John Byrne has several popular lies he likes to tell about me. One of his favorites jus resurfaced over on his board in a thread about whether the internet has ruined comics, in which he responds to the following set-up line–
“Wasn’t the ending to Alpha Flight #12 spoiled at a comic convention by another comic professional?”
–with the following lie:
“Peter David handed out xeroxes of Guardian’s death at a con about a month before the book shipped.”
Nnnnnno. A popular lie of John’s, but no. Number one, it wasn’t at a convention; it was at a get-together for retailers. Number two, it wasn’t Guardian’s death. It was an unlettered two page dream sequence in which Heather was seeing a dessicated Guardian tearing out the ground. Number three, it was part of a package of about two dozen photocopied highlights from assorted Marvel titles. Number four, the material in question was handed to me by Denny O’Neil, the book’s editor when I–in my capacity as sales manager at the time–was going around collecting material to put into the package. And when I said to him, “Are you sure you want me to include this in the material?” Denny replied, “Sure, what’s the harm?” Number five, retailers at the get together had no idea that the sequence actually indicated that Guardian really died. I know this because when John showed up at the get-together, he looked at the material, screamed at me at the top of his lungs, “How could you be showing this to retailers?!? It gives away the fact that Guardian dies!” and stormed out of the room, slowing only long enough to kick over a standing ashtray on his way out. At which point stunned retailers said, “Guardian DIES?,” started looking at the xeroxes again, and were muttering, “I thought it was just a dream sequence…”
Set your watches. I’m sure John will be hauling out the equally fun “Peter David was so stupid he had a character fall to his death underwater” lie sometime within the next six months. That’s one of his favorites.
PAD
• 
I didn’t make it through three pages of the JB’s Irwin thread. The ignorance on display by the host made me ill.
It’s clear JB knew very little about Iwrin before this week, and he knows even less about him now. And most of what he thinks he knows is mostly made up based on his initial impressions and pre-conceptions of Irwin.
My wife sometimes gets mad at me because she’ll as me a question (such as the infamous “Does this look good on me”) and I don’t answer right away. Because I’m seriously thinking about how to answer. While I may take longer than is necessary, it’s because I’m really making an effort to give an honest, well-informed answer. Becuase any other kind of answer is meaningless. If I lie, or always respond with “sure honey,” what’s the point? And if I don’t take the time to become well-informed about the question, I’m liable to give a wrong answer.
JB strikes me as someone that jumps to conclusions, and then sticks to them. If he’d learned that the sky was pink and not blue, he’d be arguing it till his last breath, because that’s what he learned. There’s no point in trying to have a reasoned discussion with someone like that.
Bobb, when your wife asks “Does this look good on me?”, just run and hide. There is no correct way to answer questions like that. Even worse, of course, is the guaranteed to put you on the couch tonight question: “Does this make me look fat?”.
Jason,
???
Uh, yeah, since there’s no proof, “My understanding is that the foundation of this belief lies in snobbery…”
What, in your ignorance, do you want from me?
“It’s clear JB knew very little about Irwin before this week, and he knows even less about him now. And most of what he thinks he knows is mostly made up based on his initial impressions and pre-conceptions of Irwin.”
Yeah, if the statements themselves weren’t so utterly vile then the situation would almost be comical. JB will leap with lightning like speed to heap venomous scorn on anyone who makes comments about him or his work if they so much as seem to have even the smallest single detail wrong. They’re idiots, fools and a***oles for speaking about something for which they have no knowledge of. Many of his board members will then follow suit.
And now we have this. JB actually points out that he knows nothing, absolutely nothing, about the man other then enough general information to recognize him. He was shocked to learn from a poster that Irwin had a family. He was stunned to learn of an incident a few years after the fact that was covered just about everywhere for about a week straight when it happened. But, by the end of his thread, he knows what kind of man Irwin was in private, what Irwin was thinking, what he was feeling, what he wanted out of life (only did stuff for the money) and why it was a great thing that the man died. Oh, and some form of torture before death my have been a good thing as well. This is followed by just about half of his regular posters doing the same after many admit to having just about the same level of Knowledge about Irwin’s life as does JB.
He also can’t seem to fathom that someone pointing out about a dozen times that they are not an artist with the same name as them means that they are not that artist.
Sad. Very, very sad.
************************************************************************************************
“My wife sometimes gets mad at me because she’ll as me a question (such as the infamous “Does this look good on me”) and I don’t answer right away.”
You don’t answer right away? What, then you’ve actually found an answer that you can actually eventually give safely? Please share it with the rest of us. We’d all love to know it too.
True story: last year, when my girlfriend and I were getting ready for my company’s Christmas party, she asked me if a particular dress made her “hips look big.”
She gave me a penetrating gaze and told me, in no uncertain terms, that she wanted an honest answer.
I hesitated for a moment, and then I answered, “Yes. Yes, it does.”
She looked at herself in the mirror and said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
She put something else on, gave me a kiss and thanked me for my honesty. We went on to have a great time that night.
Go figure.
Ok, jason, I realize that last post doesn’t have the impact I was going for because you didn’t say you offered “no proof.” I’m sorry.
Jason, maybe this will help: my personal distaste for snobbery comes from my realization how the most hideous evil is sheltered by the guilty who pretend they’re clean. An example in popular culture that makes this point is Frank Miller’s Sin City.
I don’t want to justify the violence or misogyny of Miller’s protagonists in citing his example, but then again, my understanding of the material is that Miller isn’t intending to justify them either. His point seems to be the most hideous evil is sheltered by the guilty who pretend they’re clean. I just don’t like weak rationalizations constructed to shelter biases and hidden agenda.
If you can give me something I feel comfortable saying myself that I believe, I will go around saying anti-Stratford Shakespearianian things for you. Think of that scientist in Cat’s Cradle who said that a scientist who knows what he’s talking about is able to explain the principles he works with to a layman.
Den, my wife’s pregnant again, and just starting to show. So I’ve had about 2 years now where the safe answer to “does this make me look fat” has been “no, the (up to 8 pound) pound baby in your tummy makes you look fat.”
Like Bill’s experience, she appreciates my honesty. She was trying on skirts the other day, and had one I didn’t care for. She didn’t even have to ask, as I made a face the instant she came out of the dressing room.
I’d much rather tell her the truth and risk setting her off than have her go out wearing something she does look bad in, have some stranger comment to her about it, and deal with the rage she’d be in if she thought I’d not told her the truth.
I’d much rather tell her the truth and risk setting her off than have her go out wearing something she does look bad in, have some stranger comment to her about it, and deal with the rage she’d be in if she thought I’d not told her the truth.
True enough, though I might add that any stranger who makes comments on how women look is going to get his little lights punched out one day, as part of the miracle that is Natural Selection.
My lovely wife still tries to get my opinion on whether certain earrings go with certain outfits when she knows full well that part of the reason I wear nothing but black most days is because I have no sense of what goes with what (the other being that it frightens my students into thinking I am some kind of devil worshiping nut and they’d best lay off lest I suddenly snap and go all Asmodeus on their áššëš).
Like an earlier poster said, I got about 3 or 4 pages into the Byrne/Irwin thread before giving up. Ugly doesn’t begin to describe it. Usually when people say they feel sorry for someone they don’t mean it, they are just being sarcastic while trying to appear compassionate. I’ve done it myself. But I mean it when I say I genuinely feel sorry for John Byrne. If I had that much talent I know I’d be a hëll of lot happier.
Bill Mulligan: you’re not a devil worshipper???
Define devil.
I always like the episode of “Buffy” with a gang of vampire college students, and one of the girls asks, “Does this sweater make me look fat?” And the female leader says scathingly, “No, the fact that you’re fat makes you look fat. The sweater just makes you look purple.”
PAD
I don’t know if it’s dumb luck or the fact that my wife is a biology professor (where being dressed up for a conference often means you wear the good jeans), but I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten the “do I look all right in this?” question. I have occasionally gotten the “which outfit looks better?” question, to which I usually respond with something like “you’re asking ME?”
Alas, my school’s policy for teachers means that most days I have to wear a tie. Blah. (On the other hand, the fact that among my ties are two with Marvin the Martian, one with a lunar landscape, and one with a rubber chicken means that my students are rarely left with many illusions about me by about the third week of school…)
And…
Den, my wife’s pregnant again, and just starting to show.
Congrats, Bobb! Do you know the gender yet? (Or are you planning to be surprised?)
TWL
my wife’s pregnant again, and just starting to show.
Congratulations! Have you figured out why this keeps happening? 🙂
Spoken like a biology teacher, Bill…
TWL
Mike, I’ll be honest, your posts are starting to not make sense to me. But since I am now not only a snob who lets himself be easily “clobbered” but also “ignorant,” I suppose that’s my fault.
Are you suggesting that the use of a psuedonym automatically implies conspiracy? So Mark Twain was part of a conspiracy? David Bowie is part of a conspiracy? Peter David (when he wrote as David Peters) was part of a conspiracy?
Since all you did was string some sentences together and then write “???” I don’t know. I’m trying to understand what you’re even arguing at this point, but I’ll level with you: I am not at all sure I understand.
“Jason, maybe this will help: my personal distaste for snobbery comes from my realization how the most hideous evil is sheltered by the guilty who pretend they’re clean.”
Well, no, that doesn’t help. Explaining why you dislike snobbery in no way explains why you think anti-Stratfordians are snobs. This is beginning to remind of the last time I engaged in a debate here that eventually proved pointless, when some guy was saying that The Dark Phoenix Saga reinforced the negative stereotype that women are murderers. When he was asked (by me and others), “Is that really all that common a stereotype?” And he would reply by telling us that we were all educated people, and we should know the definition of stereotype. He would just constantly sound off with complete non-sequiturs like that.
I’m seeing a similar thing happening here. I already told you I don’t like snobbery either, and have occasionally perceived it on the pro-Stratford side, and it makes me a little miffed. So, we’re agreed: Snobs suck.
WHY we don’t like snobbery is completely irrelevant.
“If you can give me something I feel comfortable saying myself that I believe, I will go around saying anti-Stratford Shakespearianian things for you.”
And, more irrelevance. Do you really think I want you to become a preacher for the cause of the anti-Stratfordians?
Let’s try to shear this back down: You said that the foundation of the belief that the Stratford man did not write the works of William Shakespeare is snobbery. As someone who believes that, I was offended by that. We’re both agreed that “snob” is an insult, so I don’t think I was out of line.
Here’s the foundation of the belief: Lack of compelling evidence that the Stratford man wrote the plays. See, the evidence in favor of Startford is just as flimsy and circumstantial as any evidence that might point to Oxford, or other candidates. Yet orthodoxy is convinced that it was Stratford and scoffs that it could be Oxford, and isn’t that interesting?
It’s an intriguing mystery, and personally I find it compelling. As someone put it on the site that you insulted me for posting a link to, it isn’t a question of whether a man with the Stratford man’s limited education COULD write those classic works (which would be the question of a snob), it’s simply asking a question of whether he DID.
The other point that I tried (but obviously failed) to make was that IF you want to be reductionist and say:
1.) The anti-Stratfordians believe that nobody with a limited education could write those great plays.
2.) Anyone who thinks that is a snob, therefore
3.) Anti-Stratfordians are snobs.
Then it’s just as easy to tar Stratfordians with the same brush (which is something that I’ve seen Oxfordians do, and I don’t agree with it). i.e.,
1.) The Stratfordians believe that anybody who doesn’t believe in the orthodox view of Shakespearean authorship is a snob.
2.) Anyone who could so easily dismiss somebody as a snob just for not agreeing with them is an arrogant prìçk. Therefore
3.) Stratfordians are arrogant prìçkš.
All of this is ad hominem, straw man, non sequitur … all that good stuff that I’ve already brought up. This kind of argument isn’t constructive. I don’t think people on either side should resort to it.
THIS is my point: Insulting a person’s argument by insulting *them* (i.e., calling them snobs) is uncool.
Insulting a person’s argument by putting words in their mouths (“DeVere” is obviously closer to “Shakespeare” than “Shaksper”) and then tearing those fake arguments down to show what an idiot your opponent is is also uncool.
This is all I was pointing out originally, and suddenly I found out from you that I was “letting” myself be “clobbered.” Who knew?
In one of your most recent posts, you said I was ignorant. You’ve insulted me again and again, and I am trying to be as gracious as I can in replying, but I gotta say, Mike, you’re making it difficult.
Peter, while Wizard giving Fallen Angel a C might really be, well, annoying(I know it would irritate the heck out of me) just remember that there’s no accounting for taste. Or the lack thereof.
Den, even worse than that is the sleep in your dámņ car question:”Do you think she’s pretty?” the unspoken addendum of which is “Prettier than me?” Dangerous ground, my friends.
If I could comment on the whole how-many-ways-can-you-spell-Shakespeare? thing, I don’t know if Willy Boy was one guy or a whole collective(We are Shakespeare. Resistance is futile. Modern English is irrelevant) but it could also be that most people were pretty much illiterate (or were as far as I know) so maybe different people writing the name over time just figures, this is how it sounds, this is how it’s spelled.
I got pretty lucky as far as being asked the fat looking question. Sometimes, though, I get the “Why are you with me?” question. Talk about dangerous turf!
Tim, I feel your pain about the tie policy. One of the reasons I didn’t go into teaching. Although, I am thinking about getting a TV teaching job. No, I wouldn’t be teaching TVs. Ties are vile, evil, pseudonooses that will one day get together and start strangling people. I’ve got issues. By the way, how does the rubber chicken stay on the tie?
Bobb, congratulations on the impending Bobbling. Although, using the 8-pound baby in your tummy line, you got WAY more guts than me. When Stacie was pregnant with Brian, she all of a sudden started cleaning the bedroom at 2 in the morning, then nearly took my head off with a baseball bat when I said, “Hey! You’re nesting!”
…
Unless you’re suggesting the pseudonym of Shakespeare sheltered the identity of De Vere, or whoever, casually, I’m using the word correctly. If you are suggesting the obfuscation of authorship was done casually, Shakespeare is still closer to Shaxper than De Vere.
In a debate, giving context to the stakes involved is conventional. That’s what I was doing in explaining my distaste for snobbery. Saying that explaining why snobbery is bad is irrelevant in this debate is like saying the dead body is irrelevant in a murder trial. Nice try.
Jason, you seem to be trying to enforce an unenforcible formality to this debate by dismissing all attempt at summary as straw man. To conform to this apparent formality is ridiculous. All forms of communucation are inherently reductive. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon and cannot pull the moon to you. Words are not the things they are meant to represent.
For all the words being exchanged on this issue, here is the summary of my take on it:
And how am I supposed to respond to this?
I’ll repeat what I said in my previous post:
That’s as good an offer as you’re going to get. If you don’t want that, then what do you want? Give me something else to think.
You’re right. Debates are inherently adversarial, and I took it too far. In my last post I apologized for it to let you know I am not reserving the right to continue to do so. Let me know if I slip up again.
Mike Said:
“I don’t think people were that uptight over standardized name-spelling only 100+ years after Guttenberg.”
Some of my relatives spell the last name Coyle. After doing a little research on the family tree, I find I have relatives named Kyl, Kile, several other variations, and also Goile. All this from only going back about 7 generations, less than 200 years.
Ignorant does not mean stupid.
————————
Anybody wanting to read the gist of the Byrne/Steve Irwin thread need only read page three of that argument.
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/
forum_posts.asp?TID=14104&PN=1&TPN=3
That’s all one url. It ran off the page. You will have to cut and past.
Luigi,
sorry i didn’t answer quicker but i’ve been watching football all weekend. I’m watching Giants Colts right now. Go Manning!! (if you watch football you’ll find that line funny.)
On WIZARD 179 (last month) pg 112. They said continuity and coherance. The grade was actually a B-, not a C. Sorry for the wrong info.
Joe
Joe, are YOU as surprised this game is as close as it is? I mean, I bleed Giant Blue(an heriditary condition, can’t be cured) but I NO WAY thought the score would be 23-21 with six and a half to go in the fourth!
Alan, there are about 20 or 30 different variations of Scullion out there, some without the S, some with Y’s on the end, in fact I was once set up on a blind date with one. Went swimmingly until I saw the Lamb Dearg Eiren stenciled on the back of her leather jacket. Gotta love Ellis Island!
You know, I’m starting to think John’s misuse of English is more pervasive than previously believed. Check out this quote from aintitcoolnews.com:
“I get no sense from Morrison’s work that he has any “love for the genre.” I get the same vibe I get from Moore — a cold and calculated mixing of ingredients the writer knows the fans like, but to which the writer himself has no evisceral connection. Nostalgia without being nostalgic, as I have dubbed it.”
Yes, well, say what you will about Morrison, but at least he uses words that exist. Unlike “evisceral.” John hilariously confuses “visceral” (in this instance, “intense feelings”) with “eviscerate” (to remove organs, typically entrails) and creates a brand new word.
My interest is piqued; I wonder how many other times this master of calling others on definitions or word choice has archly mangled the language?
PAD
Well, I’ll give the devil his due because, depending on his reading habits, he may believe it to be a word since he didn’t make it up and it has been around for a few years now.
Evisceral is a word that keeps popping up more and more on many conservative blog pages. Things like saying Libs have an evisceral hatred of all things Bush and such. It probably got started by the same screw up you outlined and people started picking it up. Google the words “evisceral hatred” and get pages of it.
It’s still not a real word that I’ve ever seen in any dictonary though.
Jerry, is there something wrong with my Google? I tried “evisceral hatred” and only got 3 hits.
Bill Mulligan, you have your own Google? You’re more important than I realized.
Anyway, did you put quotes around the phrase? If so, lose them. I tried it without quotes and got scads of hits.
By the way, if enough people use the word “evisceral” consistently, it’ll probably become commonly accepted like using “disrepect” as a verb. It’s like those guys that hold up those signs warning that the end of the world is nigh. Whether it’s today, tomorrow or a a million years from now, one of these days they’ll be right.
Yeah, drop the quotes. I just tried it with quotes and got your three hits.
Drop hatred and it gets even stranger for a made up word. One of the hits comes up with the title “Revisiting Dynamic Specification” and a link to a PDF file. It’s a paper written by a Professor Suzanna De Boef, Dept. of Political Science at Penn State. The last paragraph on page 3 (which is actually the 5th page of the PDF)has the word in it.
Since finding that I’ve been looking in every online dictionary I can find as well as langauge translation and can’t find so much as one listing for the dámņëd word anywhere. But it’s getting tons of usage for an unreal word.
Bill Myers, you just gave me a GREAT idea–Personal Google! You fill in a few key bits of info on your biases and prejudices and it automatically filters out any webpages that might interfere with your world view. Remove all those annoying differences of opinion.
This is almost as good as my other can’t miss million dollar idea–Mouse Flavored Cat Food! It’s the great taste that cats love! In the entire history of the known universe a housecat has never ONCE caught and eaten a tuna fish or taken down a steer but they market Tuna and Beef as though it’s a cat’s natural meal. Mouse flavored cat food. With a tail in every can! (TM)
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Sure, Bill, cats would love it, but wouldn’t people be upset? After all, mice are cute.” Oh sure, we spend millions on mousetraps and poisons but God forbid a cat gets to eat one. Well screw that, I say. Embrace the horror! I’d put a cartoon of Jerry right on the can! Protests? Riots! PUBLICITY!
Any savvy investors out there?
Hey, hang on!!!!!
Why am I the cartoon victim for hungry cats? And do you realize what something with my mug on it would do to any cats desire to eat something? Hëll, my cats won’t even eat until I’ve left the room or put a bag over my head.
Jerry C, don’t worry about your face. I’m creating a cartoon version of you for the packaging. It’s been tested in focus groups and it’s a hit! I’ve given you little mouse ears, whiskers and a tail.
Bill Mulligan, as the inventor the product belongs to you. We’ll negotiate the rights to the Jerry C caricature separately. Between your idea, and my cartooning skills, we’re going to be rich beyond our wildest dreams! RICH, I SAY!
Or deluded. One or the other.
we’re going to be rich beyond our wildest dreams! RICH, I SAY!
Or deluded. One or the other.
There is ample evidence to show that the two are not mutually exclusive…
TWL
“By the way, if enough people use the word “evisceral” consistently, it’ll probably become commonly accepted like using “disrepect” as a verb.”
That and “moreso.” I know very few people who don’t think that’s actually a word.
But the one that REALLY bugs me is the use of “of” as the contraction of “have” (as in “should of,” “would of,” etc.), which is becoming so common that I’m afraid people will eventually forget that it’s not correct grammar.
Why am I the cartoon victim for hungry cats? And do you realize what something with my mug on it would do to any cats desire to eat something?
jerry, ya big goof, it isn’t the cats that are buying the cat food! As Bill Myers pointed out, focus groups have shown that you have a face that women intuitively trust and really moves cat food. Yeah, we couldn’t believe it at first either.
One disadvantage to having your face on the can will be the inevitable bomb threats from PETA but as Buddha is reputed to have said, “Better you than me.” (this was in the same letter with his other, more famous quote “Every man for himself.”)
My personal sore point is ‘alot,’ but considering the general level of spelling I come across these days, it’s becoming increasingly less annoying as everything else grows proportionately worse.
Bill Mulligan: This is almost as good as my other can’t miss million dollar idea–Mouse Flavored Cat Food! It’s the great taste that cats love! In the entire history of the known universe a housecat has never ONCE caught and eaten a tuna fish or taken down a steer but they market Tuna and Beef as though it’s a cat’s natural meal.
Luigi Novi: Actually, cats do not eat mice. They just catch them and play with them in the same way they do any object scurrying about, like a catnip-dipped ball, a leaf being blown by the wind, etc. 🙂
It would make far more sense along the reasoning you propose to make the food bird-flavored, since my Elsa has on more than one occasion not only caught birds, but consumed them, having once left as evidence on the roof outside my bedroom window a discarded beak and assorted feathers.
Yeah but I’d rather insult radical Muslims than have the bird nuts after my ášš. Those people are crazy! Though Canary flavored cat food–or as I’d call it, “Shredded Tweet”–would indeed be very popular with Elsa and other cats with discriminating palettes.
Luigi, according to this Web site, you are incorrect about cats not eating mice:
http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.html
Bill Mulligan, our plan to dominate the cat food industry will continue unimpeded! We are going to be the Microsoft of cat food!!!
// It would make far more sense along the reasoning you propose to make the food bird-flavored, since my Elsa has on more than one occasion not only caught birds, but consumed them, having once left as evidence on the roof outside my bedroom window a discarded beak and assorted feathers. //
To be fair they do make Turky and Chicken flavored cat food.
// But the one that REALLY bugs me is the use of “of” as the contraction of “have” (as in “should of,” “would of,” etc.), which is becoming so common that I’m afraid people will eventually forget that it’s not correct grammar. //
At which point it becomes “correct”. Language should be a living thing, grammer rules should change, so should spelling and usage rules. None of us speak or write the way English speaking folks did a few hundred years ago, the language has evolved since then. All that matters is that we have a set of rules the majority of us can agree on, so that we can all understand each other.
If it seems like the language is evolving faster then it use to, you may be right. Never before in history has there been so much mass entertainment speaking the language of the comman man.
// But the one that REALLY bugs me is the use of “of” as the contraction of “have” (as in “should of,” “would of,” etc.), which is becoming so common that I’m afraid people will eventually forget that it’s not correct grammar. //
At which point it becomes “correct”. Language should be a living thing, grammer rules should change, so should spelling and usage rules. None of us speak or write the way English speaking folks did a few hundred years ago, the language has evolved since then. All that matters is that we have a set of rules the majority of us can agree on, so that we can all understand each other.
If it seems like the language is evolving faster then it use to, you may be right. Never before in history has there been so much mass entertainment speaking the language of the comman man.
“…you have a face that women intuitively trust…”
Really? And just where in the hëll were all of these women hiding in the 32 years it took me to find and meet my wife?
“Actually, cats do not eat mice.”
You’ve obviously never met my cats. Or my dogs for that matter.
“But the one that REALLY bugs me is the use of “of” as the contraction of “have” (as in “should of,” “would of,” etc.)…”
Please, try and get with the times. We shortened those up even more years ago. They’re pronounced:
1) Could’a
2) Should’a
and
3) Would’a
Set your watches. I’m sure John will be hauling out the equally fun “Peter David was so stupid he had a character fall to his death underwater” lie sometime within the next six months. That’s one of his favorites.
-PAD
Makes me want to go to Atlantis, throw him out a window, and watch him fall to his death…
-JB (9/15/06)
“At which point it becomes “correct”. Language should be a living thing, grammer rules should change, so should spelling and usage rules.”
So we’re just supposed to accept language evolution based on stupidity and ignorance? Turning “of” into a verb is a bit different than favoring “you” over “thou” or eliminating the comma before “and.”
“If it seems like the language is evolving faster then it use to, you may be right.”
No, it seems like it’s devolving. Idiocracy really does seem to be coming true.
but as Buddha is reputed to have said, “Better you than me.” (this was in the same letter with his other, more famous quote “Every man for himself.”)
Y’know, I always wondered what happened to Otto after he fell from that plane…
TWL
“those are facts, Otto. I looked them up.”
“All that matters is that we have a set of rules the majority of us can agree on, so that we can all understand each other.”
And there’s more to language than just understanding each other. If that were the only goal, why even bother having rules? You ain’t got no problem understanding me now, does you?
Posted by: Jerry C at September 17, 2006 07:36 PM
Really? And just where in the hëll were all of these women hiding in the 32 years it took me to find and meet my wife?
Well, back then you didn’t have mouse ears, whiskers, or a tail, now, did you? When we tested your likeness in our initial focus groups, we received… mixed… results. But then I turned you into a cartoon mouse, and people loved you!!!
The moral of the story?
…
I got nothin’.
Y’know, I always wondered what happened to Otto after he fell from that plane…
If you are implying, sir, that I am the same guy who had sex with Jamie Lee Curtis…yes. Yes I am.
“Voooo-laaaaa-reeee!”
TWL
// So we’re just supposed to accept language evolution based on stupidity and ignorance? //
As compared to the arrogance of complaining about the way the majority communicate.
// Turning “of” into a verb is a bit different than favoring “you” over “thou” or eliminating the comma before “and.” //
Not really, and those examples aren’t the only way the language has changed over the centuries. Hëll Americans speak and spell things differently then the English and we tend to think they sound funny and you don’t want to know what they think about the way we talk.
// No, it seems like it’s devolving. Idiocracy really does seem to be coming true. //
We’d like to think that because it makes us seem smarter but I don’t think it’s true, or at least not true on all counts. Our perception of the past is often clouded by the what’s handed down over the years, and what’s handed down over the years is the best not the worst. The uneducated slob in colonial times did not write or speak like Thomas Jefferson, and there were a lot more uneducated slobs then there were Thomas Jefferson’s.
The reality is the introduction of Email, text messaging and computer spell checkers plus the overwhelming, (and not necessarily good); catering to the young, (gotta make everything sound young and hip) and is changing the language.
I visited Byrne Robotics in an attempt to find the thread where John made the comment Marc quoted here. I didn’t find it, but instead found this little gem, which was the sole post in a locked thread:
“We seem to have some folk among us who don’t want to follow the Rules of the JBF. Those rules are not there arbitrarily. They have evolved to meet specific conditions, and they are largely responsible for the order we, here, manage to carve out of the chaos of the internet.
If you don’t like the rules, you are free to leave and post elsewhere. (Perhaps you can get your very own ‘Bad Byrne Stories’ started.) If you remain, and continue to break the rules, your membership in this Forum will be revoked.”
Right. People are “free to leave and post elsewhere,” but they are not free to bring to light inconvenient facts that expose Byrne’s lies. In other words, Byrne is free to disparage whomever he likes, and no one is allowed to question him or provide the other side of the story.
The “rules” of which John speaks are responsible not only for the “order” of which he speaks so proudly, but also for insulating John from a reality that is obviously too much for him to bear.
// And there’s more to language than just understanding each other. //
I disagree.
// If that were the only goal, why even bother having rules? //
To settle misunderstandings, to teach the next generation. Nothing wrong with rules, just as long as they are flexible enough to change with the times and the way people speak/write. Language is a living thing. Fighting against that is just useless. All that does is create a bunch of snobs, who look down on everyone else for not speaking the “proper way”.
// You ain’t got no problem understanding me now, does you? //
Nope, your point.