mcity

http://opinion.independentminds.livejournal.com/8887.html

The Independent seems to be one of those polarizing newspapers; it's either brilliant or bunk. It also allows people with LiveJournal accounts to comment.

saoir wrote:

I am appalled by this outrageous and unsupported nonsense. These people are in a failed state by their own actions. The western world is not responsible for their chaotic state of affairs and it is rediculous to blame the west for every ill in the developing world.
"Mysterious European Ships" ? how can they possibly know where these ships are from ? it sounds like a typical fictional 'consiracy' tail by those who think that thw whole world is our responsibility.
A coalition of forces needs to wipe these piractes out and track them back to destroy their bases.

I'm fairly certain that's more or less logistically impossible.

dion_persona wrote:

Note that there is an auto-spell check facility on this comment thread (which would catch typos like "im...." instead of "in..."), but would also tag nonsense such as "rediculous" for further scrutiny.

Starting off a rebuttal by mocking someone's spelling? Bad form.

Whether this has anything to do with literacy (past perfect of 'read' = read, ph: red) and could be an intended pun is unclear, though this hypothesis can immediately be discarded in favour of a more interesting form of error, now known as the Thinko. Noting that this post calls for blood, gore and generalised massacre of a poorly-defined but numerous opponent, the term "rediculous" might be read (geddit?) as a Thinko for haemoglobin, as it invades a reasoned proposition.

what

On the other hand (here, there are three to consider) 101 Flying Keyboard division of what in Webspeak is understood to be Wingnuttery (neo-Nazism) speaks among itselves in this version orthography liberated from tradition, caution, care and scholarship), such that outside the coterie of officionados (nod-nod/wink-wink) it continually courts disaster, while prescribing absolute destruction for others.

Speaking as someone who's used the "big words" internet debating technique on occasion, it's important to make sure you're at least comprehensible, with a little effort on the part of your opponent, lest you look like a dick.

Why in the world anyone with a dictionary to hand and a secondary education under the belt would be inclined to conceive and execute a complex military intervention at the mere suggestion of a quidam who obviously hasn't a clue is a mystery which has yet to be elucidated.

But it is a question worth asking yourself.

"Quidam", incidentally, means "random passerby" in Classical Latin. Anyone who whips out Classical Latin when responding to an opinion piece is clearly not to be intellectually trifled with.

mcity wrote: