Pre-Mature Crowing

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

I don't think anybody "forced" Trump to praise Australia's health care system. I think he did it of his own loose-cannon-type will. Just like when, a week or so ago, he said "Kim is one smart cookie". He likes to be loved.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

I'm looking for an authority on using "sardonic" as a noun. Often an adjective ("sardonic humor") or adverb ("sardonically"). Help me out. Others found the rose garden hoopla: overblown, ironic, premature, etc.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

I like the word, one of my favorites. I just didn't see the noun that the adjective was modifying.

"I found it a sardonic event," or, "the event was a sardonicism."

Maybe engineers get some leeway in grammar and syntax. My guess is that you made a mental bridge between the noun "ironic" and the adjective "sardonic." Nonetheless, I always appreciate good vocabulary. Send me a link, though, for "sardonic" as a noun.

The conservative commentator Krauthammer is saying that Obamacare is a big winner because the conversation has shifted. He predicts single payer in seven years.

[Haruo]

William, Keith didn't use "sardonic" as a noun. "I found it sardonic that..." is not the same as saying "I found it a sardonic, that..." And don't argue about the comma.

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

It's indirect. The noun it modifies is the one represented here pronominally by "it".

[Haruo]

When I first saw my new house, I found it dilapidated. No one would say that this is an attempt to use "dilapidated" as a noun. So why pick on Keith's "sardonic"?

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

In Esperanto I would probably use an adverb there, but I'm disinclined to call it one in English, just on formal grounds. The adverb should have its telltale -(al)ly suffix. But if you say "I found it sardonically, that..." then not only are you sounding weird(ly), but you're modifying "found" instead of "it".

[Jim]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]