Category Archives: Social Commentary

Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Twitter, Explained

6 Comments

As only Lileks can:

A local columnist decided to go after Twitter today. (h/t Julio, via Twitter.) Now, we all love Joe around here, and his afternoon talk show is a ratings powerhouse that stands as the last remaining local example of how you create, build, and keep a radio audience without resorting to sports. No small feat, and detractors are advised to try it themselves before pitching rocks.

Now and again, though, even the zestiest observer of the scene can slip into onions-on-the-belt territory. I’ve come to expect two kinds of Twitter stories: one written for a mass audience by someone who gets the medium, like the Strib’s Randy Salas, and one written for people who still think the Morse Telegraph ruined the lovely art of hand-written letters.

You see any sealing-wax salesman downtown lately? ‘Course not. I remember when they’d come by with their cart, and you’d pat old dobbin on the nose while discussing Teapot Dome, and ‘ventually you’d get down to whether you wanted the new-fangled smokeless sealing wax or the old bituminous variety. I didn’t like the smokeless style – time was, a man felt his letter was done when the room was full of choking fumes, and when you wiped down the walls a few times a year with a real sponge, not one of those cellulite monstrosities, you felt like you were gathering up the spirits of all the letters you’d sent. Then Tony – that’s what we called him even though he had some other name – would offer to regrind your seal so you’d get a nice imprint, and he’d do it there on the spot. Kids today with their beep-beep-beep telegrams – what can you say in a medium that’s made up of long and short, and charges by the word? As the man said about the telegraph, “What hath God wrought?” Someone said that about the nuclear bomb, too.

Read the whole thing (because it really does describe Twitter and its utility better than I’ve ever seen it). I love the way he assumes that his readership will get the onion-on-the-belt reference. Not to mention five bees to a quarter.

[Mid-morning update]

I should note that one key point he makes that I hadn’t considered is that Twitter is a digital communications channel that hasn’t (yet) become spammified beyond recognition.

Philosophy, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Evolutionary Benefits

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…of religion.

I don’t know whether or not I’ve blogged on this subject before, but it’s a common notion that while not everyone requires a supreme lawgiver to be good, most people perhaps do, and that a retributive religion promotes a better society. Similarly (and perhaps it’s a corollary, as pointed out in the link), while dying sucks for an individual, some view it as a good for society and the species, by getting the fogeys out of the way and making room for fresh blood and ideas. At least in the latter case, I think that the cure is worse than the disease, and I’d like to have the problems associated with indefinite lifespan, and look for solutions to them, than die without getting the chance to tackle them. Of course, one of those solutions is space migration.

Education, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

An Eggcorn?

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Did Harry Reid commit one?

While I defer to no one in my disdain for our mentally challenged Majority Leader, this may be a little unfair. Unless he wrote it, how can one be sure that he said “…another thing coming,” rather than the (correct) “…another think coming”? I haven’t heard the audio, but how does the listener discern between the “k” sound at the end of “think” and the same consonant sound at the beginning of “coming”?

I discussed a similar problem previously, in speculating why aerospace engineers say “detail design” rather than (the more grammatically correct, in my opinion) “detailed design.” The “d” at the beginning of “design” masks the one at the end of detailed, and perhaps many just hear “detail design” and it has become an industry standard phrase (that I hate).

And yes, I was in fact previously unfamiliar with the concept of an eggcorn.

[Friday update]

Wow. I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe.

I have two commenters (one close to my age) who have never (or at least they think that they’ve never) heard the expression “…another think coming” and always heard (or said) “…another thing coming.” I am exactly the opposite. Until yesterday, I had never heard anyone say “…another thing coming,” whereas I’ve heard the expression from childhood with the word “think.” While it’s not grammatical (yes, “think” is a verb, not a noun), it’s colloquial, and it makes sense — “if you think that, you have another think coming.” Another “thing” coming makes no sense at all to me. “Another” implies that there was a first one, but what was the first “thing” being referred to? I’m pretty sure that it’s a confusion caused by the similar consonants that join the two words.

And while we’re on the subject, another one that I see on line all the time (and was very prevalent in Usenet) is “dribble” for drivel. Again, a case of mishearing the word.