I’m a relative newcomer to these parts. I enjoy the board quite a bit, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say there are some things I find irritating. But most of those irritants are minor, and they don’t bug me much – that’s what an irritant is, right? – so I let them go and happily go on enjoying the board.
One thing that I have found, however, that rises above the level of irritant is the frequent use of the word “Og.” From my first days here to just a few minutes ago, I took it as the poster making some statement about being a proud atheist, and by goodness no one’s going to get me to say “God” or something like that.
It’s been to the point that when I read a post and run into the word, it takes away from the substance of the post, and I have to curse the poster under my breath a wee bit for his or her rudeness or whatever you want to call it. It’s like reading a paragraph and someone uses the wrong form of there. Boom. Full stop; “now what was this post about again?”
Of course, I ran into it again a bit ago, and this time I decided to see if “Og” was commonly used as a substitute for “God” in other places. Turns out it isn’t, as near as I can tell. In fact, while it seems to have evolved into such to a certain degree, it didn’t really start as a substitute for “God” at all. Some poster back in the frontier days of the Straight Dope made a typo or something, it was pointed out, and the typo was repeated by the poster, it was pointed out again, and it just kind of snowballed from there.
So to all of you who have grabbed my goat these past couple of years by using the word “Og” in your post(s), I apologize for the under-my-breath cursing directed at you, but you didn’t hear.
If it makes you feel better, Personal, I DID/DO use “Og” (and other things) in order to devalue “God”. I dunno if that makes me a “proud atheist” or if I’m just sick seeing/reading/hearing about God all over the damn place. So you can continue to be irritated, no apology needed.
As an atheist, I’ve never had any problem typing/saying god (though, depending on the circumstance, I typically don’t capitalize it).
While I’m aware of how the Of thing got started, I was under the impression that it wasn’t used by non-beleivers trying devalue the name/word, but rather by believers that don’t want to use the ‘The Lord’s Name’. Much in the same way that you’ll often see G-d.
I’m not sure how not saying the name is going to devalue it. ISTM that dancing around it just makes it that much more sacred.
Without understanding the origin of every board meme, I have no fear of just going with my gut. For example, are there posters who are so vehemently atheist that any reference to god is a thing of perturbance? That’s too bad. If I were to say: “I don’t want to hold your goddamn baby!” There is nothing other worldly or spiritual about that. If there is a super atheist, a liked-it-so-much-he-bought-the-company atheist who will glean from that that I hold some kind of reverence for god, well, that ain’t gonna bother me.
Look here, it’s simple: we at the Dope have Og. Maybe a proper deity, maybe some sort of demigodly Gilgameshly type, maybe an archetype personification: whichever suits your worldview but at the end of the day the important thing is he is ours. He’s not Ctulhu or Crom or the FSM, he’s not “Bob” Dobbs. He’s not Krsna or Moroni or Idriss or the Elevated Master St. Germain – he’s Og and he’s our Og.
I belong to another board where our deity of choice is a Guinea Pig by the name of Cupcake. How she became our one and only spiritual leader is a complete and total inside joke. But since it is a private board, we have no need to document or explain our inside jokes. Thank Cupcake!
I’ll admit that when I use “Og”, I’m just demonstrating my knowledge of a SDMB inside joke. It’s a way of showing that I ain’t no noob. A little pathetic, really.
Excuse me. Og is all well and fine, but our deity is the Master himself, you know.
