attention last week when the federal government released Medicare data showing that facilities nationwide submitted widely divergent bills for the same treatments. And while the unassuming, six-story brick hospital here holds a notable place in those rankings, others stand out as well.
The midsize Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa., was the top biller in the country for urinary tract infections, while one prestigious Manhattan hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center, charged twice as much as the equally high-end NewYork-Presbyterian to implant a cardiac pacemaker. But Medicare considers the two New York hospitals so similar it pays them both about $20,000 for the procedure. The hospital industry is quick to say that the charges are irrelevant because virtually no one — private insurers, Medicare or even the uninsured — pays anywhere near those amounts. Medicare sets standard rates for treatments and insurers negotiate with hospitals. But experts add that the charges reflect decades of maneuvering by hospitals to gain an edge over insurers and provide themselves with tax advantages.

Until a recent ruling by the Internal Revenue Service, for instance, a hospital could use the higher prices when calculating the amount of charity care it was providing, said Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins. “There is a method to the madness, though it is still madness,” Mr. Anderson said.

A close look at the finances of Bayonne Medical Center sheds light on how hospital pricing at the extremes may financially benefit an institution. The practices at Bayonne Medical also highlight a new financial strategy used by a small number of hospitals to increase their profits by “going out of network” — severing ties, and hence contractual agreements that limit reimbursement rates, with large private insurers.

Obama agenda seems to be weathering controversies

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office.

"Absolutely not," Steven Miller, the recently resigned acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, responded Friday when asked if he had any contact with the White House about targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special treatment.

The president's re-election campaign?" persisted Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

"No," said Miller.

The hearing took place at the end of a week in which Republicans repeatedly assailed Obama and were attacked by Democrats in turn — yet sweeping immigration legislation advanced methodically toward bipartisan approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The measure "has strong support of its own in the Senate," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a member of the panel.

Across the Capitol, a bipartisan House group reported agreement in principle toward a compromise on the issue, which looms as Obama's best chance for a signature second-term domestic achievement. "I continue to believe that the House needs to deal with this," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who is not directly involved in the talks.

The president's nominee to become energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, won Senate confirmation, 97-0. And there were signs that Republicans might allow confirmation of Sri Srinivasan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, sometimes a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.
Separately, a House committee approved legislation to prevent a spike in interest rates on student loans on July 1. It moves in the direction of a White House-backed proposal for future rate changes to be based on private markets.