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The grammatical construction "Blah Blah Considered Harmful" has always bugged me...it doesn't seem proper. Shouldn't it be something like "Blah Blah Should Be
by davesque 11y ago
The grammatical construction "Blah Blah Considered Harmful" has always bugged me...it doesn't seem proper. Shouldn't it be something like "Blah Blah Should Be Considered Harmful"?
- acbart 11y agoTechnically speaking, if anyone has ever said that Blah Blah is harmful, than it has been considered harmful. The latter construction with Should Be is a more polite form, but the former is also correct if it's ever been true once.
- davesque 11y agoI know what you mean and I agree. I still think it sounds awkward.
- freyr 11y agoThink of it as a newspaper title. There's an implied "XYZ Considered Harmful [by Experts]." That is the original context, a letter written by Dijkstra to the editor of Communications of the ACM, where the editor penned the title.
- emodendroket 11y ago"By the author of this piece" is implied.