…ambles off to tread the SSM thread referenced…
Okay, I’m back. To me, that looks like trolling. No real substantiating evidence to support what (s)he is throwing out there, usually short inflammatory remarks, not really moving the discussion in any particular direction, just seeking a response and trying to escalate the emotional response of others.
Whether or not the poster truly believes the nonsense they are posting is beside the point to me, it’s the style and unwillingness to engage in a real debate that seems trollish to me.
There’s also this along with other idiocy in its thread and the join date. For someone who just joined a couple of months ago, he sure knows which buttons to push.
Looks like the main source of my irritation has just been banned. Still say it should have happened earlier, but no big deal. If the mods close this thread I won’t complain.
Wow. Maybe I’m missing some context but that last comment seems like something many posters here (on the left and right) would say regularly without anyone noticing.
Flowers cannot be “sent.” The idea is an absurdity. Flowers grow in the earth. Once they are plucked from their environment, they die and cease to be flowers.
You cannot redefine the word “flowers” to mean “gift” or “delivery.” We already have words for those concepts.
A quick Google search seems to show that it’s about 50:50 on this board, with “judgment” being slightly favored (29K vs 28K). Using the board’s search function, there’s 92 threads with “judgment” from the past month, and 86 with “judgement,” so the ratio is similar.
At any rate, in the threads I’ve interacted with him, I didn’t get the sense he was trolling–I think his arguments were sincere, if not aggressively obstinate–just had unusual ideas of how language works and an over-inflated sense of self. But what’s done is done, and I haven’t seen many of his other threads.
The mods were already discussing Melchior’s membership. At least a couple of us felt he was trolling. So that off-topic political comment did not make him look any better.
Part of the context is that Melchior had already received four other warnings since he joined a little over two months ago. It’s pretty clear the remark was intended to yank chains.
I don’t know about other forums, but a remark like that in GQ would certainly be liable for a warning.
That’s pretty amusing. “I do tell you what is correct language.” At any rate, that’s consistent with my impression of his sincerity and his thoughts on language. Stubborn and mistaken, but sincere. I’ll leave it at that, as he is not here to respond.
