Beware... National ID cards are Coming essays

Beware... National ID cards are Coming essays In many countries all over the world governments keep track of everything their citizens do from what they watch on television to where they shop and for whom. And in some cases who they marry and how many children they can have. These kinds of governments are called communists. I was outraged by the terrorist attacks on 9/11 but, how many personal freedoms must we lose for the sake of national security? Phyllis Schlafly writes that a national ID wouldnt have prevented the attacks since all 19 hijackers had visas issued by the government, most had social security numbers, and several had legally issued licenses. Alan Dershowitz writes that a national ID card could enhance civil liberties. How? By having anyone have to produce a card and then have his name ran through some computer. What about ex-cons who have already payed their debt to society? Will they be harassed solely for that purpose? Wouldnt that be a form of profiling? A national ID card is a bad idea. Hari Heath writes the silent coup of administrative tyranny relies on gradualism and societal conditioning. It brings us that much closer to having bar codes on our neck all in the name of national security. From the perspective of someone who has been profiled I would much rather have a government that has little or nothing to do with the privacy of its citizens. We are a nation founded on freedom: a national ID card would only make us that much less free. ...

True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters

True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters True Phrasal Adjectives and Imposters By Mark Nichol Phrasal adjectives, the sets of words that combine to modify a noun, can be tricky. Usually, words in phrasal adjectives are hyphenated to signal their interrelationship, but there are exceptions, and confusion often arises when phrases resemble but do not constitute phrasal adjectives. In English grammar, the assumption is that two adjacent nouns constitute a description of a single entity unless the first noun is hyphenated to a preceding adjective to form a phrasal adjective. For example, in â€Å"They earned their third straight regular season victory that day,† the reference appears to be to a season victory that is regular. Attaching the adjective regular to the noun season with a hyphen clarifies that the reference is to a victory that pertains to the regular season: â€Å"They earned their third straight regular-season victory that day.† Why not hyphenate â€Å"third straight† as well? The phrase modifies â€Å"regular-season victory,† but â€Å"third straight† is not a phrasal adjective; the noun is the phrase â€Å"straight victory,† and third modifies the entire phrase (not just straight), which in turn modifies â€Å"regular-season victory.† To see why this is so, replace the entire phrase â€Å"third straight regular-season victory† with any phrase beginning with an ordinal number followed by an adjective and then a noun (a phrasal adjective in place of â€Å"regular-season† is irrelevant): â€Å"first full sentence,† â€Å"second tall man,† and so on; no hyphenation is called for. The full sentence is the first one, and the tall man is the second one. But isn’t this the same type of construction as seen in â€Å"The team achieved the third-highest score in the franchise’s history,† in which â€Å"third-highest† is correctly hyphenated because it modifies score? No. â€Å"Third highest score† refers to the third in a series of highest scores, but that’s not what this sentence is referring to; the reference is to a score that is third highest. Also, in â€Å"The win snapped their opponents’ sixteen-game home winning streak,† â€Å"sixteen-game† correctly modifies â€Å"home winning streak.† But why isn’t â€Å"home winning† itself hyphenated to indicate that it’s a phrasal adjective modifying streak? Because it’s not a phrasal adjective. The modifier in this sentence is home, modifying the noun phrase â€Å"winning streak.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Spelling Test 1Capitalization Rules for Names of Historical Periods and Movements6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know