In a GQ thread I edited a line before posting, but forgot to delete one word. This resulted in a double-negative. Now, instead of the thread staying on-topic and people answering the OP’s question, it has come to posters arguing a grammatical point. In a Cafe thread, I used the word ‘carnitas’, and someone asked if I were talking about pork or beef. Obviously I was talking about pork, since by definition ‘carnitas’ are pork. Now that thread has gong off track from being about how to make great guacamole for carnitas tacos, to Spanish grammar in the context of American usage.
These are just two examples. In uncounted other threads people will focus on one statement somebody made and pick it to death, regardless of the original context. Often this will arise from a general statement that frames a discussion, or by a poster using ‘shorthand’ assuming that people will understand the context without the author having to provide an all-inclusive list of exceptions and footnotes to provide an exact legal meaning of a statement.
Does it bother anyone else that discussions go off on such tangents because people are being willfully obtuse? Is anyone else bothered by needless pedantry?
No, it’s just that I finally decided to mention it.
The first example isn’t my thread. The second one happens to be, but I don’t care much about the grammar tangent. There are other threads I’ve noticed where the pedantry is far more egregious.
I’ve seen exactly this. I’m okay with the occasional tangent. It can take a thread in a different direction…when somebody complains the OP is too long to be a Poll?
Which reminds me…Polls really need to be pre-cleard from the SDMB staff. I can’t make one that isn’t incomplete, or poorly designed, or leaves out a possible solution and is therefore irrelevant. :rolleyes:
For an erudite group of openminded people, we sure can be narrowminded pricks sometimes.
Nitpicking, post parsing, and excessive pedantry are the bane of my existence. Yes, we KNOW that (generic) you are the smartest guy in any room - we don’t need cites and footnotes for it. To quote that eminent sage, Billy Joel, “I don’t want clever conversation - I never want to work that hard.”
Sometimes it deserves nitpicking. Example from a while back:
A poster asked a question by itself had could have had just some factual responses; however, the framing of the question was based on some pseudoscientific horse *hockery, which IMO was indeed fair game for shooting down.
This isn’t the question, and I’m not going to dredge it up, but it was along the lines of “What kind of coats will be really warm, because I don’t want to catch a cold this winter?” The first part could be answered factually pretty easily. The second part deserves to be addressed, too, because we’re supposed to be “fighting ignorance.”
I don’t mind it if its a polite “by the way, its really like this” or “technically speaking your wrong because of xyz, but in practice it doesnt make a damn bit of difference”. Something along those lines is fine IMO, in the interest of decreasing everyone’s ignorance.
But pendants that think they have scored big points of some sort by doing this are either at best socially clueless and at worst fracking assholes.
Its bad enough here that I make a point of putting fricking qualifiers in just about everything I say.
I think the “fuck you” rule should be waved for non polite pedantry.
That habit amongst the residents here is one of the reasons I find this board ugly.
I started a thread a few years ago asking if Spanish speakers from different countries could find each others’ accents difficult, the way that I can find some accents in the English-speaking world difficult. I then had to spend multiple posts explaining how it was possible that I find some accents more difficult than others, to the extent where I got lectured by someone who was also from Ohio who needed to tell me that he never had problems with accents.
It was utterly useless and bizarre, but I guess some people have the desperate need to impress us all. I’m impressed all right.
This. And it’s not limited here. I’m on another forum…deals with Networking and Network security. Some things are just a matter of opinion, but if your opinion differs from somebody else’s then it’s up to you to ‘prove you’re not talking out your ass’. One comment of your experience, and you have to provide a Curriculum Vitae, Blood Test, and Letters of Commendation from the Pope before you can move on.
You then get comments like ‘You’ve only got this level of certification, it doesn’t really count till you get to THAT level of certification’.
Oh, thanks for that comic, Unintentionally. I’ve seen a bunch of threads just today that need this posted in their midst. (If you like banging your head on your desk try reading this one.)
It bears mentioning that the long history of the Dope culture has been to not only be right, but be the rightest of all. GQ often becomes a contest to split a hair even finer.
It’s common for a poster, in a desperate measure to be right about Something, to sidetrack a thread.
It depends… in political threads in particular, there are people who post outright lies and slander as if they were givens, counting on the fact that any correction will sound like nitpicking. Someone has to call them on it.
Originally posted by Johnny LA:
“Obviously I was talking about pork, since by definition ‘carnitas’ are pork. Now that thread has gong off track from being about how to make great guacamole for carnitas tacos, to Spanish grammar in the context of American usage.”
This is a post about guacamole, right ? stop hijacking.
Johnny, I agree completely. I opened that train wreck hijacked by your inadvertant double-negative, thought about pulling a mild junior mod, thought twice, and just clicked [close] in disgust. Pity, because I think I had something useful to say on the OP’s actual topic.
I can be pretty pedantic, but I try real hard to avoid nit-pickery unless clearly labeled as such. Feedback?
Folks, we’re poopin’ in our own pool here. The SDMB is about the only outlet for complete sentences on the internet. Let’s not let all the forums degrade into GD-lite.
