(Yeh, yeh, STOLEN and altered to fit reality. So there.)
*grumble-grumble-gripe-complain* #5,386
“Aight” is the stupid version of “alright,” WHICH IS ALSO NOT A WORD! (Although, to be fair, “alright” is used by a very slightly less stupid class of persons.)
That is all. For now.
“Against Stupidity. . . “
“. . .the gods themselves contend in vain.” – Schiller,
- Maid of Orleans.
A frequent subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” ploy when confronted with an argument they cannot counter is to accuse their interlocutor of throwing up incoherent word salad found by (virtually?) thumbing through a thesaurus and picking “big words” to confuse the issue. Of course, all that means is that the subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” can’t comprehend clear, plain English that is composed of words outside his pathetically small vocabulary. It also means that the subliterate “Dunning-Krugerand” (probably) cannot conceive of an expanded vocabulary that does not issue from abusing a thesaurus.
Those of use who grew up reading dictionaries for fun just laugh. Then we may, if sufficiently provoked, raucously mock them. Without end, until they slink away dragging their lobotomized Bonobo Chimpanzee ghost writer with them.
Writing Tip #4,957
Eschew obscurantism, redundancy, and prolixity. That is, avoid arcane, esoteric, recondite, or obscure expressions; avoid undue repetition, reiteration, and duplication-reduplication of statements, and, above all, refrain from extreme, inordinate, unbridled, unchecked, and exorbitant wordiness.
YW.
Addendum: dictionaries are your friend. Thesauruses? not so much.
Book Him, Danno
Went to a Trivial Pursuit party, oh, about 40 years ago, held at the home of a guy who owned a moving company. OK, that’s trivializing his company. What he moved was HOUSES (was fun being a minor part of the move when he moved some Army barracks that had been declared surplus).
What impressed me most about the evening was not how trivial the Trivial Pursuit play was but the guy’s library. It was a mezzanine floor that encompassed three sides of the great room where we played our mini single-elimination tournament. I do not recall anything else about the house, but that library has featured in more than a few of my dreams over the years since. . .
See Inigo Montoya: YKUTW. . .
Just saw someone use “belie” to mean “confirm.” That’s like Dhimmicraps “defending democracy” by promoting vote fraud.
Some “Writers” Should ONLY “Write” Audiobooks
And even then, maybe not. Case in point *heh* —
“Case and point, the roaring metal stallion balanced on two shining wheels that bared down on him. . .”
Case IN point and bore. (Note on the conjugation of “to bear”)
Some “writers” obviously failed Remedial English and then had their “work” reviewed by Bonobo Chimpanzees.
“It’s Only Words” #4,276
If you see any form of “decimate” used in any text published in this century, you can be at least 90% certain it is misused. Even the most corrupt definition listed by contemporary lexicographers seems to be eschewed by at least 90% of contemporary speakers of English, because words only USED to have meaning.
(Most “readers” in English-speaking countries will not be able to understand the above text.)
Random Memories
“Oh. There’s a test today? Anyone have a pen I can borrow?” *throws some change in a cup and picks up a Blue Book*
And yeh, I didn’t buy the books for the course, either. I was a real snot, sometimes.
It’s a Thing, Ya Know. . .
It’s been several years since I have been “trapped” by a listserv-posted novel. New chapters (or just pieces of new chapters, in some cases) posted at regular or irregular intervals, as the writer is able or as the writer simply feels like doing, just does not appeal to me, especially since everything is usually first draft, unedited.
But. . . yeh. in my sporadic armchair pseudo-anthropological dabbling in understanding the background of a subset of 20-something or 30-nothing grups, I usually read some litrpg/isekai/wuxia fiction each week, out of the usual 10+ books of various genres (including a few non-fiction from varied subject lines). So, I was snagged by a Royal Road thread featuring a variation of isekai-wuxia I had not run across before. Only 20 chapters on RR, so. . . Patreon. But no, not paying $8/month to have instant access to new material, etc. The book is better-written and more interesting than 90% of the its genre, but not THAT musch better-written or interesting.
Winds of Destiny: A Cultivator’s Odyssey. Fluff, but entertaining and not even nearly as badly-written as most normally published self-pubs available on Amazon.