Gerrymandering myself out of a great job

[jayjay]

@Santo Rugger

Nice try, but, if blood was analogous to pizza, a transfusion would be a “put-in” order.

I’m just here for the intravenous pizza…

[Contrapuntal]

@Mama Tiger

Okay, try this request, which is not an argument, Contrapuntal: You’ve made your point. How about you please drop it and let the rest of us laugh at Chief Scott’s pointy-haired XO, without getting all etymologically ensnared in the process?

Why don’t you tell the ones who are arguing with me to drop it? I’ve dropped it every time I posted, until someone challenged me.

@Boyo Jim

This is not a claim that he used the term correctly. In fact, there is an explicit admission that gerrymander is not the correct but a “close” term, followed by a prediction that some day his usage might become accepted.

“Close” is not the same as “closest word I could come up with.”

In post #41 he acknowledged using the word incorrectly.
Look, this whole thing started when I said this, which so far has been unrefuted. Completely. And is absolutely true.

I can’t find a single definition online to support this, nor does my Webster’s Third International. Gerrymandering refers to drawing or redrawing of political boundaries, not the manipulation of numbers.

It’s not my fault if it folks want to argue in vain against a simple declaration of truth.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Contrapuntal

… “Close” is not the same as “closest word I could come up with.”

In post #41 he acknowledged using the word incorrectly.
…

Close is pretty damn close to closest. And yes, he acknowledged using the term incorrectly, and has not explicitly recanted that acknowledgement.

So, I I guess you’re not actually taking issue with the OP anymore, but only those who came later and posted support for the OP’s use of the term.

Ah, well, WTF, we’re all basically spinnin’ our wheels here anyway. More power to ya’.

[DesertDog]

@Contrapuntal

Gerrymandering refers to the actual redrawing of actual political boundaries. The kind that are established by legislatures, and are often found on an actual map. It is a very specific word.

Here ya go. I always thought it was a pretty cool cartoon.

I think he touched up the claws a bit . . . and–and the mouth, but she’s a gerrymander all right.

[OtakuLoki]

Just in case anyone thinks that the Gerrymander is dead, allow me to show you my US Representative’s 28th NY District .

[Boggette]

@ChiefScott

“Scott,” he patiently explains, “That is not a real word is it?”
“Yes, sir,” I assure him.
“I don’t believe you.”

I would have been seriously pissed that someone called me a liar. Especially in front of a room full of people.

[Sigmagirl]

I went to one of my sorority conventions once and had to convince the president – while she was on the podium – that there was such a word as “contiguous.”

[Ellen_Cherry]

@Hostile Dialect

What, “fallacious”? I learned that as a junior in high school.

Yeah but you remember it. I’ve come to realize that while most people were present for their educations, very little of it seeped in. Hence the embarrassment that is “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” :smack:

[Kalhoun]

@Contrapuntal

Gerrymandering refers to the actual redrawing of actual political boundaries. The kind that are established by legislatures, and are often found on an actual map. It is a very specific word.

If you torture logic enough anything could mean anything, I suppose. Such exercises are seldom of any use when clarity of meaning is important.

Why call it gerrymandering when what it actually is is rescheduling? It’s done all the time. Every day. All over the world. Restaurants do it. Hospitals do it. Toy stores do it. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. If “gerrymandering” was a useful description for such a common practice, it almost certainly would have caught on by now.

I agree. I confess that although I’ve heard the word many times, I’ve never used it and never really knew the precise definition (much like the OP), but clearly there is no wiggle room on it’s meaning. It is specific to political boundaries.

[kdeus]

I worked for Greg, Greg worked for Scott. Scott was a great boss, cared about important stuff, didn’t care about stupid stuff, and had his high school equivalency & only a few college credits.

Greg and Scott had been friends for ten years, Scott got promoted faster, the military isn’t always fair :eek: .

So we all have to write our own evaluations. Greg would scour the earth every year for words that he knew Scott (or anybody) wouldn’t know, just to torture him. Every eval season we’d hear:

“Loquacious? Afflatus?!? SARDOODLEDOM?!?! Goddammit Greg, get in here and bring a dictionary!”

[JThunder]

@NurseCarmen

Please please please don’t use niggardly in a meeting.

Actually, I was going to suggest that he should.

[Swallowed_My_Cellphone]

@Oslo Ostragoth

Pardon me if I’m a bit dense here - did she confuse it with “fellatio”?

Or confused “fallacy” with “phallus”, in high school a friend asked me to proofread his paper on “Pathetic Fallacy”. He kind of got it wrong.

[Sean_Factotum]

@OtakuLoki

Just in case anyone thinks that the Gerrymander is dead, allow me to show you my US Representative’s 28th NY District .

I take it she’s a favorite of the lakefront crowd. What’s the average income of that district, by the way?

[pulykamell]

@teela brown

Although ChiefScott’s use of the word may not have been 100% accurate, had I been in that meeting (assuming I wasn’t the boss), I would have known exactly what he was trying to convey, so IMO it was a good use of the word.

The comment would have gotten a :dubious: from me had I been in the meeting. When I read the OP, I was a little bit confused, as I didn’t quite understand what he meant by the word “gerrymander,” and I was wondering whether there’s some broader definition I was not aware of. Here, in Chicago, gerrymandering is heard often enough with our city’s wards being drawn and redrawn every few years for political reasons.

I’m not saying the word can’t be used in a broader sense, I just don’t think that it’s a terribly good metaphor for the type of manipulation being described in the OP.

However, it’s also an odd enough word that I wouldn’t be surprised if many people weren’t familiar with it. The boss’s response was idiotic, nonetheless.

[OtakuLoki]

@Sean Factotum

I take it she’s a favorite of the lakefront crowd. What’s the average income of that district, by the way?

I have no idea, off the top of my head. While her home town of Fairport is very firmly middle class, and even upper middle class at that, the district is drawn to include Rochester’s city, parts of Buffalo, and the US city of Niagara Falls, all of which suffer from endemic poverty, and all that entails. The middle portion, between the two urban areas isn’t all that wealthy, either. Right on the lakefront, there’s money, but get away from that and things look a bit more bleak.

Or, if one wants to it into political terms: it’s a solidly Democratic district, and was drawn to be so.

[NicePete]

I think you should take the dictionary back to his office and tell him you need a new one because the word “gullible” isn’t in this one. Then leave it on his desk.

[China_Guy]

@Contrapuntal

And is absolutely true. It’s not my fault if it folks want to argue in vain against a simple declaration of truth.

Truth is relative. :smack:

[Princhester]

@Contrapuntal

Look, this whole thing started when I said this, which so far has been unrefuted. Completely. And is absolutely true. It’s not my fault if it folks want to argue in vain against a simple declaration of truth.

Nonsense. There is no such thing as a simple declaration of truth when it comes to language. If you disagree, where do you think language comes from? Where do new words come from? Do you think a Shining Dictionary full of Simple Declarations of the Truth as to Meanings of Words dropped from the sky? Words change in meaning. They change because people start using them in new and creative ways. I would have understood what the OP said perfectly in context.

Get over your view that language is as rigid as you are kidding yourself it is, and then you will be substantially closer to the truth than you are presently.

[Boyo_Jim]

Ooh, shiny!

[Crocodiles_And_Boulevards]

@Contrapuntal

Gerrymandering refers to the actual redrawing of actual political boundaries. The kind that are established by legislatures, and are often found on an actual map. It is a very specific word.

If you torture logic enough anything could mean anything, I suppose. Such exercises are seldom of any use when clarity of meaning is important.

Why call it gerrymandering when what it actually is is rescheduling? It’s done all the time. Every day. All over the world. Restaurants do it. Hospitals do it. Toy stores do it. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. If “gerrymandering” was a useful description for such a common practice, it almost certainly would have caught on by now.

I’m going to agree with the dissent. The reason why “gerrymandering” hasn’t caught on is because, like the OP’s boss, a heck of a lot of people don’t know the word. However, I think it’s been catching fire recently due to the media highlighted shenanigans of certain recent politicians

Thankfully, we have a certain amount of wiggle room in the English language. Fortunate, I know, since it’s not a so-called “dead” language

I definitely feel like in the future “gerrymandering” will enter common use to describe situations that are not political as well. It’s a weakening of the definition, but that’s just what happens when words enter common use and become less unique.

PS: I hope someone caught that last one