Picture time!

I wasn't very good about taking pictures in North Dakota, but here are some things I saw:



My first view of North Dakota, from the train.



North Dakota has ridiculously courteous and patient drivers.



Trees.



Shadows.

And on the way back, I saw Minnesota:



Mutant albino squirrel.



A robot.



Republicans.



Really obvious street signs.

Ahh, finally back home...



Er, no, wait, that's in St. Paul. Not quite the UM I know and love.

Automatic FAIL

Want to lose an argument with a linguist? Here's some help, garnered from actual internet discussions:

"It's not a dialect difference. It's just wrong."

"Why can't people just pronounce it the way it's spelled?"

"Well, I've never heard anyone say that, so it's wrong."

"That's not what the dictionary says."

"That's not what my middle school English teacher said."

"People like YOU are the reason the English language is deteriorating."

"If it were anyone else, it might be dialect, but because I believe this person is stupid, it's just because they're stupid."

"That's not your dialect. You're just lazy."

Use of any of the above lines of reasoning is grounds for automatic FAIL. Using one of them seriously is grounds for a beat-down.