# Sealioning **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 16, 2019, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837 "2019-10-16T10:36:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/301 "2019-10-23T03:35:41Z")
Perhaps there should be a variant of JAQing called JARQing. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/302 "2019-10-23T03:38:04Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But it can turn it into a rhetorical question, can’t it. Yet another question. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/303 "2019-10-23T03:43:10Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Yet another question. You’ve never meta person more self-referential than me. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/304 "2019-10-23T03:57:52Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Can a person be described as egregious? No. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/305 "2019-10-23T05:21:37Z")
A president can certainly be described as “egregious,” in the sense of his/her performance in that role. Fun Fact, which may or may not have been known to others upthread: “egregious” meaning “conspicuous” may be most commonly used in the sense of “conspicuously bad; flagrant” but it originally meant “conspicuously good; distinguished,” and is still used in that archaic sense by some. One of the dangers of nitpicking words on the internet is that someone on the internet probably knows more about words than you do. I would have thought that this would have been one of the corners of the internet where that simple truism was most widely internalized. Learn something every day (it’s good for you). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/306 "2019-10-23T05:44:58Z")
Let’s see a contemporary cite then. Not from someone on Twitter or a message board, but the use of that word, in the 21st century, to describe a person in a prestigious newspaper or magazine (NYT, the Atlantic, etc.) or from a book published by a respected publishing house. If you find a cite like “Ms. Smith was egregious in her habitual sloppiness”, I will award you half points. Full points if the person is described as being egregious with no other adjective or modifying prepositional phrase in sight. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/307 "2019-10-23T06:10:11Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Let’s see a contemporary cite then. Not from someone on Twitter or a message board, but the use of that word, in the 21st century, to describe a person in a prestigious newspaper or magazine (NYT, the Atlantic, etc.) or from a book published by a respected publishing house. > > If you find a cite like “Ms. Smith was egregious in her habitual sloppiness”, I will award you half points. Full points if the person is described as being egregious with no other adjective or modifying prepositional phrase in sight. I very much doubt that you could afford my hourly rates for research of that nature. If you’re interested in my rate sheet, please inquire at the email in my profile. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/308 "2019-10-23T06:29:01Z")
> [@mjmlabs](#): > > One of the dangers of nitpicking words on the internet is that someone on the internet probably knows more about words than you do. I would have thought that this would have been one of the corners of the internet where that simple truism was most widely internalized. Learn something every day (it’s good for you). > [@mjmlabs](#): > > I very much doubt that you could afford my hourly rates for research of that nature. If you’re interested in my rate sheet, please inquire at the email in my profile. If you had bothered to read the thread more carefully, you’d have see that I raised the issue as a modestly open-minded question, because I was interested, not a “nitpick”: > [@Riemann](#): > > \*\*Can a person be described as egregious? \*\* That’s not a familiar usage to me. I tend to think it’s used to describe actions, or maybe I’d say he’s an “egregiously bad” president. This random page of sentence examples I found supports that: > > [https://sentencehouse.com/egregious/](https://sentencehouse.com/egregious/) > > **But I’m open to being convinced otherwise.** But I wasn’t looking for a pompous supercilious lecture _telling_ me what the word means by someone who claims authority without evidence. I was looking for cites of usage, or at least something like reputable dictionary entries that are indirect evidence for the usage in at least some dialects. Because it’s usage that determines the rules of language, not authority. There, now _you’ve_ learned something. Was it good for you? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/309 "2019-10-23T06:34:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > If you find a cite like “Ms. Smith was egregious in her habitual sloppiness”, I will award you half points. Full points if the person is described as being egregious with no other adjective or modifying prepositional phrase in sight. I wouldn’t give half points for the first one - that forumlation is not in dispute, I’d use egregious that way, because it’s effectively modifying the action, the sloppiness, not the person. It’s usage directly describing a person that I haven’t come across before. I should note that I’m British, so I don’t know if that accounts for it. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/310 "2019-10-23T07:15:13Z")
**Reimann** : What would make you think that my response was directed solely to you? I did make reference to “others upthread” (note plural.) I mean, if we’re going to be critiquing reading comprehension and picking fights. I offered my answer. If it’s not satisfactory to you, so be it. I do not feel under any obligation to research contemporary-usage citations for your convenience; this is not a thesis defense, it’s an internet message board. If you’d rather jump right to insulting characterizations rather than right-clicking and Googling, that’s your problem and not mine. No hard feelings here. But dude, you might want to go quaff a pint and lighten the fuck up. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/311 "2019-10-23T07:16:39Z")
The sea lioning use of defintions uses it as a fallacy–the definition of the word is used to try and invalidate the point being made. Simply asking about a word is not sea lioning. It’s also generally indicated by a group of actions, not just a single one. Like with other forms of trolling, it usually takes more than one action to show that someone is being deliberately disingenuous. Like most trolling tactics, the only reason it can ever be effective is that it resembles legitimate tactics. I do think this is also part of what is tripping up SlackerInc: he’s thinking about how the descriptions in the sea lioning definition might be used in legitimate debate. And they very much can be, if it makes sense in context and is not overly used. Clearing up definitions can be useful at times–as long as it’s not being used to try and invalidate the underlying argument. And, to answer Rieman’s question: every definition I can find says that “egregious” usually means “notably bad.” So it would seem to fit in this context. That said, I tend to avoid such usage myself, since I have also seen people call it an error, and I find it’s easier to avoid the issue by adding a few extra letters (“ly bad”) than to risk a semantic debate. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/312 "2019-10-23T07:28:19Z")
> [@mjmlabs](#): > > **Reimann** : What would make you think that my response was directed solely to you? I did make reference to “others upthread” (note plural.) Obviously because I was the one who first asked about whether the usage was correct. Who else would you be accusing of “nitpicking”? > [@mjmlabs](#): > > But dude, you might want to go quaff a pint and lighten the fuck up. You’re telling me to lighten up? This is what you wrote, you pompous ass: > [@mjmlabs](#): > > One of the dangers of nitpicking words on the internet is that someone on the internet probably knows more about words than you do. I would have thought that this would have been one of the corners of the internet where that simple truism was most widely internalized. Learn something every day (it’s good for you). But I’m the one “picking fights”? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/313 "2019-10-23T07:38:30Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And, to answer Rieman’s question: every definition I can find says that “egregious” usually means “notably bad.” So it would seem to fit in this context. But if look at the examples of usage given in the dictionaries, I can’t find any that apply it directly to a person. “He is egregious”, “he was egregious” get no hits in Google ngram. “Egregious man” does get a very few, mostly old. I tend to thing the usage is at best unusual. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/314 "2019-10-23T07:48:01Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Obviously because I was the one who first asked about whether the usage was correct. Who else would you be accusing of “nitpicking”? Obviously, the post directly above mine, which offered an answer I was contradicting. You may not have seen it if you have that poster on your Ignore List. Less obviously, the entire corpus of this thread, including but not limited to the discussion of the word “egregious.” This was not made explicit in my post, but I do not exempt myself from the admonition to remain mindful that others know far more about words than I. I am reminded of that almost daily around these parts, and I enjoy that; it keeps me humble, if occasionally inarticulate. > [@Riemann](#): > > You’re telling me to lighten up? Yes. And I am now repeating that advice. This can’t be good for you. > [@Riemann](#): > > But I’m the one “picking fights”? It would seem so, yes. Peace. Out. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/315 "2019-10-23T12:00:47Z")
> [@mjmlabs](#): > > Peace. Out. Very well. We shall resume in an hour. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2019, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/316 "2019-10-23T14:35:32Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Not a question, I don’t have to answer. I don’t enjoy trolling, so I don’t mind bringing that yo a close. > [@](#): > > I have no argument. I simply want to know what you mean. I don’t care about “winning points on the Internet” since that is meaningless and affects me as much as a sports team winning a game. Well, you know what I mean before you ever asked what I meant. If you are unaware that betrayal is one of the definitions of treason, then that justifies a single ask for clarification and knowledge, which once received, should be appreciated and the matter dropped. > [@](#): > > I try not to denigrate someone’s opinion if I ask for it. If they give unasked for opinions that I consider moronic, then I do judge that. Seems bad form to ask for an opinion and then make fun of it. I try not to do that. And I’m sure you can see how that would have a chilling effect on people freely offering their opinions on a subject, if they feel that their opinion will be subject to interrogation. If I ask someone’s opinion, and they give it, does that change your calculation on whether or not you should make fun of it, since it was not you doing the asking? > [@](#): > > I’m not interested in “winning an argument” I’m interested in what people on this board post, and why they post it. Are you actually interested in the content of their post, or solely in their choice of words? > [@](#): > > No, I don’t deny it. I feel that President Obama was an egregious President. Do you agree or disagree? See, in this you have left out context. If you were to say that Obama was egregious in his poor handling of such and such a situation, then I would take it that you were using the more contemporary and better known definition. If you said that Obama was egregious in his excellent handling of such and such a situation, then I would take it that you are using a more archaic and less well known definition. Without context, I would have to ask you for more information to know what you meant, which is a perfectly valid and justified inquiry. In neither case would I require you to justify your word usage, even if non-standard, before I was willing to answer your question. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/317 "2019-10-24T03:02:56Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And I’m sure you can see how that would have a chilling effect on people freely offering their opinions on a subject, if they feel that their opinion will be subject to interrogation I would hope so. “My opinion will be subject to interrogation, so I should be sure it’s based on accurate information” is something I wish everyone would do. As an example, would you consider what people are doing to HD in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=884039) sealioning? They seem to be hammering him on his definition of “signature achievement” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/318 "2019-10-24T07:09:50Z")
It seems clear to me that what **Rieman** is doing is annoying you. You’re clearly trying to make arguments to get him to stop. Such illustrates exactly why such tactics are harmful to debate–they distract you into trying to stop them rather than to actually continue the debate itself. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/319 "2019-10-24T15:20:46Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I would hope so. “My opinion will be subject to interrogation, so I should be sure it’s based on accurate information” is something I wish everyone would do. A conclusion should be, but an opinion is not. What accurate information did you use in choosing to be biased towards blue over red? > [@](#): > > As an example, would you consider what people are doing to HD in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=884039) sealioning? They seem to be hammering him on his definition of “signature achievement” I don’t see the CFPB listed anywhere as a definition of signature achievement. If he wants to make the case that this is not only something that is entirely her doing, but the greatest doing of her political career, he can make the case. Do you actually understand the difference between an opinion and a conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837/320 "2019-10-24T15:25:14Z")
I don’t know if “sea-lioning” applies to anything in that thread, but I’m fairly confident HurricaneDitka would not call attention to any accomplishment of Warren’s if it _wasn’t_ being challenged in some way. If anyone knows of a time when Ditka said “Warren said such-and-such. I agree. Good for her” I’d like to read it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sealioning/841837.md?page=17)