As someone who is a semi-professional in the arts of rhyme and meter, patterns tend to leap out at me, and I noticed one worth a bit of dissecting on the flagship blog here.
Topics shift, inevitably. Gone are the zebrafish of yore, replaced with something infinitely creepier and crawlier and eight-leggedier. We see a lot of that, which of course we do, because the arthropod world’s version of the BTK killer is now the professor’s primary focus of study.
Following that, there’s the classic Pharyngula discourse, throwing (usually well-deserved) shade at some bigot, theocrat, or garden-variety asshole who’s made the news for one reason or another.
And then occasionally an announcement and discussion about the passing of a scientific luminary or above news-generating asshole, articles which do tend to have divergent tone.
Thus, in the spirit of academic examination, I propose that the content now present on Pharyngula has matriculated into a distinctive rhetorical pattern, and that pattern is:
SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER, MORON MORON!
SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER, MORON MORON!
SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER, MORON MORON!
AHH! A DEATH! AHHH IT’S A DEATH! IT’S A
SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER SPIDER ….
Stop badgering the poor guy.
@1 StonedRanger
tee hee
I take it the mad scientist energy drink didn’t work as expected; i.e., still have the usual complement of limbs and eyes, and no silk nor a taste for flies. Whether or not there is any molting remains unclear.
And now it’s stuck in my head. Thanks.
@3 blf
I didn’t say anything about turning arachnoid. I may be mad, but I’m not Pharyngula mad.
Earworm Saturday is off to a roaring start.
Now you’ve gone and affected what you are observing.
@7 Brony
Have I? I mean, that’s the risk of living in a quantum world.
@abbeycadabra 8
I can’t say I’ve seen anything for sure. That’s the idea though. Just knowing someone is looking is hard for a mass to ignore completely. Too many variables for me.
Too many variables or variables I’m not sensitive too. Probably more. I typed to quickly there.
@9,10 Brony
Okay, but if anyone comes asking who called PZ ‘a mass’, it wasn’t me. XD
Needs an occasional line of whingeing about grading.