Deliberately splitting an infinitive in a sentence about Wolfson's grammar-mongering would be as cool, in a corresponding way, as baiting Bob Knight, to my twisted mind.
(Actually, I hope and trust that Wolfson doesn't mind split infinitives, which are completely OK; and it actually wouldn't be cool to make fun of even Bob Knight over the way he got fired from his last job. But it's pretty to think so.)
I find unsplit infinitives awkward-sounding and excessively formal, like saying "If you don't mind, I'd prefer not to watch this mindless drivel" rather than "Change the fucking channel."
For instance, he contends that it is better to say "Our object is to further cement trade relations," thus splitting "to cement," than to say "Our object is further to cement trade relations," because the use of "further" before "to cement" might lead the reader to think it had the weight of "moreover" rather than of "increasingly." My own way out of all this confusion would be simply to say "Our object is to let trade relations ride," that is, give them up, let them go. Some people would regard the abandonment of trade relations, merely for the purpose of avoiding grammatical confusion, as a weak-kneed and unpatriotic action. That, it seems to me, is a matter for each person to decide for himself. A man who, like myself, has no knowledge at all of trade relations, cannot be expected to take the same interest in cementing them as, say, the statesman or the politician. This is no reflection on trade relations.
Hey, as someone who went to Stanford for grad school, lived on campus and then in its environs, and who now lives in Baghdad-by-the-Bay, I have several opinions. A few of which might even interest you.
First of all, the area around campus is insanely pricey. I ended up living my third year in Mountain View which seems to have more apartments than P.A. or Menlo Park. Then again it's further from campus but this is more than made up for in that you can still find delightfully divy bars and excellent burritos. (Note, I may put too much emphasis on this sort of thing.) Going the other direction, Redwood City is also more affordable than the other areas close to campus (like Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside...), and also has great burritos. Basically, if it's got great burritos, you can afford to live there, is a nice rule of thumb.
Then again, now may not be a bad time to lock in a lease in SF. The drive isn't terrible unless you have to do it during rush hours, or you can always take the train. (280 is of course prettier than 101, which is an affront to the senses.) There's a new express train from the City to Stanford which is apparently living up to its name. Plus, it's grad school - how often do you really have to be on campus anyway?
As for actual listings, check out craigslist, natch.
Feel free to email me with questions though. Happy to help. Plus I'm on the Stanford Alum email list where people post jobs, apartments and general rants about some guy named David Yoon.
Oh, one more thing - I HATED living in the Peninsula. It's too dry, too blah and you have to drive absolutely everywhere to do anything. I would recommend moving to the City if you like being able just to step out and meet friends for a drink or walk about and do anything remotely interesting, but then, some people love the Peninsula lifestyle...
The problem with living far from campus, is that you have a harder time becoming part of the school community (there's much less "come on over" type stuff).
Peninsula, as I understand it, is the area from the SF border to the Santa Clara County border (or thereabouts), south of which is the South Bay/Santa Clara Valley. There was an attempt to call it the West Bay back in the day, but that doesn't seem to have caught on.
"The Peninsula" was the name of the social-conservative (catholic) magazine on my campus. "The Salient" was the name of the neo-con mag on my campus. "Perspective" was the name of the liberal mag.
Two points:
1. Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? You so obviously can.
2. Conservativism and phallic imagery: a winning tandem!
A third point: Congratulations on the choice, Ben W, I hadn't realized you had made the decision.
The Salient existed before the Peninsula, and the Peninsula was a deliberate exaggeration of the Salient--it worked kinda like the modern GOP, except for the Catholic part. To be fair, it was "The Perspective" at least in my day.
I always thought the Peninsula didn't start until you passed South San Francisco and then ended around Sunnyvale, at which point you found yourself in the South Bay (with a gun in your mouth, usually).
And true, when you don't live on or very near campus there really isn't as much of the 'hey, come on over' stuff but in this case it's prohibitively spendy to live near campus so unless you're serving ramen and PBR, prolly not workable anyway. Of course, if you're going to B-school, being near campus is key because of all the 'mixers.' Man, it's almost enough to make you wish you went to B-school. Sadly, I never would have made the height requirement.
BTW, we did a few joint projects and all the law school guys were short and balding while the b-schoolers were these 6ft athletic types with full heads of gleaming hair. So sad. (And the JD/MBA guys were tall too.) It was like a doggy playdate, half golden retrievers, half pugs.
I worry that living far from campus is a very good way to become socially isolated. You can walk places in Palo Alto (and definitely bike everywhere), so it's not as if that kind of lifestyle is only possible in the city. Sure, you can't afford fancy dinner parties (or a place big enough to put a table in), but no one can, and they socialize in other ways. Hmm, I have stronger feelings about this than I thought. One vote against living in the city, at least for the first couple of years.
And Ben, I don't think you can both live alone and live off-campus (not for under ~$1000/month, anyway). My bet is that you'll have to compromise on one of those.
Ben, Ogged and I have decided that you are going to live near campus the first year and then look into a place in the City, you know, after you've had some time to make friends and get your bearings. But he's right, dear - you will have to make some compromises about living alone, what with your budget.
I've come to that realization myself, ogged. In fact, you basically can't live alone (there are some on-campus studios but they're miniscule, and not much to stake one's hopes on). And I am aware of the social isolation factor of living off-campus—something to which I'm susceptible anyway. (If you're conceiving of "off campus" as "in San Francisco", another vote against would be getting to campus. The drive may not be terrible when not made during rush hours, but who's to say I wouldn't have classes that met at such a time that I'd be forced to drive during rush hours? The grad students I met seemed to be of the opinion that once you were done with coursework it was more than doable, but before that might be hard.)
By "off-campus" I meant "not in university housing." You're correct that the driving would be hellish.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that "not alone" describes a bunch of not-too-bad living arrangements: you can probably get a room w/ private shower in a house. Ok, what's your budget (if you don't mind)?
The Stanford studios are actually pretty nice, but they're definitely small and hard to get into with the lottery. And living alone whether on or off-campus puts you at risk for social isolation, as I know too well.
The rest of the on-campus housing is still pretty good quality, but there are some undesirable options like the really crowded apartments with 3 people but only 2 bedrooms in which one person sleeps in the living room. There are even grad dorms, but they're pretty old and run-down and have communal kitchens - assuming you can get access to the kitchen at all. I lived in one my first year. The only advantage was that it was cheap.
The Rains houses are supposedly great for humanities types socially but I can't speak from experience, having lost out big time on the lottery (which is how I ended up in a dorm 1st year).
Off campus I also can't speak from experience since I've been on campus the whole time, but: Menlo Park and Mountain View seem to be pretty popular, and the part of East Palo Alto on the west side of 101 isn't bad. It's certainly possible to walk places in Palo Alto, but to walk to Palo Alto - even from campus - can take quite a while. But biking is certainly a possibility.
About SF: One of my friends has lived there the whole time and felt pretty isolated the first few years (though he's married, so not that isolated). But now that enough people have moved to SF it doesn't seem to be a problem for him. Other people have, after coursework, even moved to the East Bay (either across the Dumbarton, or even as far as Berkeley) but it would be nearly crazy to do that in your first few years.
Not to seem, you know, schoolmarmish, but living close to or on campus is beneficial not only for social reasons but because of the library. It is grad school, right?
If one has a car (and I'll do my damnednest to ensure that I will, as is entirely feasible), then one can go to, and from, the library. Even a bike, provided one isn't weighted down too heavily with roughage and doesn't live too far away.
I acknowledge that frequent trips back and forth would be a hassle. It's as Jewlia Eisenberg sang on "Bed/Café" from Trilectic: "I can be hear in your bed. I can go to a café. But I can't be here in your bed and go to a café—it's too serious."
Okay. I will explain this, as it were, sloly. SloLernr is "Slow Learner" in eight letters, as in the Old Days of the Internets you were often obliged to choose an eight-letter moniker.
A graduate student in The World According to Garp was a "gradual student." A "gradual student" is a "Slow Learner."
Although someone on John & Belle once had an onomasm over the possibility that "Slow Learner" referred to Thomas Pynchon.
If you're doing grad school in philosophy, you can get a lot of research done over the internets. A poshy school like Stanford is going to have internet access to most journals, and you can procrastinate on fixing your references in books.
baa--You can't do that. Tell us. (Also, if you know the story of the founding of the Peninsula, does that mean you were there when it was founded--which was when I was there?)
My secret identity revealed!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 1:51 PM
WTF? Does that mean you made a decision to get the PhD? Or the MA? Or law school?
Congrats on any decision made.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:01 PM
If you had written "to never correct the grammar," I would be seriously considering starting a fight with Bob Knight.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:07 PM
I'm not sure I get the cause/effect there.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:08 PM
It refers to your comment here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:10 PM
Link went bye-bye! Here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:10 PM
Ok, I might be a complete idiot, but I remembered the comment, and still don't understand the cause/effect. Go easy on me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:12 PM
Deliberately splitting an infinitive in a sentence about Wolfson's grammar-mongering would be as cool, in a corresponding way, as baiting Bob Knight, to my twisted mind.
(Actually, I hope and trust that Wolfson doesn't mind split infinitives, which are completely OK; and it actually wouldn't be cool to make fun of even Bob Knight over the way he got fired from his last job. But it's pretty to think so.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:15 PM
Aha, it would have been a cheeky split infinitive.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:19 PM
split infinitives, which are completely OK
Not only are they OK, but in my broad-minded yet appropriately humble opinion, anyone who thinks they're not OK is someone up with whom I cannot put.
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:27 PM
I don't mind split infinitives, though I usually don't write them myself, as I frequently prefer the sound of the unsplit infinitive.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:29 PM
I find unsplit infinitives awkward-sounding and excessively formal, like saying "If you don't mind, I'd prefer not to watch this mindless drivel" rather than "Change the fucking channel."
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:36 PM
As I said, I frequently prefer the sound of unsplit infinitives.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:38 PM
James Thurber, bitches.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:41 PM
Hey, as someone who went to Stanford for grad school, lived on campus and then in its environs, and who now lives in Baghdad-by-the-Bay, I have several opinions. A few of which might even interest you.
First of all, the area around campus is insanely pricey. I ended up living my third year in Mountain View which seems to have more apartments than P.A. or Menlo Park. Then again it's further from campus but this is more than made up for in that you can still find delightfully divy bars and excellent burritos. (Note, I may put too much emphasis on this sort of thing.) Going the other direction, Redwood City is also more affordable than the other areas close to campus (like Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside...), and also has great burritos. Basically, if it's got great burritos, you can afford to live there, is a nice rule of thumb.
Then again, now may not be a bad time to lock in a lease in SF. The drive isn't terrible unless you have to do it during rush hours, or you can always take the train. (280 is of course prettier than 101, which is an affront to the senses.) There's a new express train from the City to Stanford which is apparently living up to its name. Plus, it's grad school - how often do you really have to be on campus anyway?
As for actual listings, check out craigslist, natch.
Feel free to email me with questions though. Happy to help. Plus I'm on the Stanford Alum email list where people post jobs, apartments and general rants about some guy named David Yoon.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:42 PM
QED
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:43 PM
Oh, one more thing - I HATED living in the Peninsula. It's too dry, too blah and you have to drive absolutely everywhere to do anything. I would recommend moving to the City if you like being able just to step out and meet friends for a drink or walk about and do anything remotely interesting, but then, some people love the Peninsula lifestyle...
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:45 PM
The problem with living far from campus, is that you have a harder time becoming part of the school community (there's much less "come on over" type stuff).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:47 PM
Is "the Peninsula" just "not the City"? I will probably email you.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:49 PM
A very odd Wiki entry for the Peninsula.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:52 PM
Peninsula, as I understand it, is the area from the SF border to the Santa Clara County border (or thereabouts), south of which is the South Bay/Santa Clara Valley. There was an attempt to call it the West Bay back in the day, but that doesn't seem to have caught on.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 2:57 PM
"The Peninsula" was the name of the social-conservative (catholic) magazine on my campus. "The Salient" was the name of the neo-con mag on my campus. "Perspective" was the name of the liberal mag.
Two points:
1. Who says you can't judge a book by its cover? You so obviously can.
2. Conservativism and phallic imagery: a winning tandem!
A third point: Congratulations on the choice, Ben W, I hadn't realized you had made the decision.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:01 PM
Wow, ogged, that second sentence is something. I'm amazed someone hasn't edited that way.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:02 PM
Thanks, baa. I think we can all agree that "The Salient" is a dumb name for a magazine.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:03 PM
The Salient existed before the Peninsula, and the Peninsula was a deliberate exaggeration of the Salient--it worked kinda like the modern GOP, except for the Catholic part. To be fair, it was "The Perspective" at least in my day.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:14 PM
I'm amazed someone hasn't edited that way.
Did you just change it? I went to edit it, and it was already done.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:18 PM
I did nothing, seńor fawlty, nothing.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:22 PM
The story of the founding of "Peninsula" is, in fact, a hilarious one.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 3:24 PM
I always thought the Peninsula didn't start until you passed South San Francisco and then ended around Sunnyvale, at which point you found yourself in the South Bay (with a gun in your mouth, usually).
And true, when you don't live on or very near campus there really isn't as much of the 'hey, come on over' stuff but in this case it's prohibitively spendy to live near campus so unless you're serving ramen and PBR, prolly not workable anyway. Of course, if you're going to B-school, being near campus is key because of all the 'mixers.' Man, it's almost enough to make you wish you went to B-school. Sadly, I never would have made the height requirement.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:25 PM
Damn! You're short? Moira, moira moira moira...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:28 PM
Yes, but I write tall.
BTW, we did a few joint projects and all the law school guys were short and balding while the b-schoolers were these 6ft athletic types with full heads of gleaming hair. So sad. (And the JD/MBA guys were tall too.) It was like a doggy playdate, half golden retrievers, half pugs.
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:33 PM
I worry that living far from campus is a very good way to become socially isolated. You can walk places in Palo Alto (and definitely bike everywhere), so it's not as if that kind of lifestyle is only possible in the city. Sure, you can't afford fancy dinner parties (or a place big enough to put a table in), but no one can, and they socialize in other ways. Hmm, I have stronger feelings about this than I thought. One vote against living in the city, at least for the first couple of years.
And Ben, I don't think you can both live alone and live off-campus (not for under ~$1000/month, anyway). My bet is that you'll have to compromise on one of those.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:34 PM
Isn't the b-school the only school that interviews all the candidates? Not an accident...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:35 PM
Ben, I assume you've seen this.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:40 PM
Ben, Ogged and I have decided that you are going to live near campus the first year and then look into a place in the City, you know, after you've had some time to make friends and get your bearings. But he's right, dear - you will have to make some compromises about living alone, what with your budget.
Warmly,
Moira
Posted by moira | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:41 PM
That's a load off his mind. Damn, are we good people, or what?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:43 PM
I've come to that realization myself, ogged. In fact, you basically can't live alone (there are some on-campus studios but they're miniscule, and not much to stake one's hopes on). And I am aware of the social isolation factor of living off-campus—something to which I'm susceptible anyway. (If you're conceiving of "off campus" as "in San Francisco", another vote against would be getting to campus. The drive may not be terrible when not made during rush hours, but who's to say I wouldn't have classes that met at such a time that I'd be forced to drive during rush hours? The grad students I met seemed to be of the opinion that once you were done with coursework it was more than doable, but before that might be hard.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:43 PM
By "off-campus" I meant "not in university housing." You're correct that the driving would be hellish.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that "not alone" describes a bunch of not-too-bad living arrangements: you can probably get a room w/ private shower in a house. Ok, what's your budget (if you don't mind)?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 4:48 PM
Ah, see, in 32 you said "one vote against living in the city", which I immediately interpreted to mean "in San Francisco", because, come on.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:03 PM
Yes, I don't recommend living in the city, but I also think that any single occupancy place that isn't university housing will be very expensive.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:05 PM
Solution: find a sympathetic soul during the first year.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:10 PM
Sorry about the anonymous posting, but FWIW:
The Stanford studios are actually pretty nice, but they're definitely small and hard to get into with the lottery. And living alone whether on or off-campus puts you at risk for social isolation, as I know too well.
The rest of the on-campus housing is still pretty good quality, but there are some undesirable options like the really crowded apartments with 3 people but only 2 bedrooms in which one person sleeps in the living room. There are even grad dorms, but they're pretty old and run-down and have communal kitchens - assuming you can get access to the kitchen at all. I lived in one my first year. The only advantage was that it was cheap.
The Rains houses are supposedly great for humanities types socially but I can't speak from experience, having lost out big time on the lottery (which is how I ended up in a dorm 1st year).
Off campus I also can't speak from experience since I've been on campus the whole time, but: Menlo Park and Mountain View seem to be pretty popular, and the part of East Palo Alto on the west side of 101 isn't bad. It's certainly possible to walk places in Palo Alto, but to walk to Palo Alto - even from campus - can take quite a while. But biking is certainly a possibility.
About SF: One of my friends has lived there the whole time and felt pretty isolated the first few years (though he's married, so not that isolated). But now that enough people have moved to SF it doesn't seem to be a problem for him. Other people have, after coursework, even moved to the East Bay (either across the Dumbarton, or even as far as Berkeley) but it would be nearly crazy to do that in your first few years.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:11 PM
You, anonymous poster, can also email me (wolfson at gmail etc) if you want to say anything without risking your Greater Anonymity.
Currently looking at stanford's subsidized quasi-off-campus housing, which seems decent.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:15 PM
I'm heading away from the computer right now, but I'll e-mail you within the next day or two.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 5:21 PM
Not to seem, you know, schoolmarmish, but living close to or on campus is beneficial not only for social reasons but because of the library. It is grad school, right?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:29 PM
This ain't Europe. You can check books out.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:30 PM
And what's a slol, and how can you earn them?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:32 PM
The slol (properly slöl) is a defunct unit of currency from Moldova.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:37 PM
(1) Does the capitalization help?
(2) Dude, I suppose it depends on your field, but trust me: if you're doing serious grad-level research you need to be in the library.
Posted by SloLernr | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:49 PM
If one has a car (and I'll do my damnednest to ensure that I will, as is entirely feasible), then one can go to, and from, the library. Even a bike, provided one isn't weighted down too heavily with roughage and doesn't live too far away.
I acknowledge that frequent trips back and forth would be a hassle. It's as Jewlia Eisenberg sang on "Bed/Café" from Trilectic: "I can be hear in your bed. I can go to a café. But I can't be here in your bed and go to a café—it's too serious."
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:53 PM
Obviously, experiences and needs vary. But there's a reason they let those little cubicles in libraries to gradual students.
Posted by SloLernr | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:56 PM
The fuck's a SloL?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 6:57 PM
Be hear? The fuck?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:00 PM
Okay. I will explain this, as it were, sloly. SloLernr is "Slow Learner" in eight letters, as in the Old Days of the Internets you were often obliged to choose an eight-letter moniker.
A graduate student in The World According to Garp was a "gradual student." A "gradual student" is a "Slow Learner."
Although someone on John & Belle once had an onomasm over the possibility that "Slow Learner" referred to Thomas Pynchon.
Posted by SloLernr | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:01 PM
Be hear? The fuck?
That one was so bad I didn't have the heart to say anything.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:03 PM
I don't get it, SloLernr. Your explanation doesn't even make sense, since "Internets" is nine letters.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:05 PM
I'm too old for this. You whippersnappers are going to be the death of me.
Posted by SloLernr | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:10 PM
Damn. I was hoping we could troll you for a bit longer.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:12 PM
HAND, anyway.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04-20-05 7:12 PM
If you're doing grad school in philosophy, you can get a lot of research done over the internets. A poshy school like Stanford is going to have internet access to most journals, and you can procrastinate on fixing your references in books.
baa--You can't do that. Tell us. (Also, if you know the story of the founding of the Peninsula, does that mean you were there when it was founded--which was when I was there?)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04-21-05 8:45 AM
I'm heading away from the computer right now, but I'll e-mail you within the next day or two.
Anonymous poster is such a liar.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05- 3-05 8:55 AM