Wanda,
   That's great! We couldn't run a conference without you!
   I thought about you tonight as I wore your regalia at graduation.
This was an especially memorable one since I had many students
graduating. One of my favorite students 
was one who was at last year's conference. He received 3 associate's
degrees at age 89!  The entire audience gave him a standing ovation.
                           Sherry

>>> [log in to unmask] 05/24/12 8:47 PM >>>
Sherry--I put it on my calendar and hope to be there.--Wanda  Van Goor  
 
 
In a message dated 5/24/2012 3:40:26 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Dear  friends,
Now that the semester is over, we know you are  thinking ahead to
conference opportunities for the summer. We are pleased  to announce
that
the 23rd Annual Conference of the Association for the  Teaching of
English Grammar (ATEG) will be held at Prince George's  Community
College
again this year on July 27-28, 2012. The location will be  Community
Room
A, Largo Student Center, 301 Largo Rd. Largo MD20774.
The  ATEG website has proposal submission guidelines, conference hotel
info, and  online registration. 
The conference theme is Occupy Grammar:  Taking our Rightful Place.
Amy Benjamin, our keynote speaker, offers the  following introduction to
the theme:

Occupy Grammar!  Beginning  in September, 2011, a ragtag band of
American
citizens began to rattle  their cages. Although Occupiers are not
cohesive, nor are their goals  explicitly stated, what they've done has
certainly ignited new  conversations, raised new questions, albeit
without answers right now. We  at ATEG also want to be heard, also want
to challenge the status quo, also  are amorphous, and certainly ragtag.
So join us at our 23rd Conference, to  be held entirely indoors, as we
again proclaim that teaching grammar is  necessary, interesting, and not
dreary, smug, or pedantic. Let's see what  we can do to change the world
of grammar education while the other  revolution marches on.

Please let us know of your interest in attending and also
any questions you  may have. I look forward to seeing you again!
Sherry Saylors,  conference
host



>>> [log in to unmask] 05/19/12 11:43  PM >>>
It's well known that the Present Day English progressive  passive as in

My house is being painted

did not come into wide  use till the mid-19th c.   Until then, one would
have said-or  written

My house is painting.

The progressive was probably the  last form of the passive construction
to develop in English.  Here is  an example of the older construction
from George Eliot's The Mill on the  Floss (1860, Penguin Classics
1979),
p. 549:

"It is true, she was  looking very charming herself, and Stephen was
paying her the utmost  attention on this public occasion - jealously
buying up the articles he had  seen under her fingers in the process of
making, and gaily helping her to  cajole the male customers into the
purchase of the most effeminate  futilities."

The phrase "the articles he had seen under her fingers in  the process
of
making" is the construction in question, where "making" in  PDE would be
"being made."  Parsing the phrase as a late instance of  the Early
Modern
English -ing form as a progressive passive makes sense in  its
historical
context and Eliot's linguistic conservatism.  What  sparked my curiosity
was how my fellow grammarians might parse the  construction, not
treating
it as a slightly archaic form for 1860s  English.  The analysis must
account for both meaning and grammatical  form.

Herb



Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus  Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN   47306
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