As to that, I think it’s entirely irrelevant to this thread, since he’s chosen not to share his relevant judgments with us here. His posts in the older thread to which he linked looked to me like the posts of someone who knew what he was talking about. I see no reason to bait him about his profession or his expertise: if he’s willing to play nice in CS, I welcome his input, and I’ll treat his opinion as one possible source of information but not as gospel. Which is pretty much how I treat everyone.
The fun might very well rest solely with the ability to be condescending and dismissive of people while falling back on claims of expertise and a refusal to put your money where your mouth is. Some people pretend to be lawyers. Some pretend to be hot blondes. Some pretend to be intellectuals. I’ve known plenty of freshmen and sophmores who find their way to the 'net and seek to belittle anybody with a bit less knowledge than they possess.
Takes all kinds.
I believe my previous guess is most directly on target; most likely he’s a student who has some experience, just enough to make him arrogant and obnoxious, but not enough experience to make him informative and helpful. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
And that doesn’t strike you as somewhat… odd? Neither the CS thread nor this thread have seen even a flicker of his ‘relevant judgments’. Judging by the hits to this thread, thousands more have read it than posted in it. And yet he steadfastly refuses to fight anybody’s ignorance since a few people posting have called bullshit. If he was such an expert, he should have been able to produce a crushing rebuttal without much effort at all.
Yes, and no. He obviously isn’t clueless about the topic… but does it strike you as the words of an expert, let alone an educator, to claim that since something sounds a certain way to him, others should necessarily see that as the correct choice? Can you see that as sound pedagogy? “This sounds best to me, so we should all accept that it’s the best answer and move on.”
We obviously disagree on this point. He has, up to now, behaved in a very arrogant and obnoxious manner and fallen back on claims of expertise intertwined with a career as a poet and a teacher. His career isn’t relevant except, as Mince points out, as it relates to PRR’s claims of being an expert.
He can blame anybody he wants for his failure to put his money where his mouth is, but the fault rests with him, exclusively.
Dude, Biffy scanned the line correctly. How does regular IP make Keats appear incompetent?
And Biffy’s substitution of “or like Balboa” for “or like stout Cortez” would also work, for most of the metricists I’ve talked to. In other words, in every aspect, his argument is correct. Your entire argument is that he is ignorant. Yet, in his dread ignorance, he hits the nail on the head.
Colibri made the argument that Keats used “Cortez” instead of “Balboa” to fit the meter. That would fit my definition of an incompetent poet–sacrificing truth for the sake of the meter.
So what, precisely, is Biffy supposed to be hanging his head over?
It is also absolutely obvious to me and to most readers that Keats made a mistake with his explorers. If you want to define that as incompetence, be my guest.
Who in the fuck said they couldn’t get it to scan right? Not Biffy. He posted his scan and it was right. He suggested a substitution Keats could have used and he got that right, too. A couple of people couldn’t get the substitution to scan right, but you didn’t go apeshit on them.
Sorry. No. You have no argument. This is ridiculous.
“Academic politics are so nasty because the stakes are so small.” My wife told me that once, and it rings true to me. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover a tenured professor of literature taking an absolute position on a much-debated topic and belittling anyone who considered it debatable. Would that really surprise you?
I don’t know, nor do I care, whether he’s a tenured professor or a grad student. I’d be an idiot to take that into consideration when evaluating his posts: unless I have some way of proving his claims, they’re meaningless to me.
On an anonymous message board dedicated to the spread of knowledge? Yes, it would surprise me.
Except, lacking all evidence or elaboration, the only thing presented so far are claims of expertise. My point is that even those claims seem mighty thin. I’m not pointing it out to prove that his point is wrong, merely that even his evasion is lame.
But, of course, it really doesn’t matter either way. This board isn’t about jacking our egos off, but fighting ignorance. Even if he’s the reincarnation of W.B. Yeats he would still be obliged to provide at least the barest shred of elaboration rather than empty posturing.
Well, you’d get a lot of agreement, most likely mine, if you argued it can’t be a double iamb. The existence of double iambs is a little iffy. In English, it’s extremely hard to have a pyrrhic or a spondee. A pyrrhic is a foot with no stresses, and a spondee is a foot with two strong, equal stresses. The closest I’ve seen anyone come to an example of a spondee is the phrase “drop dead.” And even so, it’s possible to hear that said with a couple of different stresses, some of which depends on the speaker. Most other potential spondees are usually compound words: Blackjack. TV. Etc.
Hitting the COR forces me to promote it over “stout.” Stout should be a stressed word and in a majority of lines it would be, but in this case I think it’s metrical filler. It’s not a word that I would have chosen as filler, honestly, because the word wants to be stressed. It’s hard to demote punchy words like stout.
I’m wandering.
Anyway, to hear a close approximation of a double iamb, think of the phrase “on the TV.” on the TEE VEE inSIDE the LIVing ROOM (ick)
Get that rhythm in your head, then read “or like STOUT CORtez WHEN with EAgle EYES.” I sometimes figure the line in musical notes with the unstressed syllables as eighth notes and the stressed as quarters. Or with the unstressed as lower notes and the stressed higher.
Er, I hope this helped.
I wonder if a sound file would help most scansion discussions. I’m used to talking about meter and experimenting with it, but for newcomers it’s often baffling.
It did, thank you. I think I still prefer the straight IP version or the anapest-y version over it, but at least I can pronounce the double iamb now (if such it is).
Yes, definitely. With places like rapidshare available now, it wouldn’t even be a struggle to find hosting space.
Let’s start here: "Is that somewhat like how “we” were unclear about Dex’s words? " This is a perfect example of a previously uttered comment in this thread that I simply ignored up to this point, because it was a simpleminded misreading, probably deliberate, of what I meant by “we” in the first place–I meant “we” to apply to **Dex ** and me. He asked, imperiously and condescending (and, he plausibly claims, jokingly) in CS if “we” were clear that my abuse of Biffy had to stop immediately. and since I wasn’t clear (until he explained his tone) then we (**Dex ** and I) were not clear. Somehow, either through deliberate obtuseness or that obtuseness which life has imposed upon you, you decided to make an issue of how everyone in the universe was not clear, and so I had somehow misused that first person plural pronoun in referring to every inhabitant of the universe.
In a larger sense, this further explains my reluctance to get into metrics here in the Pit, where anyone can take some abusive potshot at my reasoning, and I can either answer the idiocy at length, which will no doubt prove insufficient to that particular idiot, or I can ignore it and be taunted by the idiot’s repetition of his point, and be perceived as cowardly and inadequate to the idiotic task, as in your snarky “we” example, the repetition of which just exposes your obtuseness with each reiteration.
One more example of your startling inability to read: I wrote that any school I “might” attend (the word in quotes is important–it denotes a very particular tense being employed, the conditional), not that any school that I did actually attend. I might, for example, attend school after I retire–perhaps I’ll take a course in formal debate, which is something I’ve always wanted to study. Or perhaps I’ll sign up for a non-degree program this summer for senior professors of literature to fine-tune and update their knowledge of literature–the NEH runs some fine seminars of this kind. In any event, it certainly would not be a school that, unlike your institution (and I 'm sure you’re in one, or should be in one), sorely needs a literacy magazine.
Anyway, if someone wants to start a discussion of metric principles, referencing Keats’ sonnet, I really think CS and not the Pit is the appropriate place for it, now that “we” are clear on the appropriate level for snarkiness there. (I have some specifics in **jsgoddess’s ** last post to bring up.) I just view this extended discussion here, personally, to be an occasion for further sniping, of which I’ve had my fill. I will, however, always be available to discuss your literacy, and want of same, Finn Again, either here or in Macy’s window. And how IS your search for a standard of my verifying what I do for a living coming along?
Straw man number 1: The pariah. Look at me suffer. Nobody will appreciate what I have to say, even though I’ve said repeatedly that I’m qualified to say it.
Straw man number 2: The waffler. Won’t back up his claims because he’s too scared of villagers with torches.
Straw man number 3: The martyr. Everybody’s being so mean to me, but I willingly accept your slings and arrows if it will make you feel better, because I’m so magnanimous.
Straw man number 4: The self-professed intellectual. Vainly hopes his pedantic snobbery will intimidate his detractors to slink away in defeat.
Let’s see some more! Like the trickster straw man: Oh, I was just testing you all along! Now you’re better prepared to take on other pretensious assholes you might meet in the future. Wasn’t that nice of me?
This makes it any less ridiculous? Dex wasn’t unclear. You were. You are not “we”.
-Since I wasn’t clear, we were not clear.
Of course, how could I ever doubt such coherent logic. You are both you and Dex. Yeep.
Yes yes, your obnoxious and arrogant presentation is certainly all my fault. What’s more, the fact that you refer to yourself as “we” and try to pretend that since you were unclear, Dex was too… that’s my fault too. It must be because life has imposed obtuseness on me. Not because you’re a pretentious jerk.
No.
You’re just a cowardly asshole who enjoys stirring up shit and then doesn’t have the balls to spend five minutes on elaboration because people might disagree with you. Continue whining.
Yes “poet”, your masterful wordsmithing certainly leaves no doubt. We do not believe you. And by we, I mean me, and you, of course.
You are a coward, or have you posted an elaboration in this thread yet?
Rather than simply admit that that your lack of understanding was anybody’s but your own, you engaged in snarky semantic tapdancing. A normal person might have simply said “Dex, I’m unclear.” An arrogant and pretentious blowhard would have to cast it in terms of “we” since Dex asked “are we clear?”.
Moreoever, “poet”, and “expert” who likes to talk about how others don’t understand and are obtuse, the thing Dex asked if you were clear on was that personal insults weren’t allowed in CS. Something that you whined and were painfully oblivious to through much of this thread as you moaned about how you needed a specific line refrence to show you how you’d been insulting.
But no, I must be obtuse. I just don’t understand how we means I. Please explain at lengh, “poet”.
Nope “poet”, just another example of how you really don’t have much of a grasp of the English language. But it’s nice to know that anybody who actually reads your words must be an idiot or unable to read. Your masterful poetry must simply be above me, “poet”.
And you claim to be an expert?
Let me educate you, “expert poet”.
On an anonymous message board where you have not given the specifics of your position, talking about whatever school you might attend may simply be a way of maintaining anonymity.
“Whatever clubs I might belong to.” “Whatever state I might live in.” “Whatever University I might teach at.” “Whatever pretentious asshole of a pseudo-intellectual “educator” I might be talking to.”
Surely a master poet such as yourself isn’t blind to the effect your words… oh, wait, forget it.
Blah blah. And yet, you claim to currently be teaching. Which would mean that you would have spoken about the University you do teach at, not some hypothetical schools you might attend in the future. Odd, that. But I guess that I’m just being obtuse, expecting a member of the faculty to actually speak about his real situation rather than imaginging future situations.
And who was the moron who failed to understand what his tone was, while whining like an toddler about how a specific sentence needed to be cited? Oh, that was you. Guess you do need a literacy magazine after all.
You mean now that you’ve had your ass handed to you as an obnoxious asshole of a pretentious fool who couldn’t distinguish between insults and education in a CS thread before and who is too much of a cowardly blowhard to spend a handfull of minutes in a Pit thread to make it look like he has a point rather than a big fat mouth?
I know, you’re not so good with language, “poet”.
Master the difference between first person singular and plural and we’ll talk, “poet”.
Again, “poet”, you arrogant, bombastic, obnoxious, cowardly shit, since you’re not so good with language, I’ll post it again:
“You’ve spent days now carefully avoiding even the hint of explaining your analysis. If your credentials are real, which I doubt, you are a poor teacher. Your behavior has already proven this, I don’t require anything else to demonstrate it.”
You’re nothing but a fraud and an asshole, a fool with a weak intellect and a weaker ego who gets his jollies by pretending to lord his invented superiority over anonymous people on a message board. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Knowed Out, I thought you said you weren’t reading whatever I wrote. Now it turns out you were reading it very closely? So maybe I shouldn’t take very seriously any of your other ignorant and sweeping claims, either? That certainly seems more efficient than disputing you, point by idiotic point.
And I thought you said you didn’t care about the opinions of “idiots” while simultaneously saying that you’d be running away with your tail between your legs because “idiots” wouldn’t bow down and agree with what you said without contradicting you?
Couldn’t have said it better myself. “Expert poet”.
What’s there to dispute? You’re a cowardly pretentious asshole who likes stirring up shit and who doesn’t have the balls to prove people wrong with a few minutes worth of typing. A cowardly shit who will go to great lengths to elaborate on why he’s being a coward, but not on his “expert” opinion which would convince anybody who knew what they were talking about.
And yet I’m having a good time, encourging you to make further displays of your near-total lack of command of what (I presume) is your native language. In the hopes of your posting further, and so debasing yourself for my amusement even more, I’ll respond to the first bit of idiocy above alone: **Dex **, not I, originally asked if “we” were clear. He was referring to himself and to me (and to Biffy, I suppose). I used the same form back to him. I don’t think anyone but you has a hard time understanding this point.
Now how is your search progressing? Remember, I’m offering to allow you to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon if you can find a mutually satisfying way for me to show that I have all the characteristics you’re so confident I lack, and if I then in fact produce such evidence. I’ll even allow you to substitute another department story window of your choice, if Macy’s is inconvenient for you in some way.
PRR, something for you to ponder, as you continue to dig your hole to China: I’ve had to move you from a column labeled “Dopers worthy of a certain degree of deferential respect in certain areas of discussion; when in doubt, defer,” to “Dopers who are more concerned with being an asshole than in productive participation in serious discussion; when in doubt, ignore.”
This thread has cost you a lot. A LOT. You have a very long journey ahead of you to return to the place you were when Dex admonished you from the cave you’ve dug yourself into. And still you dig, away from the light. With your every post, I find myself doubting that you’re a teacher; that you have EVER been a teacher; that you’re even a student; that you’re even a grownup.
Now, obviously I can only speak for myself. But judging from the rest of this thread, I doubt my experience is unique.
I read your last post with great interest. I don’t have the vocabulary to make understanding it very easy, unfortunately, but if such a thread appears in CS, I’d certainly follow along as well as I could.
Yes, I know. I already said that you enjoy stirring shit, it comes as little surprise that you enjoy baiting people as well. Or, for that matter, that you’re ignorant and arrogant enough to claim that I lack a command of the English language. We think you’re funny.
Isn’t it funny when pretentious assholes shoot themselves in the foot? We certainly think so.
Get it, “expert”? You’re a pretentious, obnoxious asshole who has a stick shoved so far up his ass that you’re chewing on splinters. Your responding to Dex with that formulation was obnoxious, which is really par for the course for such an arrogant and full-of-shit “intellectual” such as yourself.
And, “poet”, you are again missing the fact that what he was asking about was if everybody was clear that insults were not allowed in CS. You spent quite some time whining like a little bitch about that one, demanding like a fool that a single sentence must be offered up as an examplar. Of course either you are a poor poet and a fraud of an expert who doesn’t understand that sentences have a ~gasp!~ synergistic effect, or you knew it all along and have been baiting people.
And yet again, “expert”, you were stupid, ignorant, smarmy and obnoxious and you really weren’t clear on what Dex was telling you. You were too fucking stupid to understand that one can be insulting even if one single sentence within several posts doesn’t contain the full impact of the insult given.
How stupid are you, “expert”? How many times do I have to repeat the same exact thing?
Again, since you’re a complete failure and a fraud, I’ll try to help you out. You are no educator nor an expert. This is proven by the fact that you used insults instead of education in the CS thread and have steadfastly refused to provide your “expert” analysis in this Pit thread. If you were an “expert” your analysis would stand on its own as the product of such a knowledgeable mind.
The specifics of your career are incidental, as I’ve pointed out several times. If you are a professor you’re certainly not an educator. You’ve already said that you wouldn’t explain to a student why they were wrong and would just mark them with a big ol’ F. You’re a lazy pretentious asshole fraud who tipifies all that’s wrong with the Ivory Tower. But I wouldn’t expect a master “poet” such as yourself to understand that. You’re probably too busy feverishly jerking at that stick in your ass while scribbling F’s in permanent marker all over your screen.
Again, you seem to think that the Dope is here for you to masturbate your ego to climax. You are a pretentious tool, and a fraud. If you cared one iota for fighting ignorance rather than being an arrogant asshole you would have provided elucidation in the CS thread. If you cared at all about educating people you would have provided your “expert” analysis at some point, somewhere, rather than whining like a little coward about how a few people posting in this thread don’t like you (miracle of miracles). You really should be ashamed of yourself, but as I’d wager that you’re working at jamming your head up there with the stick, you probably don’t even realize what a condescending, pretentious, worthless asshole you are.
I do hope, however, that you apply your masterful expertise and disdain to a conversation real soon. Hopefully in your local bar. I’ll be happy to put your teeth on display for you in Macy’s window.