Calling all clowns » « An obsession with permanence and secrecy

Around FtB

I’m still trying to get caught up…on sleep, on fluids, on FtB.

  • Miri deplores dictionary racism. You know, any time you run to a dictionary to get a definition of a topic in an argument, you might as well admit…you’ve lost.

  • Lilandra has annoyed Ken Ham greatly. I approve.

  • Ashley talks about accessiblity and mental health.

  • Zinnia is asking for help in explaining trans issues to cis people. At last, something we cis people are experts at: not understanding.

  • Taslima lists some recently discovered species. I rather like Chondrocladia lyra.

  • Dana doesn’t sound too happy with a particular open letter.

  • Ophelia finds a Saudi writer who encourages men to sexually harass women in the workplace…to send them fleeing home, where their chastity will be safe.

  • Stephanie highlights the hypocrisy of facebook.

Calling all clowns » « An obsession with permanence and secrecy

Comments

  2. David Marjanović says

    a Saudi writer who encourages men to sexually harass women in the workplace…to send them fleeing home, where their chastity will be safe

    When you have to work so hard at making your prophecy self-fulfilling, maybe it was wrong all along? Just maybe.

  3. Owlmirror says

    You know, any time you run to a dictionary to get a definition of a topic in an argument, you might as well admit…you’ve lost.

    While not disagreeing with Miri’s article (if the definition of racism does not take into account actual social disparity, it isn’t actually useful when discussing actual social disparity), the above is far too broad a rejection of dictionaries. Sometimes one’s interlocutor is genuinely confused about what a word means, or is using a term in a highly idiosyncratic way, or is (mis)using a term of art.

    Don’t throw out the dictionary with the word salad.

  4. David Marjanović says

    or is (mis)using a term of art.

    Those that misuse technical terms often justify that by citing dictionaries. “Evolution”, “theory”… look for “dinosaur” in any dictionary and weep.

  5. nmcc says

    “Taslima lists some recently discovered species.”

    She’s a kind of recently discovered species herself – a ‘human rights activist’ who sympathises with terrorists.

  6. says

    nmcc: I consider Taslima a personal friend. If you want to continue in that vein, you’ll have to find someplace else to do it.

  7. Owlmirror says

    Those that misuse technical terms often justify that by citing dictionaries. “Evolution”, “theory”

    Ah, but correct definitions of technical terms can also be added to dictionaries.

    look for “dinosaur” in any dictionary and weep.

    “Any of a group of extinct reptiles of the Mesozoic Era, with four limbs and a long, tapering tail: some dinosaurs were almost 100 feet long” — Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, copyright 1953-1957.

    It’s illustrated with a picture of an upright Tyrannosaurus.

    (I think I need a new dictionary…)
    (I pulled this one off my shelf just to torture you.)