Best town to live in near sierras

[jscott]

Tahoe City. I won't say 'the best' because I don't know. It has a lot of tourists, but the truth is, you can buy/rent a house just off the main road and you're tucked away into the forest with a lake view. The schools are reasonable according to my very exacting friends who live there. But they bemoan the lack of fine food (they're French) and culture. Every small Sierra town is like that. If your kids enjoy skiing and biking and hiking, they're set. It's hardly wilderness but it's not a bad compromise. You can get the New York Times and the Chronicle daily. I've been doing day skis on the Tahoe Rim Trail or on abandoned logging roads (think biking in summer)in easy terrain for years and usually see no one for hours on end. Also, some of the best Nordic groomed areas in the country are minutes away–not an exaggeration on the term 'best'. Plus of course downhill skiing. Finally, you have access to the east slope of the Sierra about an hour and a half away. Not bad.

[Ralph Burgess]

"You should reread my post and see if you think I was being serious." David, if your entire post was a parody, then I apologize most sincerely. You got me good. All I can do is cite Poe's Law in my abjection; and observe that there certainly was some humorless pedantry about "The Sierras" earlier in the thread that led me to bark up the wrong tree with your post.

[Stephen M]

Talk about thread Hijack.

[Ralph Burgess]

I think we're just driving home the point that living in the Sierra(s) without internet service could be quite wonderful.

[Stephen M]

But then one would have no BPL ;-)

[Cayenne Redmonk]

I think we should trash English for all range of mountains. I declare the native friendly names to be The Rocky The Smokey The Trinity The appalacia The Sierra The Cascade The White … Let's Stop offending the natives !

[Ken Thompson]

The natives never called it Trinity. I hope Christopher comes to the GGG.

[Cameron M]

Los Angeles has the best surfing and is a leisurely 3 hour drive to Lones Pines. However Bishops is home to the very fine Mount Whitney Virtual Academy, a charter school that serves 7 students in grades 9-12. Which town is best? Sort of a toss-up. At least we can all agree that spelling and punctuation are not components of grammar.

[Dave T]

Maybe John Muir, loving the glorious tapestry of language, flowing languidly into the future, actually was badgering Fahrquhar for it to be the "Ranges of Light." (Sounds even more awesome if there are a few of them.) But c'mon Muir… put down the hard biscuit and scratchy wool blanket and get yer ass up Fisherman's Peak. Or Fishermans' Peaks? Hey Brewer and Hoffman, Whitney's a pompous ass anyway, so why not "Picos de Pescadores"?! (Or whatever, who cares what it really is in Spanishes!). To avoid the threadjacks: Tahoe City! Tahomas! Outskirts of Nevada City! Greater Minden/Garderville! Chalfant Valley! Bishop! Toms' Places! Independence! Lone Pine! South Tronas! Get a monthly rentals at the Rustic Inn in Olanchas 'til you get on your feet! Single-wide outside of Darwin. Part-time caretaker at Cerros Gordos! Or whatever!

[chris smead]

Wow I literally thought you guys were kidding by recommending Tom's place and were referring to Tom Kirchner…I just realized its an actual town. Haha. Will check that out. When comparing these places to the neighborhood and amenities I have now….I'm realizing this will not be an easy sell for the wife…wish me luck ;) I'm even considering the vacation home idea if we can AirBnB it enough to help offset the cost…not sure if that will make financial sense though. Anyone have experience with that? GGG sounds awesome! Henry Coe is pretty close for me. Hopefully the ticks (my biggest fear) will be dead by then.

[Paul Wagner]

Just to clarify a bit here, from someone who speaks Spanish: Sierra Nevada is NOT plural, it's singular. It literally means the "snowy range." Sierra has two meanings: a mountain range, and a saw–in English we have the Sawtooth Range. I don't know if people call that the Sawtooths….or Sawteeth. But there is a substantive difference between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains—or in Spanish, originally, Las Montanas (sorry for the lack of tilde) Rocasas. So that was plural. There are two kinds of linguists, proscriptive and descriptive, and there have been for ages and ages. The proscriptive ones let us know how it should be, based on historic usage. The descriptive ones tell us how it is used today even if that violates traditional rules. And I bet we all have elements of both of these types, once we really start talking about language and pet peeves.

[Cayenne Redmonk]

Good point. The Rocky Mountain Range is already plural. We should change English usage and refer to it as the Rocky to honor meanings we don't use, from languages we don't speak.

[Dave @ Oware]

Go ahead and keep saying mountainses if you must. I can just hear some of you saying the middle a in Nevada like the a in father too. As far as Bridgeport, they had a highly regarded High school in a doublewide with views of the "Sawtooth", bordering YNP. Climb the Matterhorn like Jack Kerowacky or the Dragtooth. Enjoy unlimited time at the travertine hot springs. —- There is a great liberal arts college not far from Bishop http://www.deepsprings.edu/about/location/

[Dave @ Oware]

Then there is also Verdi, envy. (Rhymes with fur die). Bordering CA with Nevada Taxes. Maybe get a job at that new Tesla Plant.

[Art …]

"" There are two kinds of linguists, proscriptive and descriptive, and there have been for ages and ages. The proscriptive ones let us know how it should be, based on historic usage. The descriptive ones tell us how it is used today even if that violates traditional rules. "" there is actually a third kind. I'm sure they have a label, but it escapes me. those who create and change language, keeping it a vibrant and elastic means of communication. they make up words, and find new meanings and usages for existing words. they are most commonly found among poets and ghetto residents. and so " Sierras " is now an appropriate word/usage … unless your butt is welded to the past.

[Dave @ Oware]

Not seeing the vibrance in Sierras over Sierra. But I am sensing some microaggression. Perhaps I am too much of a slacktivist to take this any farther tho.

[Ralph Burgess]

"There are two kinds of linguists, proscriptive and descriptive" Not quite true. Linguistics is an empirical science, so all linguists are descriptivist. A "prescriptivist linguist" is an oxymoron – it would be analogous to a physicist who approached his subject by telling the universe what the laws of nature should be, rather than observing what they are. "Prescriptivists" are people who seem to feel some burden to take it upon themselves to police the language. There is always a theme that language is decaying because of careless and ignorant usage, and that in a few generations people will probably no longer be able to express themselves clearly because their grammar or semantics is so imprecise. The "rules" that they seek to impose are always arbitrary – generally determined by the prescriptivist's local dialect, backed up by fallacious appeals to etymology or "logic"; their misconception of the nature of language was usually reinforced by poor teaching and incoherent nonsense such as Strunk and White.

[Larry De La Briandais]

"…and that in a few generations people will probably no longer be able to express themselves clearly because their grammar or semantics is so imprecise." I find that happening now. ;^)

[Bob Shaver]

Life is a lot less stressful when you accept that you have no right to tell other people what to do. I might usta call them the Sierra, but I definitely hike in the Sawtooths, not the Sawteeth. I had already did that, and might could do it again. In fact, I might have did already. So its already been did.

[Ralph Burgess]

"Not seeing the vibrance in Sierras over Sierra." Now this is a perfect way to express matters. I can totally understand that some people might find "Sierras" jarring, and feel a strong aesthetic preference for "Sierra". But both are clearly in common usage, so it's just a subjective aesthetic preference that not everyone may share. Personally I find "Sierras" perfectly euphonious. The difficulty arises when people with one preference start lecturing about how others are "wrong", with fallacious appeals to etymology or (in this case) irrelevant rules of Spanish grammar.

[Dave T]

Move to Toms' Places. Move to Cerros Gordos. Move to Chaff. (Hi Ken.) (Also Larry… demanding proper subject/verb agreement are infringing on the open and free weaving of one's own glorious tapestry. You is wrong!)

[Ralph Burgess]

Well, I dunno. I feel less foolish for not picking up that your post a while back was supposed to be a joke or a parody. Do you really hold those views of language or not, I'm really not clear? Do you need me to give you a list of words that have been adopted into English from other languages that no longer follow the grammar of the original language? Or to point out that place names are unusual in their treatment of singular/plural? Is "Los Angeles" singular or plural? [ ETA: I asserted that "Spanish words adopted into English must continue to follow Spanish grammar" is not an empirically valid rule of any English dialect that I'm aware of. Based on that, and a grammatical mistake that I made in a sentence above, you have parodied my position as "there are no rules – anything goes". It's a common and mistaken parody of descriptivist linguistics, and it's debunked eloquently in the article below. ] If you're interested, this is a good concise article on the way linguists (i.e. descriptivists) actually think about the true "rules" of language: EVERYTHING IS CORRECT vs NOTHING IS RELEVANT "What's so interesting is that it is quite clear [xxx] cannot see any possibility of a position other than two extremes: on the left, that all honest efforts at uttering sentences are ipso facto correct; and on the right, that rules of grammar have an authority that derives from something independent of what any users of the language actually do. But there had better be a third position, because these two extreme ones are both utterly insane."

[Dave @ Oware]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuDtXMNB9wE A claymation made in the Adult 2D Claymation class at ACCtv studios in Carson City Nevada.

[Anonymous]

"…utterly insane…" (Not directed at anyone specifically). I'm finding this debate insanely inane, or is it, inanely insane? Guess we're all a little insane in the membrane.

[Dan Magdoff]

What about Auburn or Grass valley? I am originally from the Bay Area, CA (moved to Arizona a few years ago for work). I am wanting to get back to CA ASAP and have been pondering the same questions. I was looking at Auburn, Grass Valley and Placerville. I don't know much about the schools in these towns. BUT…they are close to the mountains, and still close to the Bay Area and Sacramento. Lots of access to the high country. You are low enough in elevation to not get a ton of snow. I am a ER/ trauma nurse, so one of my requirements is being within a reasonable commute to a hospital. Having Sacramento close would leave many options. What are people thoughts on those areas?

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