• Amusing Dilbert Strip (not recent)

    From Michael Trew@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 31 01:57:28 2021
    Perhaps I'm starting trouble, but I couldn't help but to chuckle when I
    came across this today on a different newsgroup:

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-7-21

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  • From Quinn C@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 31 12:46:51 2021
    * Michael Trew:

    Perhaps I'm starting trouble, but I couldn't help but to chuckle when I
    came across this today on a different newsgroup:

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-7-21

    That kind of thing is why I don't feel like reading Dilbert any more. Is
    Scott becoming an out-of-touch old man (at just 8 years older than me)?

    --
    Please stop treating gender as though it were a set menu.
    Gender is an a la carte arrangement.
    -- S. Bear Bergman, The Field Guide to Transmasculine Creatures

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  • From Timothy Chow@21:1/5 to Quinn C on Sun Oct 31 19:11:14 2021
    On 10/31/2021 12:46 PM, Quinn C wrote:
    * Michael Trew:

    Perhaps I'm starting trouble, but I couldn't help but to chuckle when I
    came across this today on a different newsgroup:

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-7-21

    That kind of thing is why I don't feel like reading Dilbert any more. Is Scott becoming an out-of-touch old man (at just 8 years older than me)?

    Not out of touch, just flirting with political-cartoon territory.

    In the old days, I recall that many newspapers tried to distinguish
    between political cartoons and non-political comics, and "Doonesbury"
    created headaches for many editors. I wonder if any newspapers still
    worry about that distinction, and have decided that "Dilbert" has
    crossed the line?

    ---
    Tim Chow

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  • From Quinn C@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 31 19:33:40 2021
    * Timothy Chow:

    On 10/31/2021 12:46 PM, Quinn C wrote:
    * Michael Trew:

    Perhaps I'm starting trouble, but I couldn't help but to chuckle when I
    came across this today on a different newsgroup:

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-7-21

    That kind of thing is why I don't feel like reading Dilbert any more. Is
    Scott becoming an out-of-touch old man (at just 8 years older than me)?

    Not out of touch, just flirting with political-cartoon territory.

    I have no issue with that, but he comes down on the wrong side (of
    history) - not just judging from that one strip, but a few this summer.

    The people for whom asking for pronouns is the end of civilization now
    are the ones who saw it coming when women started wearing pants.

    --
    New Zealand - or as we call it in South Africa: New Zedland ...
    -- Trevor Noah

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  • From Ted Nolan @21:1/5 to tchow12000@yahoo.com on Mon Nov 1 03:00:40 2021
    In article <sln7ql$k3t$1@dont-email.me>,
    Timothy Chow <tchow12000@yahoo.com> wrote:
    On 10/31/2021 12:46 PM, Quinn C wrote:
    * Michael Trew:

    Perhaps I'm starting trouble, but I couldn't help but to chuckle when I
    came across this today on a different newsgroup:

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-7-21

    That kind of thing is why I don't feel like reading Dilbert any more. Is
    Scott becoming an out-of-touch old man (at just 8 years older than me)?

    Not out of touch, just flirting with political-cartoon territory.

    In the old days, I recall that many newspapers tried to distinguish
    between political cartoons and non-political comics, and "Doonesbury"
    created headaches for many editors. I wonder if any newspapers still
    worry about that distinction, and have decided that "Dilbert" has
    crossed the line?


    Walt Kelly caused headaches long before Doonesbury.
    --
    columbiaclosings.com
    What's not in Columbia anymore..

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to lispamateur@crommatograph.info on Mon Nov 1 19:03:58 2021
    On Sun, 31 Oct 2021 19:33:40 -0400, Quinn C
    <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> wrote:

    The people for whom asking for pronouns is the end of civilization now
    are the ones who saw it coming when women started wearing pants.

    Pfft.

    Today I said "John wrote that they will come home for Christmas."

    The pronoun fanatics have made that sentence ambiguous -- you have to
    know John to know that he said "we will come home".

    An attack on communication is an attack on civilization -- we are
    still suffering from singular "you".

    And I really, really don't like being a member of two protected
    classes. Creating new protected classes is not an advance in
    civilization.


    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net
    http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

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  • From Mopoleum@21:1/5 to Joy Beeson on Tue Nov 2 00:50:23 2021
    Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote

    An attack on communication is an attack on civilization -- we are
    still suffering from singular "you".

    Funnily enough, common usage of nongendered singular "they" predates the introduction of the word "civilization" by centuries.

    They were using they to "attack civilization" -- whatever that means --
    before "civilization" even existed.

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to mopoleum@mopo.leum.com on Mon Nov 1 23:17:49 2021
    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 00:50:23 -0000 (UTC), Mopoleum
    <mopoleum@mopo.leum.com> wrote:

    They were using they to "attack civilization" -- whatever that means -- before "civilization" even existed.

    It's mandating singular they at gunpoint that is undermining
    civilization.

    --
    Joy Beeson
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net

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  • From Quinn C@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 2 08:51:38 2021
    * Joy Beeson:

    On Sun, 31 Oct 2021 19:33:40 -0400, Quinn C
    <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> wrote:

    The people for whom asking for pronouns is the end of civilization now
    are the ones who saw it coming when women started wearing pants.

    Pfft.

    Today I said "John wrote that they will come home for Christmas."

    The pronoun fanatics have made that sentence ambiguous -- you have to
    know John to know that he said "we will come home".

    An attack on communication is an attack on civilization -- we are
    still suffering from singular "you".

    Ha - this hardly registers as a blip on my misunderstand-o-meter.

    Do you know John? Does the person you were talking to? Yes? Then you're
    fine.

    And it's not even so much that context disambiguates language. It is -
    insight I owe to linguist Charles F. Hockett - that we express in
    language what isn't already clear in the situation. No need to state the obvious.

    So if it had been necessary, you'd have said "the two of them will come
    home". It's not really hard.

    I haven't shared this in a long time, but this is something I started
    observing in elementary school: those two over there seem to be in a big argument, but really, all it is is that this one is using word X to mean
    A, and that one uses X to mean B. It's all about nothing.

    Happens all the time. One more ambiguous pronoun amps it up by what?
    0.02%?

    And I really, really don't like being a member of two protected
    classes. Creating new protected classes is not an advance in
    civilization.

    What, like (30-something) Titus Andromedon on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:
    "Now I'm black, gay *and* old? I won't even know which box to check!"
    (quoting from memory)

    --
    Es wurde versucht, auf Ihr Konto von einem neuen verbinden Computer.
    -- SPAMPOESIE

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  • From Mopoleum@21:1/5 to Joy Beeson on Tue Nov 2 16:37:39 2021
    Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:

    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 00:50:23 -0000 (UTC), Mopoleum

    They were using they to "attack civilization" -- whatever that means
    --
    before "civilization" even existed.

    It's mandating singular they at gunpoint that is undermining
    civilization.

    Gunpoint? I am endlessly astonished by the panic of language police to
    justify their own crackdowns. I noticed that you cut the historical
    reference because your point rests on being anti-historical -- the
    adoption literally wasn't at gunpoint then, and it's not now.

    You're talking about a phenomenon that existed before Modern English
    existed, and may well have been in use by the Vangarian Guard when they
    were protecting the Paleologue Emperors in the Blachernae Palace in Constantinople not long after they gained breathing room due to the
    conquest of the Seljuk Dynasty by the Hulegu Ulus.

    Anti-history is one of the critical foundational piles of this panic,
    without which the entire enterprise will teeter like a poorly engineered
    San Francisco skyscraper. And of course attacking history -- it makes conservatives feelings hurt -- means attacking one of the key points of
    western thinking that conservatives lie about defending.

    You're being manipulated by people who have at least a passing
    familiarity with the facts, but lie about them to you. Don't let them do
    this to you.

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  • From Joy Beeson@21:1/5 to lispamateur@crommatograph.info on Sat Nov 13 21:54:38 2021
    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 08:51:38 -0400, Quinn C
    <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> wrote:

    Happens all the time. One more ambiguous pronoun amps it up by what?
    0.02%?

    It finally got to be Usenet time before bedtime, I found this thread,
    and then I asked myself: "Is hand-crafting replies to someone who
    sees corrupting commication lines as harmless a good use of my limited
    time?"

    So I hared off to read "Agnes" and "Frazz".

    And alt.usage.english, when I finished the comics, but I didn't ask
    whether the titles of comic strips should have quotation marks. Seemed necessary in this instance to avoid implying that there is a strip
    called "Agnes and Frazz".

    --
    Joy Beeson, U.S.A., mostly central Hoosier,
    some Northern Indiana, Upstate New York, Florida, and Hawaii
    joy beeson at centurylink dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
    The above message is a Usenet post.

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  • From Quinn C@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 14 22:50:05 2021
    * Joy Beeson:

    On Tue, 2 Nov 2021 08:51:38 -0400, Quinn C
    <lispamateur@crommatograph.info> wrote:

    Happens all the time. One more ambiguous pronoun amps it up by what?
    0.02%?

    It finally got to be Usenet time before bedtime, I found this thread,
    and then I asked myself: "Is hand-crafting replies to someone who
    sees corrupting commication lines as harmless a good use of my limited
    time?"

    You do you. I'll just caution you not to judge the practicability of a
    solution when it's still new and unfamiliar.

    --
    Mein Name ist Dr. Wendy Watt ein Legitime Seriöse Geld Lender.
    -- SPAMPOESIE

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