Controversial Statements - Bring em - No weak sauce allowed! Homelessness: A Mercy Sex Ploy?

[mark]

perhaps in time. if i last that long! well, a boy can dream.

[~Geektastic~]

Sally wrote: "Oh for heaven's sake. Such a fuss for three or four posts about the lack of attention to conventions of the English language. I do not think it is out of line to gloss a post because it is written ..."

Actually, it was because of one post (my reactions, anyway). And not your post. I hope every new member gets the Sally treatment, they will appreciate it later, once they understand where it's coming from. I know you scared the crap out of me when I first came here. Figuratively speaking, of course. And I will now shut up and never speak of any of this nonsense again!

[Phil]

No weak sauce? Okay.

Using non-standard writing styles (lack of capitalization, anyone?) is pretentious and selfish. In general, writing in forums such as this is designed to communicate a thought or idea. By making your writing intentionally more difficult to read/follow, you're putting the onus on the reader to ferret out your meaning, rather than leading them very clearly to your point. While a quirky writing style may work for the occasional novel, its use in day-to-day "conversations" is rude.

Anyone remember the extremely verbose gentleman who participated in the political discussions last year? Remember how many people said they couldn't read his posts anymore because his style drove them mad? How well is he communicating now?

[Sally, la reina]

Yes. Phil. This.

[Sally, la reina]

mark wrote: "i really don't think my posts were written sloppily, Sally. but hey, thanks for that! you just don't know when to stop, do you?""

I'm supposed to stop?

[Phil]

Sally wrote: "I'm supposed to stop?"

That anagrams to "must deposit poops" and I know you did that on purpose.

[Sally, la reina]

I'm postponing posting pictures of poop until after you shower.

[mark]

Phil wrote: "No weak sauce? Okay.

Using non-standard writing styles (lack of capitalization, anyone?) is pretentious and selfish. In general, writing in forums such as this is designed to communicate a thoug..."

sorry Phil, but this is ridiculous. pretentious? selfish? rude? you are being a real drama queen. my gosh, get a thicker skin please! and have you said these things to other folks who don't use caps? i don't appreciate your insults and i have not insulted you previously. so please try and pull your head out of your ass. your arguments are both trite and nonsensical.

[mark]

Sally wrote: "mark wrote: "i really don't think my posts were written sloppily, Sally. but hey, thanks for that! you just don't know when to stop, do you?""

I'm supposed to stop?"

well, it would be nice if you showed some class as a moderator.

i had no intention of coming in here and being rude. i wanted to socialize and chat and talk about things, and find out what my friend Michael was up to. none of my initial posts were rude. and yet here i am, being rude. my gosh, i wish it hadn't come to this, but some of you folks are truly awful. ugh. do you bring this same misguided attitude around with you in the real world? it must be a hard road.

[Sally, la reina]

Mark, where the fuck did you come from? Why are you so angry? Seriously, dude, if you were around for more than 26 hours before you went on this lowercase letter posting spree you would see that heckling people about grammar is what we do here. We are unrepentant. I tried to heckle you gently, rub you in Lg's puddles, post about you in my noob thread, appreciate that you read old gender related threads and compliment 3.53, so on and so forth. But stop with the self righteous verbal vomit.


We do not need to be nice to you. Go join the group of love and hugs and talk about stephen king and ee cummings if you want.

[Phil]

Thin skin? Pot, meet kettle.

Mark, I happen to have an opinion on the subject, which I shared in my post. If you believe what I wrote to be trite or nonsensical (or both), please feel free to explain how that is. I'm happy to have a discussion. If what you want is a pissing contest, try someone else.

[mark]

Sally wrote: "We do not need to be nice to you. Go join the group of love and hugs and talk about stephen king and ee cummings if you want...."

well it would be nice if you had some common fucking courtesy and some baseline of decency. is that really so hard? believe me, i'm not a touchy-feely, huggy guy. i'm kind of an asshole. but when it comes to personally getting up in an individual's face, i don't strike first. is being a jerk to a newbie somehow satisfying to you?

and yes, i'm getting angry. how could i not? i bet you would too, if you were in a similar situation. i don't appreciate the mockery when i did not initially mock anyone.

[Phil]

In this forum it is not mockery, it is jovial teasing.

And it's angry, with a "g".**






**again, good natured teasing

[mark]

Phil wrote: "Mark, I happen to have an opinion on the subject, which I shared in my post. If you believe what I wrote to be trite or nonsensical (or both), please feel free to ex..."

yes, and your opinion is completely puerile because it has nothing to do with anything except for my personal style. what is there to discuss? you are rude and you don't seem to give a flying fuckeroo about it. so be it. that is your choice. but i don't need to play your games and defend my posting style. good grief.

[Sally, la reina]

mark wrote: "i had no intention of coming in here and being rude. i wanted to socialize and chat and talk about things, and find out what my friend Michael was up to. none of my initial posts were rude. and yet here i am, being rude. my gosh, i wish it hadn't come to this, but some of you folks are truly awful. ugh. ."

Oh come on. We are not awful. We are delightful, grammar loving folk. It says in the group rules that we reserve the right to mock you for your grammatical slip ups. Again, it is the way we welcome those we feel worth engaging with. Had we simply ignored you you could have gone on for days and days engaging with nobody but Amber (geektastic) and Cheri (I think) but this is not mean to make you cry into your wheat microbrew but instead gently prod you into owning your lack of capitalization like kevin does.


Some people (you, kevin) make stylistic choices when they engage with online forums and that then becomes part of their online persona. You, however, have chosen to take your stance as self-righteous and sloppy, a sad and sorry combination.

I don't want you to go away, I just want you to grow a pair.

[mark]

fine.

[Phil]

mark wrote: "yes, and your opinion is completely puerile because it has nothing to do with anything except for my personal style"

And kevin's, and that guy who left last year. But who's counting.

My post was about non-standard styles of writing. The fact that you choose to engage in one such style is not at all relevant to my point, though its proximity does help underscore what I'm saying.

[Sally, la reina]

mark wrote: "well it would be nice if you had some common fucking courtesy and some baseline of decency."


I honestly don't know where you see that I crossed the line because again, if you had been around for more than two days before you got all hot and bothered you would see that i'm a normal person too.

I teach high school English. For six out of every ten hours I spend at school I drill rural mountain cowboy teenagers on the need for and importance of capitalization, spelling, noun/verb agreement and pronoun usage. Yes, your posts strike me as sloppy (e.g.:but it's no biggie, i've experienced it before, am sorta used to it, and i'm sure it will happen again sometime. i think the combination of my lower cases and my writing style just automatically gets under certain folks' skins. not really sure what i can do about it and i'm not actually sure i want to do anything about it. i just hope that folks who enjoy doing that kind of thing to a newbie at some point find themselves in a similar situation and get treated the same way (he says bitterly). yeah, that'll learn 'em!) and I use this forum as a place to interact with my friends who all do use the conventions of standard written English.

If that is too hard for you to do then yes, you do need to grow a thicker skin. I do not want to attack you personally, but since you have chosen to do so to me I have no sympathy for you.

[~Geektastic~]

If I had to read an intricate 4000 word analysis of Proust, the correct capitalization would only marginally reduce my risk of brain explosion. Also, I would need to have read Proust.

[Félix]

I'm wondering if Mark missed the title of this thread.

[mark]

I have no sympathy for you.

ha! way to bring it back to the original topic. i like that.

okay, i had a cool-down cigarette and some fresh air (they go so well together) and am hopefully more calm.

thanks for the suggestion BunWat. or rather, the order. in the real world, usually my friends or colleagues or staff are there to jump in when i'm escalating. here on-line, i often experience a no-brakes type situation when i feel like i'm getting ripped on by a group of people. one individual: i can usually deal; more than that: i go a little crazy.

i am confident that you are all "delightful" people. after all, i did go through many of the threads before posting, and i liked what i read. i actually don't mind being teased, but for whatever reason - and this may come from the fact that it was from multiple people - it didn't seem good-natured to me. no doubt i was wrong. but that is the basis of my escalation.

maybe i come at things with a chip on my shoulder, one that i should work on. who knows. i'm a bi guy, i'm bi-racial, i grew up in a blue collar military family in the middle of stinkin' rich orange county - so i'm used to being the odd man out. perhaps i bring a certain self-righteous quality to my posts because of all that. not an excuse or a pity party (never that); more like me just thinking out loud and contemplating why i do the things i do.

as far as my writing style goes, i write with no caps and often in an unfiltered stream of conscious. i do get that this can be off-putting to many (but rude? i just don't see it)... but i'm not trying to be goofy or strange, it really is just how i am comfortable writing. i've been writing this way for years and have developed many long-running friendships with folks while writing in this style (hello Michael, wherever you are). i often write my reviews in this style as well, and my reviews are fairly popular - which is meaningless of course, and i am not trying to brag... i'm just saying all this because i know that not everyone has a problem with my style.

and in looking at Phil's post anew, i can see how that could have been intended as a new(-ish) Controversial Statement, rather than a direct slam on me. fine.

i do tend to overreact a bit. but Sally, my pair are already a decent size, i assure you!

[Félix]

It's not all about you, Mark.

[Phil]

mark wrote: "sorry Phil, but this is ridiculous. pretentious? selfish? rude?"

Yes, on all three counts. And please note I'm not trying to insult, I'm saying that in an intellectual sense, these descriptors aptly convey how such writing styles may be seen.

It comes across as pretentious because it appears to be an attempt to impart undue importance to the words, merely because of the unorthodox style employed.

It's selfish because it frequently brings more attention to you, the writer, than to the points you're trying to make.

It's rude because it interferes with the goal of most writers; communication of ideas.

To me it's like the person who colors their mohawk six different fluorescent hues, pierces their face in nine places, goes out in nothing but a jockstrap and a leather vest, then gets angry because, "everyone is staring at me!"

Hey, you're free to dress (or write) any way you wish. However, in doing so you open yourself up to those stares. Dealing with them via a "fuck you" or "pull your head out of your ass" may feel good in the moment, but doesn't do much to make your point.

[mark]

Félix wrote: "It's not all about you, Mark."

clearly! but it's hard not to feel that way when the posts are actually aimed at me.

[Félix]

Oh, simmer down. :)

[mark]

Félix wrote: "Oh, simmer down. :)"

i'm calm now, i promise!

[Félix]

Some of us are real pricks, though.

[Phil]

::thanks Bun for the compliment::

[~Geektastic~]

Félix wrote: "Some of us are real pricks, though."

But not you, Larrix!

I'm not being sarcastic, you are one of the nicest people I know.

[Félix]

Nor you, Amber!

[~Geektastic~]

BunWat wrote: "Amber ~Geektastic~ wrote: "If I had to read an intricate 4000 word analysis of Proust, the correct capitalization would only marginally reduce my risk of brain explosion. Also, I would need to have..."

Totally get what you're saying. I'm just being dumb.

[Kevin]

ha! i never thought of myself as pretentious or selfish but i'm a big boy with a capital B

really, this is harder to read? i think that some of the rambling, magniloquent manifesto posts that some hang in the threads are difficult to read because they are like someone trying to impress more than get their point across. i think that subliminally, if not intentionally, i type this way because it twists some panties up. get over it or don't read my comments. when you see kevin just go to the next one.

And besides, I want a group hug.

[mark]

i think you may have forgotten a comma in that second-to-last sentence.

[Félix]

I think Mark is mocking you, Kevin.

[mark]

no i am just reaching out to my no-caps brother!

[Félix]

Kevin's head gets cold we he goes capless.

[Sally, la reina]

Phil wrote: "mark wrote: "sorry Phil, but this is ridiculous. pretentious? selfish? rude?"

Phil wrote: "To me it's like the person who colors their mohawk six different fluorescent hues, pierces their face in nine places, goes out in nothing but a jockstrap and a leather vest, then gets angry because, "everyone is staring at me!"

Yes, that.

[janine]

::hands out orange slices covered in tabasco::

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Kevin "El Liso Grande" wrote: "three years from now (God willing and the creek don't rise....if there is a God or a creek mark) i want LG to remember this:

i don't know nothing bout birthin' no babies miss scarlet

Don't worry, it will be impossible for me ever to forget that line. I say it all the time, in Prissy's voice.

[Sally, la reina]

That's what you're choosing to take away from this discussion? that? Are you sure you are not a 14 year old boy?

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

SALLY !!!!

Simmer down.

There were 69 new posts in this thread. I just read all of them. I responded to Kevin'skevin's post 15 minutes ago because I read it 15 minutes ago.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

I've already made known my opinions about failure-to-capitalize. As Phil and I and others have said, it does make it harder to read. I read Kevin's comments and Kevin's tiny reviews that go through my feed, because his comments and reviews are short. If they were any longer, I don't think I'd be able to read them.

In my opinion, what's going on with failure-to-capitalize, when it happens among grown adults (rather than 13 year olds), is a return to the infantile. These are people who are resisting being fully adult. It's kind of like in college, there was always a subset of boys who refused to grow up. They were the Peter Pans. You could be friends with them, but you couldn't really date them successfully because they weren't capable (or they were resisting) of acting in a fully mature way. They were charming and fun to be around, but totally unreliable. People who don't capitalize resent something about the rules of adulthood that require one to attempt to be fully mature at all times. This is why I compared it to Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty culture, the culture of affected cuteness, the art of Takeshi Murakami, any kind of fetish for the innocent schoolgirl look, these things are also a retreat from the adult world.

[Sally, la reina]

::drools::

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

I wonder if in German society, where all nouns are capitalized, there are people who uncapitalize everything.

[Sally, la reina]

I wonder if there is a German version of Clark I mean Phil.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

There is also another possibility in the noncapitalization: people attempting to appear dumber than they are. I think some people think that if they are 100% grammatically and punctuationally and orthographically correct at all times, they appear threatening to others, and they don't want to appear threatening.

[Phil]

I saw where you wrote "orthographically" and somehow my brain interpreted it as "ornithologically" and I thought, "oh crap, here come the birds again."

[mark]

Lobstergirl wrote: "In my opinion, what's going on with failure-to-capitalize, when it happens among grown adults (rather than 13 year olds), is a return to the infantile. These are people who are resisting being fully adult...."

i can't speak for Kevin, or anyone else, but i see your point. i began using the style in college, after i became enamored with e.e. cummings and k.d. lang. i admired both of them and it just felt right for me, and so i've used the style ever since. as is obvious from my various outbursts, i do have a wee problem with maturity from time to time, so who knows, maybe the two are linked.

in my job i have to write a lot of public policy, press releases, and the occasional grant or position paper. i often find this to be monotonous work, so going back to my regular style is always a relief.

and honestly, i haven't been so rigorously challenged on my use of this style in non-professional settings, prior to this group. it has been a shocking experience! so there's that. lolcat.


"people attempting to appear dumber than they are....they don't want to appear threatening."

neither are personal goals (obviously). i really just assume people will focus on content instead of form.

[mark]

i also feel compelled to add that the times i've seen complaints around the formal use of caps, punctuation, grammar, etc, i tend to have an opposite but in a way very similar reaction to Sally/LG/Phil. it is hard for me not to dismiss those perspectives as inflexible, unimaginative, closed-off, and rooted in a kind of complacent need for professionalism and formality.

i'm not saying that this is how folks actually are of course, and the adjectives above aren't meant to be insults to anyone specifically... but just to say that i also can't help but leap to my own, possibly incorrect, conclusions. similar to how folks are leaping to conclusions about what constant use of lower case can signify about the person using that style.

wordy, wordy, wordy. i need an editor.

[Sally, la reina]

I
am
warming
to
you
but
still
dislike
your
heavy
hand
with
the
colloquialism

"folks"


it grates on me.