My morning is made. I have read a review of Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos in the Johannesburg Review of Booksthat savages it appropriately. I chortled through the whole dang thing. Cheered me right up, it did.
And what sort of intellectual does the Idiocracene usher forth? The kind that writes a self-help book for assholes, basically. 12 Rules for Life is a Gladwellian shotgun blast of childhood anecdotes, Bowdlerized mythology, common sense behavioural techniques, grossly undercooked philosophical concepts (Heidegger’s ideas get a proper reaming here), along with a soupçon of mystical Christianity, a dash of Eastern religious-type stuff—oh, and emoticons. (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) It’s all ready-made for the Trump era, where resentment of ‘postmodern’ campus lefties and their intersectional, Black Lives Matter, materialist tendencies have become fodder for prime-time alt-right outrage.
Every paragraph is a wonderful shellacking.
How did Peterson become such an effective Iron John bromide machine? He is a clinical psychologist, a professor of psychology, and a renaissance-style polymath, which in his case means cinching seven or eight basket-weaving disciplines together into one spectacular black hole of knowledge, a negation of the very principles of rigorous scholarship. Peterson appears to have read widely, which is to say: not deeply. Many academic bullshit merchants have done queasy work jamming thinly understood Big Concepts into stocking-stuffer books, but never have they tried to force Charles Darwin, Carl Jung, Jesus Christ, Goethe, Dante, Erich Neumann, Yeats, and literally hundreds of others into a fucking Huffington Post listicle.
Maybe I ought to just quote the whole thing?
Peterson, it should now be clear, is a crank of drunk uncle proportions. But he is also the ‘the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now’, which should not be mistaken for an exaggeration. It’s all caved in on itself, the Western world and its various satellites, in their various stages of orbit decay or escape velocity—we’re all Walter Benjamin’s ‘Angelus Novelus’, gazing at the detritus of history, blown back to the future by the force of the mess. And there’s Jordan Peterson, waiting for us with his rulebook, reminding us to eat a decent breakfast, to pull our flies up, and to refuse futzing with pronouns to accommodate the transgendered.
Nah, I’ll stop there. Go read the whole thing.
Why, you might be wondering, am I so pleased with such a brutal takedown? I’ll tell you. It’s because I made two YouTube videos, Jordan Peterson and the Lobster and PZ Replies to the Lobsterians, which means I am now inundated with comments and email from Very Serious Fanbois, and also more than a few Very Hateful Fanbois, all trying to set me straight. They sound similar to the Cultural Marxism Haters, who also send me similarly clueless tirades. They like to read my mind and tell me how they understand biology so much better than I do, thanks to Peterson’s instruction. It’s utterly nuts.
Here’s a recent example.
Peterson’s point is that through the process of sexual selection we have evolved to climb social hierarchies. The male that rises to the top has more offspring. But I guess sexual selection isn’t a thing in biology anymore. Females don’t select for the most powerful male they can get, they don’t want guys at the top of the social ladder, they prefer the stressed out poverty stricken guys at the bottom instead. Gender is a social construct now anyway, so I guess that explains why PZ Myers doesn’t “believe” in sexual selection. Maybe old PZ’s can explain why dominance hierarchies exist across species, cultures, and throughout time if they have no basis in biology?
They all have this caricature of how males acquire mates — it’s by dominating them, don’t you know — and they love to cite “sexual selection” as a singular force with a singular direction that every biologist ought to bow down before and acknowledge.
Here’s my reply to that guy.
No. That is Peterson’s CLAIM. It is unsupported by the evidence.
Of course biologists accept sexual selection: females choose mates, & vice versa.But it’s far more complex than you imagine. Define “powerful”: is it the guy who can beat up other guys, or the guy who gathers the most food, or the guy who is most helpful with children, the guy who can help her achieve her professional goals, etc.? There are multiple criteria for mate selection. You and Peterson WANT it to be a certain narrow type of behavior that is often the antithesis of what a woman might desire.
It’s not that they prefer stressed out poverty stricken guys — it’s that most people want a cooperative peer who can respect and understand their situation, the better to assist them in living the life they have. Many of us chose our partners because we like them, because we live and work together well, not because we dominate or are dominated by them.
I am so sorry you have fallen for these Peterson lies. They are a recipe for a miserable life.
So he insists on telling me again what Peterson’s point is, as if it wasn’t all laid out in its simplistic glory, and tells me I shouldn’t be reading 12 Rules for Life, I need to read his other works to savor the full force of his obscurantism.
Peterson’s point is that through the process of sexual selection we have evolved to climb hierarchies and that’s partly why they keep showing up everywhere. He’s saying that the ‘patriarchy’ is not some huge conspiracy, and that hierarchies have been around longer than humans. Males further up the hierarchy are more attractive to females. But I guess in a world where gender is a social construct this is taboo. His 12 rules for life book is an extremely cut-down and simplified version of what he’s saying, it is not intended for an academic level of analysis – his papers are. Attacking him at an academic level based on his ‘childrens’ book is like a creationist attacking biologists based on a grade 1 science book – you of all people can do better than that (and as a skeptic who’s been listening to you for years I really wish you would). If you actually want to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion (and I for one hope you do) you’d have to first dig a little deeper. Maybe you could even have an actual discussion with him, I’m pretty sure millions of people would listen to it.
Again, I replied.
I know what Peterson’s point is. You keep telling me. But it’s obvious. And it’s wrong. The hierarchy is a social construct! Try hard enough, and you can imagine them everywhere, exactly as you’re doing.
And oh, god, don’t tell me to read his academic work. I looked some of it up. I started his Maps of Meaning book. They’re WORSE. They are impenetrable gobbledygook. You think they’re brilliant because they’re so difficult, but the reason they’re so difficult is that they’re garbage.
Now I’m getting these comments outraged that I said “The hierarchy is a social construct!”, because they translate “social construct” into “imaginary, nonexistent” thanks to all the repetition of that theme in their cohort, and are trying to convince that dominance hierarchies really do exist, as if I was saying otherwise.
This is a pseudo-intellectual movement led by an ignorant guru that I would like to see collapse under the weight of its inanity, but I know from experience that that won’t happen. People still think Deepak Chopra has something to say, and they’ll be revering Peterson for decades to come, in exactly the same way.
I am deeply grateful that PZ Myers has dissected Jordan Peterson so that I don’t have to waste whole valuable minutes of my life on that guy.
Peterson and the Petersonians remind me a lot of Ayn Rand and the Loonytarians without the focus and intellectual depth. Not that Gibbertarians are more than a few inches in intellectual depth to be sure, but Peterson seems to be in the millimeter depth range.
For some reason that reminded me of my struggles against my aunt who is a devout believer of Homeopathy. It took me a long long long time to convey to that “placebo effect” does not mean “imaginary/nonexistent”. I guess there is a similar mechanism at work here though, they really want “social construct” to translate to “imaginary” so they can debunk it easily!
1. Actually, I have never heard of Jordan Peterson and never would have unless I read Pharyngula.
It’s a big world and everyone is famous on the internet for 15 minutes.
In other words, he is barely above an internet nobody and not bright enough to polish PZ Myers (for example) shoes.
2. I doubt that Jordan Peterson will last all that long as anything other an ephemeral pop guru. At the end of the day, it’s all superficial nonsense with no solid intellectual core.
3. Data for the above assertion.
These pop gurus come and go pretty rapidly.
Here is one popular guy I dredged up from my younger adulthood. At one time he was really famous.
4. Superficial pop gurus come and go and I’ve seen enough that they barely register anymore.
1. Timothy Leary.
Oddly enough, he did have a few solid points lost in a lot of nonsense.
There is something to be said for “tuning in, turning on, and dropping out”.
But we know now that taking LSD, Ayahuasca, or Cannabis isn’t going to drastically change the world.
2. Dr. Oz.
3. Deepak Chopra. Who?
4. Ayn Rand.
5. An endless parade of Televangelists, many of whom disappeared after a scandal or two.
6. Sam Harris.
7. I’m sure we can all think of many more who were famous gurus for a while and soon forgotten. I still remember who Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Baba Ram Das were.
PZ – me too! Lots of Canadian professors are quite good – I know, I’ve been lectured at by many of them, I even learned a thing or two. This guy is really dragging us all down.
Like Raven in #1, I am glad that other people – people who actually possess and value academic rigor – are taking JP’s nonsense apart. It distresses me greatly, though, that such an intellectual lightweight gets so much attention (negative or positive, he doesn’t really merit it).
However, I am aware of the argument that people like him do NOT just go away when you ignore them; just not sure engaging them makes them go away any faster…
RE: Ayn and the Randians; more intellectual depth than Peterson and his fans? I am skeptical.
“Interesting” point. I wonder if it has occurred to Peterson or his fan club that throughout human history the patriarchy has been a major mechanism by which sexual selection by women is suppressed – by taking the decision of who they mate with out of women’s hands and placing it squarely in the hands of their male custodians.
This has been the case for most of recorded history across many cultures, and is (unfortunately) still the case in quite a few ones.
So, how dense does one have to be to pick the one species where cultural pressures have superseded sexual selection, or even turned it on its head, and then justify said cultural forces via sexual selection?
Re. @ 4: Ayn and the Randians.
I read that Ayn Rand idolozed a goddamn serial killer. No, I do not remember his name, and I don’t want to know more about him. Everything Randian reeks of intellectual chaos mixed with hostility to all carbon-based life.
“the Idiocracene”
But did this period start 1980 (with the election of Reagan) or 2018 (with the election of Trump)?
Is there a sediment horizon we can use as definition?
For some reason, the word “Carrier” came to mind.
I was going to say “shouldn’t that be Fanboyz?”, but I like Fanbois better. It evokes the French for “raspberry”, which seems appropriate.
I’m beginning to understand that people who crave hierarchically organised societies will never understand the concept of equality for differently skilled humans.Vertical thinkers don’t do horizontal.
If number of offspring is the indicator of “rising to the top” than based on birthrates our concept of 1st world, 3rd world is completely backwards.
Hmmm…I do wonder, though, if this is not also a problem with how we often frame social constructs as though if something is a social construct, it is something bad that needs to be discarded. And I get it. It’s difficult to be taking the time to go into the nuance of phrases every time they are discussed (and educating ignoramuses). But if they’re not understanding what the phrase means, maybe we do need to do a better job explaining it?
That said, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out what a social construct is because it’s pretty much exactly what the words suggest it is! One could say it is a construct that arises out of social interaction. Pretty straightforward. In regards to this commenter’s “dominance hierarchies,” of course they’re social constructs! The display of dominance is a social interaction and it results in the construction of a hierarchy. Even if other animals are just doing what comes instinctual to them, these are still social constructs.
In the case of us humans, though, we should be smart enough to where we can choose to not follow our instincts. We, frankly, do so quite often. I believe that is what a lot of us are getting at when we object to things being social constructs. We’re saying that, since we as a society constructed these things, we as a society can also take them down if we so choose and that we should choose to do so.
I now have to get back to this social construct known as a “job” so I can receive this social construct known as “money” (both real things!), so I won’t be able to follow up on any follow ups, but I’ll see about checking in tonight or this weekend to see what others may think about this.
Males further up the hierarchy are more attractive to females.
Huh. From my limited field observations, I would say that human females seem more attracted to males who can sing and dance than any other type.
And he’d be correct for once. Now find me someone who says the patriarchy is a huge conspiracy. There is not cabal of patriarchs meeting in secret planning out power. The patriarchy just is.
kevinv@10: “If number of offspring is the indicator of “rising to the top” than based on birthrates our concept of 1st world, 3rd world is completely backwards.”
Ah, but you forget that you have to weight each offspring by its worthiness, which is determined by a great many important genetic markers, such as IQ and melanin levels.
And yet in Canada at any rate, birthrates among First Nations (pretty much at the bottom of the social hierarchy) are much higher than among those at the top of the social hierarchy. Even allowing for the appalling infant mortality and suicide rates on reserves their population is growing more rapidly than the rich white demographic.
Well there may be, now! Or at least, would-be patriarchs like, er, Jordan Bullshit Peterson.
Funny how the same people who argue that women are more attracted to men high on the hierarchy than to men low on the hierachy simultaneously also complain endlessly that people low on the hierarchy are outbreeding the naturally superior folks at the top. It’s almost as if the whole series of complaints rests on nonsense because a bunch of sad white boys don’t get laid as much as they want.
@ Tabby Lavalamp
There is not cabal of patriarchs meeting in secret planning out power.
Some people are so naive. The Illuminati, the Freemasons (and possibly the Alberta Cons) are in conference as I type. Putin is probably in there somewhere.
Oops, I forgot George Soros and Maurice Strong (yes I know he’s dead but his spirit lives on).
@Tabby Lavalamp:
On the flip side, people have been trying to come up with a good description for ‘self-organizing conspiracies’ for a while now. Where people engage in what looks on the outside like conspiratorial behaviour, but which was actually just each of them acting on their own (often related) self-interest.
(First thing I saw described that way was a lot of the interference in the investigation post-Kennedy assassination. Given how many of the people involved would have had other things to hide that an investigation might have turned up, one didn’t have to be involved in any conspiracy involved with the shooting in order to want to delay the investigation long enough to shove some skeletons deeper into the closet.)
@ Tabby Lavalamp
There is not cabal of patriarchs meeting in secret planning out power.
Some people are so naive. The Illuminati, the Freemasons (and possibly the Alberta Cons) are in conference as I type. Putin is probably in there somewhere, one must always include Putin.
Oops, I forgot George Soros and Maurice Strong (yes I know he’s dead but his spirit lives on).
I wonder what the intersection between peterson fans and Goreans looks like. Warning: NSFW link.
My impression is the way they translate “social construct” isn’t truly as “non-existent”, but it’s what they use in the reply, as “conspiracy”. Because if something was made by people, that means you should be able to point out to some few inventors who did so deliberately. Which underscores a very creationist-ID way of looking at things; some mysterious entity Evolution that can be credited for what predates our minds, but everything is still assumed to have deliberate design and purpose.
Last few years BCE, when the (alleged) son of a carpenter was born, and went on to get himself nailed to a tree around thirty years later. Lots of people seem to think this is important, so important that they must be correct, a delusion which continues after about 2000 years.
Whilst I cannot think of a geological sediment horizon, there is a sort-of “sediment horizon” in literature and artworks starting about that time, albeit it’s not precisely demarcated and obvious precursors can be found.
I definitely think the alt-right dudebros have put “social construct” into the same bag of academic terms they do not understand but use as a cudgel where they keep “cultural Marxism” and “post-modernism.” They don’t understand any of these terms for real, and neither does JP, but they’re all buzzwords representing the Big Bad right now.
“One way to sum up Peterson is to call him Hobbesian, which is an insult to Hobbes, so let’s not.” That review was hilarious.
@21 Great American Satan
Goreans
I thought you were referring to Al Gore’s fan club. Come to think of it, the Goreans may be his fan club. I mean, he is fat.
*sigh*
There’s nothing like being quoted a few times to drive home a typo.
You tell ’em, past me. There is not cabal.
The guy who PZ quotes is another one of those people whose comments make me wonder if they’ve actually ever interacted with other humans.
Lotharoo,
I won’t rehash it here because it was covered in the comments to a recent post but…
In the case of subjective symtoms like pain, nausea, and depression, the actual “placebo effect” (“effect in the placebo group” minus “non-psychosomatic effects”) is pretty small, unpredictable, and evanescent; and, in the case of objective symptoms, the it is indistinguishable from noise, of no clinical significance, and probably non-existent.
Hey PZ, if you haven’t yet, you should make a video giving an in-depth explanation of sexual selection. Someone really needs to puncture all of the oversimplified pop-biology that guys like Peterson try to sell to people.
As I always say, the river Mississippi is a social construct. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a great amount of water flowing to the ocean with gators at the end.
alkisvondias
Not only that, but also the fact that hierarchies had rarely anything to do with potential or performance, but your position in life was pretty much determined at birth, no matter what you did. There was no climbing and with all data on social mobility, there still is very little.
It’s like they know just as much about history as they know about biology…
Sure, there are some true outliers, but neither Bezos nor Gates seem to breed like rabbits.
Which is the reason why aristocracies make up stories how special they are and deserve to be in the position they are in.
As Jonathan Swift says in Gulliver’s Travels, being healthy and able-bodied would be a cause of shame for an aristocrat, rousing suspicions of a secretly low birth. Whereas the frail frame, pale skin tone, and being riddled with hereditary and degenerative diseases is the surest sign of a noble birth; and that such families tend to die out after a few generations, unless a cunning woman manages to find some gardener or footman to be the father of her children.
(Did I mention this is not a kids’ book? It’s most definitely not a kids’ book!)
Billyjoe,
“I won’t rehash it here because it was covered in the comments to a recent post but…
In the case of subjective symtoms like pain, nausea, and depression, the actual “placebo effect” (“effect in the placebo group” minus “non-psychosomatic effects”) is pretty small, unpredictable, and evanescent; and, in the case of objective symptoms, the it is indistinguishable from noise, of no clinical significance, and probably non-existent.”
There is no such thing as objective symptom. Symptom by definition is subjective. What is objective is called a sign. There are important differences between them.
Placebo response is much more complicated that the overly simplistic way you try to brush it off. it clearly exists, is robust and is in fact a significant contributor to response to treatment in clinical trials. Mechanisms vary but for a good review see: https://www.lightshare.it/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/9658/A-comprehensive-review-of-the-PLACEBO-EFFECT.pdf
Here is another summary of an article in the Lancet:
” Recent research shows that placebo effects are genuine psychobiological events attributable to the overall therapeutic context, and that these effects can be ROBUST in both laboratory and clinical settings. There is also evidence that placebo effects can exist in clinical practice, even if no placebo is given. ” you can read it here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673609617062
Billy Joe: “There is no such thing as objective symptom.”
Jebus, dude. Do yourself a favor and stop droning on about stuff you don’t understand.
Symptoms that can be measured objectively:
1) Fever.
2) Bleeding.
3) Loose stools.
4) Compulsive mansplaining, as I have observed it repeatedly in you.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space
That was me not Billyjoe. I am a physician and that’s what I studied. Symptom in medicine is ALWAYS subjective. That’s the definition. Fever and bleeding and loose stool are signs not symptoms. Pain is a symptom, so is “feeling feverish” or nausea
asbizar
Doing this
<blockquote>paste copied text here</blockquote>
Results in this
It makes comments with quotes easier to understand.
Couldn’t let the lawyers hog all the distinctions-without-differences, I guess?
Except the distinction between signs and symptoms is not a distinction without difference. It represents the difference between something that I, as a medical professional (kind of – I am just a lowly EMT) am able to observe for myself vs. something I know only because the patient tells me so. When assessing an unconscious patient, I can assess their signs but typically not their symptoms. Questions like the following are pretty common on EMT exams:
Which of these is a symptom of CVA (stroke)?
A. Altered LOC
B. Facial droop
C. Slurred speech
D. Headache
The correct answer is D because A, B, and C are all signs, not symptoms.
Azkyroth,
Apparently, medically it’s a distinction worth noting.
—
I for one valued asbizar’s contribution. Sorry for the reception here, whoever you are.
Hilarious!
Asbizar is correct. Symtoms are always subjective. By definition. I should, of course, have said “subjective end-points” and “objective end-points”.
And ARIDS is incorrect. He agreed with my inadvertent error and disagreed with asbizar correction, thinking that it was me who was making that correction. Because BillyJoe is always wrong!.
It’s always delicious when someone says something demeaning and about someone else and, in the act of saying it, demonstrates that that thing actually applies to himself. Like saying “I’m not stoopid or nuffin'” :D
Arguably worse was azkyroth, who managed to trip up even after the warning signs were Up.
Hilarious!
BJ:
Thus exhibited is the the unthinking pointless gendering that’s so traditional it’s habitual.
‘themself’ functions perfectly well as a reflexive pronoun, Peterson’s antipathy and protestations notwithstanding.
Asbizar,
Though they’re unlikely to say anything I haven’t come across before, I’ll read your links. But the conclusion is that the placebo effect has been shown – from clinical trials that are designed specifically to tease out the placebo effect from the other components of the effects seen in the placebo group – to be small, unreliable, and temporary for subjective end-points such as pain, nausea, and depression; and as good as absent for objective end-points.
John,
Agreed. Mea Culpa. :(
Because speaking a non-prestige dialect is a sign of stupidity, right?
@44 Not a linguist by any stretch, but it looks an awful lot like AAVE to me, too. Classy.
Come on you two, you know what I meant.
And ARIDS failed miserably. Please acknowledge that obvious fact at least. And he did so because he let his bias against me get the better of him. And for no good reason other than that he has a bias against certain types of people and has mistaken me for one of them. I said it was hilarious. It is also sad that people can be reduced to this.
Asbizar,
I looked at your first link but read only the abstract and conclusion. They were sufficient to tell me we are talking about different meanings of the placebo response.
Here is part of the abstract:
In a way, I am talking about “the inert content of the physical placebo agent”. What else could the placebo effect possibly be about. The discussion in the link (it was written in 2007) actually has very little to do with what we could possibly mean by “the placebo effect”. They talk about “expectation” and “motivation” but this is not exclusive to what you might call “the placebo effect”. If I said to you now: “think of being buried alive in a coffin”. You will probably feel anxious. Your pulse will probably go up. And, obviously, these feelings are caused by changes in your brain which, in turn, caused changes in your body such as raised pulse rate. And those changes in your brain were caused by me asking you to imagine being buried alive. That’s not actually surprising. But would you call that a placebo effect (or nocebo effect). So what really is the difference between that situation and one in which you take an inert pill which you are told will make you feel anxious or make your pulse race. It’s not the pill, it’s the suggestion. In other words, there’s nothing special about the placebo effect.
You can run faster if someone motivates you. You can run faster if you are given a pill that someone tells your will motivate you. And it’s no surprise that the motivated state is due to changes in your brain caused by someone motivating you or giving you a pill that he says will motivate you.
I’m just trying to give you a hint about why there is nothing magical or special about the placebo effect as opposed to the effects we see every day in situations where you would not invoke the placebo effect. Yet there is no end to the number of people who are ready to tell you of the powers of the placebo. Alt-med is totally dependent on it.
Asbizar.
There is a paywall on your second link.
But this partofthe abstract is investing:
So where does this leave the placebo effect.
You can motivate yourself to run fast. You can be motivated by a psychologist to run fast. You can be motivated by an inert placebo (eg vitamins) to run fast.
And all produce the same or similar changes in your brain and, in turn, your body.
…sorry, about three typos in the second sentence!
I again wish there was a “like” button. Thank you for helping me keep my sanity.
billyjoe #40
quoted so everyone can get the CAPs correct .
(never had a lick of sense)
Unfortunately, there’s no one named “azkyroth” posting on the thread.
What was it you were saying about deliciousness earlier?
Mak@45,
I was thinking London*, perhaps. Notice that the only non-standard feature of what billyjoe wrote is the “nuffin” (both in use and pronunciation); “stoopid” is just using English spelling conventions to represent how most English speakers pronounce “stupid”. In AAVE “nothing” is usually pronounced with a glottal stop.
Also, I get the idea that billyjoe isn’t a USAian (based mostly on some of the spelling he uses).
*Long ago I had a colleague from one of the poorer parts of London who pronounced “nothing” that way. One of the sharpest, smartest, funniest people I ever knew.
billyjoe @ 46,
Yes, and that’s the problem. Feeling superior to people because they haven’t mastered the conventions of the prestige dialect is a form of punching down.
And before you take this as another hit in the billyjoe persecution parade, I’ll point out that (a) I’ve called out others on this issue (admittedly not as much as I should), and (b) you’ll recall that I was the one defending you in the other thread.
@Billyjoe https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2832199/ there is the entire paper, easy to find. There is only one placebo effect, it is the physiological changes to an individual that is not attributed to actual treatment but the psychological expectation of the treatment.
As you can see from your last discussion of this topic, those things are NOT part of the placebo effect, they are confounding factors. I also cited pretty damn rock hard scientific evidence that it is absolutely NOT
The above paper also provides other examples. Ask someone with chronic pain if they would like to see their symptom reduced 40%. The limits to the studies in the meta analysis is also addressed in this paper saying exactly the same thing I did
But hey, I don’t blame you for ignoring what I wrote last time, it wasn’t published or anything.
I’m not surprised that Peterson doesn’t understand evolutionary biology. Most people who talk about it don’t understand it. The part that annoys the fuck out of me is how little he seems to understand psychology.
What A Maroon @53
Ah, good point! I missed the word “not”, which probably wouldn’t be used in AAVE. Your interpretation makes sense, and if BJ really isn’t from the US then it’d make even more sense.
Reckon I’m so used to people jumping on AAVE that it’s a little surprising when someone else uses other dialects to drag people down.
paxoll,
As I said in the other thread, the only way you will be convinced is to ask clinical researcher, because I’m always totally wrong around here even when I’m right.
Or maybe try this:
Clinical trial: Does drug X reduce pain? Two groups: Treatment group gets X; Placebo group gets a placebo pill that looks identical to X. Outcome: the pain in the treatment group improves 60%; the pain in the placebo group improves 40%. Conclusion: the placebo effect is 40%, and the effect of drug X is…
The effect seen in the treatment group – the placebo effect = 60% – 40% = 20%.
Just think about that for a moment….it should be obvious that the placebo effect seen the clinical trials, as in all clinical trials, includes everything except the improvement due to drug X.
Then there is “the placebo effect” that psychologists discuss that refers only to the psychosomatic part of the placebo effect seen in clinical trials.
That is it. As I said, if you don’t believe me, and if you can’t work out the logic at the end of my second paragraph, ask an actual clinical researcher.
Maroon,
Nope.
Incorrect.
Stoopid is also non-standard.
Incorrect.
The proper pronunciation of “stupid is “stewpid”.
Correct.
He might have pronounced it as “nothin”, or “nuffin” if he was very drunk, or imitating his neighbour.
Maroon,
Actually, the problem is you making assumptions.
It is simply a matter of fact that my IQ is higher than someone with a lower IQ than mine. Do I “feel” superior? No, I don’t go around “feeling superior” to someone with a lower IQ. Is it “punching down”? Only if I am actually “punching down”, as you call it, which I’m not. Perhaps I’m just relating something I come across every now and then. Why does it have to be “punching” or “punching down”. Are you “punching down” by calling it “punching down“?
Mak,
I see you’re on the bandwagon.
@BIllyjoe I, and others have given you extensive published research on the topic, you have simply repeated your same unsubstantiated claims over and over. The placebo effect is ONE thing, and it has significant effect, and that IS used as treatment in medicine.
@61
No, it’s more a matter of falling into my own US-centric habits, which I need to work on.
It doesn’t much change the fact that assuming people are less intelligent than you just because they speak in a way that’s different from you is kind of shitty, and has been a source of oppression and violence for many different communities for a very long time.
Paxoll,
Even your own link agrees with me about the placebo effect in clinical trials, saying that it includes psychological factors AND all those other factors. They even talk about the confusion this causes, which I have repeatedly referred to and which you are still a victim of. If a clinical trial says the placebo effect is 40%, that is the psychological effect AND all those other factors. It has to. Logically! They even say that the nomenclature used in clinical trials should change but probably won’t because it is do ingrained.
….so ingrained
billyjoe@59 and 60,
Such a tell. There is no such thing as “proper” pronunciation.
First, a note to myself: I should get away from the use of “standard” to describe a dialect; it implies that there’s one form of a language that others should be measured against. I much prefer the term “prestige” dialect.
Second, we’ve established that your not a USAian, so fair enough, in your English no doubt the prestige pronunciation is something like /stjuːpɪd/; as a USAian myself, I pronounce it /stupɪd/. Neither pronunciation is better or more “proper”; they’re just different.
Nope, that’s how he pronounced it. And he was the one that drew my attention to his pronunciation.
So much to unpack here. First off, no one said anything about IQ; I don’t know why you’re bringing it in here. Second, do you go around comparing your scores on IQ tests to others’? Third, assuming that you’re using “IQ” as a proxy for intelligence, why do you assume that someone whose pronunciation differs from yours is less intelligent than you? As Mak said, that’s a shitty thing to do, and yes, it is punching down.
As to whether you expressed feelings of superiority, I’ll just quote your @40 and let others decide for themselves:
Maroon,
Yes there IS proper or official pronunciation (remember, we were talking about the English here). Pronunciations change over time, of course. Interestingly the official English pronunciation of “compost” is as in “lamp post” but this is likely to be replaced, if it hasn’t already, by the pronunciation that 99.9% of the English population use, which is more like “com posst” where “poss” is pronounced like “toss”.
And I see you just can’t bring yourself to agree with me that that poster made an error, and a delicious one at that. He was almost apoplectic in announcing my error. And he was completely unaware that he was quoting someone else who was saying the opposite of what I said, meaning that he was actually agreeing with me; the difference being, of course, that my error was unintentional and his was intentional. I mean, no problem if he had simply corrected my inadvertent error, but he used it as an opportunity to throw bricks and it spectacularly misfired. And deliciously.
@ billyjoe, #59
News to me. I am aware of the pronunciation, and it’s perfectly fine, but it’s not at all common in my little corner of the world. Guess I’d better get on to tellin’ the millions of people in the Midwestern United States that they’re doin’ it wrong.
And just to be clear: I really do drop my ‘g’s when I talk (most of the time). I didn’t for a long time because I was taught that only stupid stoopid people do things like that, but it eventually got through my thick skull that that’s elitist nonsense. I also say ‘gonna’ instead of ‘going to,’ and I even occasionally say ‘ain’t’ and ‘y’all.’
Ok, I don’t think I’ve ever actually said ‘y’all.’ ‘Younse,’ maybe, but ‘y’all’ just doesn’t sit right on my tongue.
billyjoe #67
[citation needed]
vucodlak #68
Because *StandardEnglish* lacks a second person plural, I often use “youse”. But I prefer “y’all” because it feels more genteel-like, y’know?
I use all y’all for the plural, plain y’all can be singular. I wonder if choosing a name that is generally associated with racist hillbillies is contributing to our meaniepants bias against billyjoe?
@billyjoe
This confusion is talking about you. You are confused and don’t know what you are talking about.
Coming from the midwest (from parents who each had a different regional midwestern dialect, somehow) I didn’t start using Y’all until I became good pals with some folks from Texas, and now I use it more often than not because it’s wonderful. Precisely because it fits that little niche that chigau mentioned in 70.
Thanks to the widespread influences of the internet and having spent several years living with a guy who had an Appalachian drawl, now I’m all sorts of messed up, lawl.
In my neck of the woods we never say “ain’t” or “y’all” or “stoopid”, unless we’re imitating those heathens in the US of A. But we do drop our “g”s and use “gunna” (rather than “gonna”)
And my citation: the polymath and Head Proofreader for The Age newspaper during his working life….my father-in-law ;)
Mak #73
I also think we should drop the ‘ .
Just make “yall” be the *StandardEnglish* standard for second person plural.
Paxoll,
Stop embarrassing yourself.
Your own links and quotes confirm what I said (I just re-read your post #55 – boy do you need retraining in comprehension skills!)
And ask a clinical researcher, I’ve wasted too much time on this fruitless exchange.
billyjoe #76
So yr off then?
kthnxby
chigau @75
Eh, naw, I’d probably be all for that if the word wasn’t a contraction. Then again I don’t work for any printed media, so what’s an extra keystroke here or there.
Maybe it’ll be the next Oxford Comma.
Mak #78
Or,
We™ can just not bother with the technicalities of it being a contraction and go with
!
re: Oxford Comma
y,all
I think’s not.
I assume you’re talking about a_ray_in_dilbert_space’s misattribution of a quote to you? I didn’t bring that up because (a) it was tangential to the issue we were discussing and (b) it didn’t seem to be a point of contention (hell, you weren’t even the first to bring it up). But if it will make you happy, yes, they misattributed a quote to you. I don’t see any evidence that they’ve been back in this thread since then; I assume that if they return, they’ll realize their mistake and apologize. None of which negates anything I’ve said.
I’m just going to assume you’re being tongue-in-cheek here because I’m too tired to show you why that statement is bullshit. At least we can be grateful that in English (as opposed to, e.g., French or Spanish) we don’t have an officially sanctioned body that tries to pass judgment on what constitutes “proper” usage.
Having grown up a Masshole, my go-to second person plural is “you guys”. But I’ve lived in the south long enough to have partially adapted “y’all” (but not far enough south for “all y’all”). A far more interesting question in my mind is why “thou” has been driven out of almost all forms of English. There’s an old but interesting discussion of it here (and I jump at any chance to promote the work of the late, great Larry Trask, even when he’s not discussing Basque).
As for the apostrophe, Im inclined to banish it forever from English. It had its use back when it just indicated a deleted letter (or letters), but it started going downhill when people started using it for the genitive (because of false etymology), and the internet has pretty much destroyed whatever value it had. At this point, the most humane thing to do is to let it live out the rest of its natural life in peaceful retirement somewhere warm, with an endless supply of tequila.
Re my @80,
Don’t get me wrong, billyjoe. Until you realize why your @40 was wrong and apologize for it, I’m going to assume that you’re a privileged, classist asshole.
Maroon
Im inclined to agree.
In Canada, the official Geographical Names mob dropped apostrophes a few years ago.
I grew up with Hudson’s Bay, now it
‘s Hudson Bay.@billyjoe no, the point is the “placebo arm” of a clinical trial does not measure the placebo effect. It measures multiple controls that are corrected for in the final statistical measurements on the treatment effects. You are not a clinical researcher, you are some technician pleb that does what the researchers tell you to do.
billyjoe @67:
What the fuck are you smoking, ye blethering barmpot?
Goodbye RP
Let our words go free
Coo and howl
Lay flat your vowels
Ah ay ee
Goodbye RP
Tongue uncross your t’s
Slang and slur
Bah and burr
They thy thee
Goodbye RP Teachered tyranny
Speed this end
Our ows to bend…
Who were he wi’?
Rob Grigjanis #85
that wer fukin luvly
“barmpot” has proven a bit of a challenge.
google and yahoo both seem to have … issues
What a Maroon
I’ve spent my whole life living in the great white north, where “Hey everybody” or “guys” is the standard vocabulary to address a group. I too thought all y’all was redundant and silly the first time I heard it in Missouri, though in practice it is commonly used as a second person plural while y’all can be either a single person or a group. Y’all does sound like Appalachian vernacular but the ‘proper’ second person plural is ye, so y’all is much closer to correct form and punctuation than youse.
Maroon,
I was referring to Redhead on the other thread. In a comment, I paraphrased something that a science denier would say and Redhead thought I was giving my own opinion. It was clear from my previous posts in the same thread and the rest of that comment what I was doing. I thought it was you who pointed that out, but perhaps it was someone else.
———————-
My source for that information about pronunciation is no longer around. My father-in-law died last year. He was a stickler for correct pronunciation (for himself, not criticism of others), and when he pronunced a word different from the way I pronounced it, I usually ended up adoptng his pronunciation. For example. I still say “compost” pronounced as in “lamp post”, and “composst” just sounds wrong.
Nevermind, it’s not a life and death issue after all.
Chigau,
Yep, no more trying to educate paxoll about the placebo effect. I’m done.
So, so tired of billyjoe.
But I really think that this needs some more addressing:
Hell, no, especially with English.
English is the most descriptivist language that I know. Like others have said, there is no Real Academia de Español, no Academie Francaise. Which are indeed OFFICIAL bodies that try with limited success to tell people what is correct and proper. English is a polycentric language with many different standards (yes, there is something called “standard” in linguistics, but it is not a term that confers a certain value, but a term that simply means “widely accepted”) that are different around the globe and for linguists none of those are in any way better or more proper than the others. Regional or social varieties* have more or less prestige in society, but no more “worth” linguistically.
I know that public school educated Brits have been trying to hog the idea of “proper English” for a long time**, but they’re losing. Sorry, you imposed English on half the planet, you can hardly complain about people using it now.
*Linguistically speaking a dialect only refers to differences in pronunciation. What we’re usually talking about are varieties, which means differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
**It’s again an interesting phenomenon in British English that the standard variety is a social one, not a regional one, which leads to the persistent idea that people who speak RP are better people than those who don’t. In Germany, for example, everybody except people from a small area have some dialect and variety and we kind of use the standard variety as a “lingua franca”.
Giliell@90,
You are far from alone in that!
By “linguistically speaking”, do you mean “as the term is used by professional linguists”? Because non-linguists in Britain certainly refer to “dialect words”, e.g. most Scots and northern English will use “aye” for “yes” (one of the few I’ve picked up in nearly 20 years in Scotland”), many Scots will use “ken” for “know”, “outwith” (more or less “beyond”, but no exact equaivalent in RP, which may be why I’ve picked this one up as well), “dreich” for cold, grey, damp weather, “braw” for fine, etc.
KG
Yep. Colloquially “dialect” means “everything that makes my language different from the standard”, but in linguistics “dialect” only refers to pronunciation. Much like “theory” means something different when used in science than when it is used in colloquial language.
Which again shows how words are socially constructed and why you need to make clear how you’re using a word in a certain context. Damn post-structuralists.
Giliell,
I’ve never heard dialect used so narrowly before. Here, for example, is how The Encyclopedia Britannica defines it:
Giliell@92,
By “post-structuralists” you mean, of course, lengths of garden hose. But what makes them think whales are yellow?
Sorry for the borked quote. Everything starting from “Note that…” is my own.
@95, I was of course using the term “92” to mean “93”!
I presume the eejit is babbling about, and possibly conflating, Received Pronunciation (RP) and Standard English (SE). It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen someone do that, albeit this is, as far as I can recall, the first time I’ve seen someone construe either / both into an — others realise RP is just a form of snobbery, and SE are locale-dependent conventions. The argument (such as it is) others use being the local SE is preferable for communication and should be sounded like RP. I do not agree with that argument.
Writing from experience, it is using unknown (other locale) idioms and slang that has a high potential for confusion, and some “common” terminology also goes amiss (clothing is particular hazard). And it is mumbled enunciation — even more so when speaking at speed — rather than unfamiliar pronunciation, which tends to cause difficulties.
Head-> Desk
What a Maroon
And here I am eating my own words for having confused dialect and accent and variety. Thanks. In my defense, I have a migraine.
None of this changes of course the substance of what I’ve written: No, there is no official pronunciation in English.
blf
I’m a non-native speaker with a very good ear for dialects, but it usually takes me some time to adjust. Say I’m watching an Australian film, it takes me some minutes to align what I hear with the words I know, but this is only possible when you have a very good command of the language and know the collocations.
If we take the phrase “it’s time you went to bed” and the speaker pronounces “ta-im” as “to-im” it won’t be a problem for you and me, because our brains know what word is missing. For somebody who has less command of the language, it may pose a problem. That’s why I also don’t agree with “let children just talk however they want to and don’t bother about any standard. A standard is common ground and makes it easier for people from all over.
Giliell,
Ugh. Hope it passes soon.
Agreed.
Giliell@99, I concur. My ears take awhile to adjust also, an effect that, for some reason, I seem to notice most often when watching a Shakespeare play (in modern pronunciation). And that is despite actors usually having very good enunciation. The enunciation is excellent, the pronunciation (and most of the words) are familiar, so perhaps it’s the rhythm I need to “tune” to — except it’s almost always iambic pentameter, which is extremely common in English-language acting, and which I don’t believe I normally have a problem with.
(The pre-play drink probably doesn’t help!)
Giliell, Sorry, I missed that you have a migraine. Please get better.
Tethys,
I never thought of it as redundant or silly, but rather a clever way to fill in a perceived gap in the grammar. I’ve just never used it myself because (a) I’m not exposed to it much and (b) I don’t perceive a gap that I need it to fill in my idiolect. On the other hand, given the complaints I’ve heard throughout my life about using “guys” when referring to women, “y’all” strikes me as a useful replacement.
Me @54 (in response to billyjoe),
billyjoe @67 (in response to me),
Me @80 (in response to billyjoe),
billyjoe @89 (in response to me),
I’ll leave the interpretation up to others. I’m through with billyjoe.
I’ve been through with billyjoe since his third post, a few months ago.
Thank you.
Regarding “proper” or “official” or “accepted” or “standard” English, or whatever else you would like to call it….
I’ve already said it’s no big deal.
It’s simply that my father-in-law (who was chief proofreader for a major newspaper) always pronounced his words “correctly” (please substitute whatever word takes your fancy, I don’t really mind because, for me, It’s no big deal). I admired him for his erudition, and for his breadth of knowledge on any subject you may care to mention. He was a gentle, kind, and considerate man. He didn’t really care if someone didn’t care about “accepted” or “standard” pronunciation; and he didn’t care if someone used “alternative” pronunciations. If asked, he would tell you what the “accepted” or “standard” pronunciation is, but he would never correct you without being asked; and he would never even think of reprimanding you if you pronounced words differently.
Basically, that’s where I stand as well.
Maroon,
I have no I idea what you are trying to say in comment #104.
blf @98
Thanks for that! I’ve been trying to figure out what the hecky heck “RP” was, since y’all were clearly not talking about what I normally think RP stands for.
billyjoe @107
Sure… But you’ll think someone is stupid if they don’t adhere to your standards.
Which kind of is a big deal.
Mak….any examples of this?
(If you find an example, I will apologise for not abiding by my own standards of not thinking someone is stupid for not adhering to my standards)
I think “my father in law whom I admired greatly”is simultaneously the weirdest and most pathetic argument from authority I’ve ever seen.
Thanks y’all for the good wishes. Sleep seems to have helped.
I find it interesting that we get this:
from the same person who, at #59, volunteered multiple corrections for others’ mispronunciations. billyjoe even went so far as to tell What a Maroon that their anecdote was wrong and that their friend didn’t speak like that. WTF??
My god, you’re a pompous arse, billyjoe.
billyjoe @110
Why, post 40 from this very thread!
Did you forget already? Or are you ready to backpedal?
P.S. Where I come from, stoopid and stewpid are phonetically identical.