There’s a thread going now about how hard it would be for England to change to driving on the right side of the road. Someone (not me) suggested they could experiment by changing buses and taxis first, then change the cars later. Someone else (again not me) tried to explain why that might not work. I’ve also seen in another forum, posters take Stephen Colbert to task for his wild, conservative positions. And of course, I’ve been whooshed myself … more than once.
Without naming names (especially my name please), what’s the biggest, most snort-worthy whoosh you’ve seen?
Of course the 2000 GOP Presidential campaign run on the basis that GWBush was a corporate hot shot, compassionate conservative who would delegate to the very best while Al Gore was a an incompetent, compulsive liar who would bankrupt us has got to be bigger in results, but it isn’t acknowledge by its perps as a whoosh.
I ways back on this board I remember someone starting a thread and they were basically describing an money, banks, or an ATM. It was something along the lines of “wouldn’t it be great if in exchange for goods we could use widgets and someone invented a place to store those widgets.” It went along like that for a bit with people adding entries and “ideas” until someone popped in and said “aren’t you all just talking about money and banks.” Be damned if I can find it but that that thread was great.
Yh, I’m not really talking about hoaxes – intended or not. By whoosh, I mean someone has said something meant to be ironic, and someone else has completely missed the irony. Rock-a-bones has got the idea.
Sometimes I get caught on the double-whoosh, like if Rock-a-Bones’ supposed whooshee had actually meant his/her comment ironically and so whooshed all and sundry.
I don’t know if this qualifies, but as someone who had never understood the popularity of texting, I overheard one of my students recently telling a friend about a new way to text:
“You simply call this number, speak what you have to say, and it is sent to the other person as a text, and then they can call and speak and have it texted back to you.”
I said, “Why don’t you just talk to each other?”
She said, “We prefer texting.”
Every year in first year English in college. My English class was called Rhetoric I. The prof argued that a modern version might be good and I argued that it was a very bad idea. The whole class sided with the prof. A few cornered me outside of class and told me to stop disagreeing with the prof as Rhetoric is no place to be arguing.
I don’t know if you guys remember (I do think there was athread on it back then) but a couple of years ago there was a dutch tv-show called The Big Donor show, where a woman would be giving her kidney to one of three contestants (who all needed a kidney transplantation). There was a lot of media interest and some political (Christian) parties went crazy. In the very last moment - when the whole show was done and the woman would make her desicion - the lights turned on and the presenter explained how the woman was really an actress and that giving a kidney as a prize on a gameshow was too extreme, even for them (a progressive public tv station which broadcasts gems like ‘This is how you fuck’ and ‘Shooting up and swallowing’). The contestants were really in need of a kidney though (and in on the scheme) and the goal of the show was to increase the attention to this problem and to get people to become a donor.
Up til the last moment most people really believed this was real and it was quite controversial.
I think the Harry Potter story above is a fantastic whoosh - it was written as (what most people would consider obvious) satire, then began to be circulated by, shall we say, some earnest but clueless types as if it were a real article.
While in the military, I was talking to a friend’s wife and mentioned something about military time (1400, 1500, etc.). She got a bright look on her face and said “Oh! I know how to figure that out: you just subtract 14 and add two! Danny (her husband) taught me that!”
I replied: “why don’t you just subtract 12?” Too late to stop myself, I saw Danny behind her, wilding waving me off. Seems he had her going with this for about six months and all their friends were in on it. I think he probably got some couch time for that one.
