But evil or not, mocking them is certainly worthwhile.
Over-Regulated?
Just re-read our town ordinances on one short topic (long story; just suffice it to say I was right, and citing the ordinance did the trick 😉 ). In the very short topic covered by the ordinance, I noted six grammar/usage errors that might affect some other folks and invalidate those portions as the subsection applies to them.
Will I tell the town council what those errors are and what the implications might well be? Heck no! The section involved is stupid and invasive and needs to be challenged by someone who’s being oppressed by “The Man.” *heh* If I hear of someone who’s been cited under that subsection, I will point out to them the errors that make the language nonsensical.
How to Lie to Stupid People
How can one lie to stupid people, specifically people made stupid by their own choice of laziness resulting in ignorance and an inability to reason?
Here’s an example of one way, of many. Watched a video which I refuse to link) about erradicating humanity with nuclear war. It began with an estimation of deaths in a major metropolitan area of the US from a posited nuclear strike, as:
Note: “267,000 Casualties” (A “casualty” is injury or death, as properly used in this context.)
This morphed rather quickly (a couple of frames later) into
The dialog stated, along with this strong graphic, “Almost 300,000 deaths.”
*sigh*
Suckers most of the public) will buy that second graphic and never see the differences between “267,000 casualties” and “300,000 deaths.”
And, of course, all the slanted scaremongering that follows will also be convincing to the self-enstupiated.
Stupid Information for Dunning-Kruger-ites
Saw a silly article, “Science reveals why your shoelaces come untied.” Silly. Tie them correctly and they won’t come untied until you want them to.
But I’m sure the wide-spectrum incompetents who have inflicted Dunning-Kruger Syndrome on themselves (and who then inflict everyone else with their undeservedly confident incompetent behavior) would find the article comforting.
#gagamaggot
“Lucy”
Amusing to watch a movie on TV (I’m also reading a book and slipping out to do this during commercial breaks. a close approximation of my typical TV-watching habits for about. . . 6 decades) and watch, during a gunfight scene, one character’s wound move from one side of his body to another. Yeh, continuity shoulda caught that. But then, that was the least of the continuity errors and other flubs and wildly laughable mistakes in the film.
Suspension of disbelief was irrevocably broken in the first five minutes though, so all the errors, laughable mistakes of anatomy, mechanics, procedural “bind-moggling,” etc., were more amusing than distracting, because NOTHING about the film was in any way, shape, fashion, or form believable, even within its own framework, right down to the protagonist’s hair color.
Parenting Tip
Tip, do not “purchase” a free book with even one error like this in the TITLE:
“The Unmotivated Child: Learn How to Motivate Your Child to Be Succeed [sic]”
“. . .to _be succeed_”?!? If you feel you don’t have a support group that can help, just wait for a book written by someone with basic competence in English, mmmK?
“Irks Me” #3,642
More and more often of late I have seen constructions (in supposedly “professionally written/edited” text) like,
“I would have sung along, if I knew the words.”
“If I would have known the words, I would have sung along.”
Both are horribly wrong, and evidence of serious subliteracy*. Neither should see the light of day in literately edited text.
Correct:
“I would have sung along, if I HAD KNOWN the words.”
If I HAD KNOWN the words, I would have sung along.”
Even worse are those illiterates who add to one or the other of those disgustingly egregious (for a writer who expects to be paid) assaults on the English language an attempt to gag a maggot by writing, “have sang.”
#gagamaggot
That is (nearly) all. . . for now.
*I define “subliteracy” as being the condition of being able to decode/encode those funny lil squiggles that comprise written language, while stubbornly maintaining a very, very poor understanding of what is written/what one writes. This condition is primarily due, I think, to a lazy a-literacy: refusing to take the time to become both fluent and literate by means of reading a great deal of well-written text.
I find that in every single case of subliteracy I have ever run across the person is a self-imposed victim of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome; they think they are literate, they “play” a literate on the Internet (and elsewhere, succeeding only in fooling other subliterates and seriously illiterate folk), and they have no interest whatsoever in improving their literacy. In fact, most are offended at being corrected, instead of taking the opportunity to learn from correction.
Note: in casual daybooks, journals, or emails, etc., not written for pay lapses in orthography are certainly excusable. But people who accept pay for wordsmithing should be corrected, and excoriated in the strongest language if they take offense at correction.
And THAT is all. . . for now. 😉
Not THE “Big Solution,” but. . .
. . .not a bad idea. While THE solution for our society’s ills rests with a Much Higher Power than the “feddle gummint,” this would be a Very Good small step for that government to take. Baby steps help, too.
Islands of Sanity
Elsewhere on the Interwebs, I saw an otherwise nice lil ole lady stating that as divided and rancorous as the public square has become, she expects she’ll have to “duke it out in real life at some point. . . ” in the real world.
Maybe, maybe not. It mostly depends on the venue, methinks. Here in America’s Third World County™, the irrational, emotionally-derived non-arguments (spewing of lying memes, parroting of angry rhetoric) just does not exist for the most part, at least as I am out and about in the county I have never found it so. As a matter of fact, America’s Third World County™ seems to be such a haven of sanity and safety that when nour state’s so-called “Constitutional Carry” law went into effect, I felt no need to take advantage of it as I went about my daily affairs here in America’s Third World County™. Oh, I put a lil revolver in a holster and–legally, now *heh*–carried the thing concealed inside my waistband for a few days, but since so many other folks are doing the same (or carrying in the open, also lawful), and the general conditions of civilized safety and sanity still prevail here, I just set the lil wheelgun aside for plinking.
Seriously, I am THAT comfy with the civilized deportment of ou citizens. LE guys (and gals *sigh*) still have too much swagger and project far, far too much self-importance (unnecessary here, IMO), and there are a few bad actors around, but realy very few, but still, overall this area is the safest and sanest, the most civilized I have ever lived in, well, at least since I was seven years old, nearly 60 years ago. Oh, we lack some of the amenities and pleasures of big city life, but a trek of less than an hour can afford a trip to a world class museum of art, a middlin’ quality orchestral performance, good craft beers, etc., if desired. Fortunately, no professional sports teams are within what I’d call driving range, which pretty much eliminates the hooliganism I associate with that stupidity.
Yeh, unless I stray too far from America’s Third World County™, I don’t think I’ll have a lot of RW “in your face” confrontations with rancorous loonies. I suspect there are more such enclaves of civilization around, islands of sanity in this mad, mad world, havens of civilization contra the Crazy Years.
Dangerous to Whom?
The Puffington Host touts the bill referenced in the linked article as “The Most Dangerous Bill You’ve Never Heard Of.” Dangerous to whom? Certainly not to citizens who are concerned about the tsunami of “feddle gummint” encroachment on their rights. Hmmm, must be dangerous to statists and other anacho-tyrannists. . .
This bill is barely a start on reversing the illegitimate encroachment on God-given rights that darned near the whole apparatus of the “feddle gummint bureaucrappy” has become.