# The Most Indecipherable Dopers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 9, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470 "2017-06-09T01:22:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/101 "2017-06-10T07:14:31Z")
For the most part, **Bricker** can elucidate on the odd bit of lawyer-y type stuff, but sometimes he’ll write a long wall of ostensibly fairminded legalese that I might have to, well, re-read. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/102 "2017-06-10T10:34:02Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “Linear” doesn’t necessarily require straight, but in your case sometimes it’s not even continuous. It’s punctuated. Poorly. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/103 "2017-06-10T10:44:10Z")
And I’m not the slightest bit linear. You may have noticed that. Having to type it out forces me to try, but then I’m a hundred thoughts down the road and my original point is lost in the wind. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/104 "2017-06-10T10:50:17Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Margarine hat. We’ll be checking in with you throughout the night, Floyd. And happy 23rd birthday! ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/105 "2017-06-10T12:00:33Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Yes master obi wan Kenobi. Obi Wart Kenobi. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/106 "2017-06-10T13:36:29Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > And I’m not the slightest bit linear. You may have noticed that. Having to type it out forces me to try, but then I’m a hundred thoughts down the road and my original point is lost in the wind. You’re not alone in this. I go off on tangents all the time, and sometimes forget my original point. I usually try to finagle the language to make it look like everything is related, but it’s a smokescreen, really. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/107 "2017-06-11T11:07:21Z")
No one has mentioned **AHunter3**? I think of the posters, he’s the most frustrating because I am interested in various gender issues and would like to understand what the hell what wants to say. However, it’s like he takes pride in a writing style which deliberately ensures that that task in needlessly complicated. Is there something wrong with simply making your point? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/108 "2017-06-11T12:11:18Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > You’re not alone in this. I go off on tangents all the time, and sometimes forget my original point. I usually try to finagle the language to make it look like everything is related, but it’s a smokescreen, really. Likewise. Yesterday I was talking to someone about fixing their battery cables, and I was reminded of the time I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. “Gimme five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where were we… oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. I didn’t have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones… ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/109 "2017-06-11T12:18:34Z")
The story of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/110 "2017-06-12T18:51:48Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana! Banana! Thank you for that! The world needs more Billy and the Boingers. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/111 "2017-06-13T11:44:21Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I am nowhere near as clever as the 100th posting of this. > I wonder if that would be a legit sig? I agree with you about the first statement, and far as the sig goes you might want to rewrite it to avoid confusion-something like “ **Octopus** -Eat shit, asshole”, just to clarify that everyone is saying it to you. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/112 "2017-06-13T12:06:36Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > However, it’s like he takes pride in a writing style which deliberately ensures that that task in needlessly complicated. Is there something wrong with simply making your point? As [Zombie Millhouse](https://youtu.be/_YoBwxANNCo?t=98) said, “brevity soul wit.” ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/113 "2017-06-13T12:43:41Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Wait, you think more powerful interests are arrayed against climate change legislation than for it? That kind of explains your bizarre tone when it comes to climate change legislation. Calm down buddy, your side is much more powerful unless you discount every government and regulatory body in the worlds most industrialized nations. So, the President of the United States and the party controlling the U.S. Congress - they support legislation to fight climate change? When did this happen? You’d think this would have made the news. (The U.S. IS one of “the world’s most industrialized nations,” right? And the Presidency and Congress are rather major bodies in the U.S. government, right? Just checking.) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/114 "2017-06-13T15:00:01Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > No one has mentioned **AHunter3**? …it’s like he takes pride in a writing style which deliberately ensures that that task in needlessly complicated. No, it’s not like that at all, actually. That is to say, _pride_ would convey a sense of active enthusiasm for the writing style in and of itself. Note that you’ve attached the notion of deliberately ensuring needless complexity to the writing style itself. I want to make a difficult but important distinction here, between offering as an object of ridicule the notion that a writing style can deliberately do anything, on the one hand, and holding up the notion that in some sense (anthropomorphized a bit though it may in fact be) the writing style does deliberately embrace complexity, on the other, and ally myself with the latter. That is to say, I disavow any intention at this point of deflecting your claim with the cheap easy shot of ridicule and I am in fact suggesting we give it thoughtful consideration. Robert Pirsig, late in _Zen_, eventually replies to the pointed question from the Philosophy Department’s head, to wit, “So is quality inherent in the object that possesses it or is quality merely what you like?”; his eponymous main character feels thwarted for awhile before dropping his metaphorical pen-point down in midsentence and asking, “What purpose is served within that sentence by the word ‘merely’?”, which begins his dissection of the phony opposition of objectivity and subjectivity – as those of you who’ve read it will recall. I’m going to attempt a similar thing in bringing your focus to the word “needlessly” in your own sentence. I do have a fondness for fine differentials in precise meaning right at the point of their divergence, and I will confess to a fondness for a rhetorical approach that indicates that point of divergence and only later on, in subsequent paragraphs, puts on display the larger and hence genuinely significant of that fork. Since proceeding in this fashion allows me to work with a verbal dissecting knife to perform a precision disentanglement of normally-conflated concepts, and the latter is the territory in which I quite often find myself operating, I will herewith confess to the pride of which you speak but at the same time shall defend it against the charge of lacking sufficient necessity. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/115 "2017-06-13T15:25:21Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I do have a fondness for fine differentials in precise meaning right at the point of their divergence, and I will confess to a fondness for a rhetorical approach that indicates that point of divergence and only later on, in subsequent paragraphs, puts on display the larger and hence genuinely significant of that fork. On the plus side, you’d be [amazing](https://xkcd.com/451/) at literary criticism. ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/116 "2017-06-13T16:23:50Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > No, it’s not like that at all, actually. That is to say…I will herewith confess to the pride of which you speak but at the same time shall defend it against the charge of lacking sufficient necessity. I’ve just always assumed you’re manic when you go on like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/117 "2017-06-13T16:58:39Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > No, it’s not like that at all, actually. That is to say, _pride_ would convey a sense of active enthusiasm for the writing style in and of itself. Note that you’ve attached the notion of deliberately ensuring needless complexity to the writing style itself. I want to make a difficult but important distinction here, between offering as an object of ridicule the notion that a writing style can deliberately do anything, on the one hand, and holding up the notion that in some sense (anthropomorphized a bit though it may in fact be) the writing style does deliberately embrace complexity, on the other, and ally myself with the latter. That is to say, I disavow any intention at this point of deflecting your claim with the cheap easy shot of ridicule and I am in fact suggesting we give it thoughtful consideration. > > Robert Pirsig, late in _Zen_, eventually replies to the pointed question from the Philosophy Department’s head, to wit, “So is quality inherent in the object that possesses it or is quality merely what you like?”; his eponymous main character feels thwarted for awhile before dropping his metaphorical pen-point down in midsentence and asking, “What purpose is served within that sentence by the word ‘merely’?”, which begins his dissection of the phony opposition of objectivity and subjectivity – as those of you who’ve read it will recall. I’m going to attempt a similar thing in bringing your focus to the word “needlessly” in your own sentence. > > I do have a fondness for fine differentials in precise meaning right at the point of their divergence, and I will confess to a fondness for a rhetorical approach that indicates that point of divergence and only later on, in subsequent paragraphs, puts on display the larger and hence genuinely significant of that fork. Since proceeding in this fashion allows me to work with a verbal dissecting knife to perform a precision disentanglement of normally-conflated concepts, and the latter is the territory in which I quite often find myself operating, I will herewith confess to the pride of which you speak but at the same time shall defend it against the charge of lacking sufficient necessity. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/118 "2017-06-13T18:02:27Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > No, it’s not like that at all, actually. That is to say, _pride_ would convey a sense of active enthusiasm for the writing style in and of itself. Note that you’ve attached the notion of deliberately ensuring needless complexity to the writing style itself. I want to make a difficult but important distinction here, between offering as an object of ridicule the notion that a writing style can deliberately do anything, on the one hand, and holding up the notion that in some sense (anthropomorphized a bit though it may in fact be) the writing style does deliberately embrace complexity, on the other, and ally myself with the latter. That is to say, I disavow any intention at this point of deflecting your claim with the cheap easy shot of ridicule and I am in fact suggesting we give it thoughtful consideration. > > Robert Pirsig, late in _Zen_, eventually replies to the pointed question from the Philosophy Department’s head, to wit, “So is quality inherent in the object that possesses it or is quality merely what you like?”; his eponymous main character feels thwarted for awhile before dropping his metaphorical pen-point down in midsentence and asking, “What purpose is served within that sentence by the word ‘merely’?”, which begins his dissection of the phony opposition of objectivity and subjectivity – as those of you who’ve read it will recall. I’m going to attempt a similar thing in bringing your focus to the word “needlessly” in your own sentence. > > I do have a fondness for fine differentials in precise meaning right at the point of their divergence, and I will confess to a fondness for a rhetorical approach that indicates that point of divergence and only later on, in subsequent paragraphs, puts on display the larger and hence genuinely significant of that fork. Since proceeding in this fashion allows me to work with a verbal dissecting knife to perform a precision disentanglement of normally-conflated concepts, and the latter is the territory in which I quite often find myself operating, I will herewith confess to the pride of which you speak but at the same time shall defend it against the charge of lacking sufficient necessity. Da’hell? Is this meant to be a whoosh or something like that? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/119 "2017-06-13T18:08:58Z")
Jeez people, he did everything but announce “I’m placing my tongue into my cheek now.” ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470/120 "2017-06-13T18:43:05Z")
No one has mentioned my favorite, **Dunmurry**. I picture him as the [frontier-gibberish guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U&t=12) from _Blazing Saddles_. I’d say these are some highlights, but it’s only a few randomly selected quotes - there’s plenty more if you want to search his history. Hopefully he returns soon. > [@Alot of people don't like George W. Bush because he took country to illegal war you angry about it?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alot-of-people-dont-like-george-w-bush-because-he-took-country-to-illegal-war-you-angry-about-it/756678/1): > > A lot of people have said a lot of things about what [George W. Bush] did with Tony Blair or Tony B. Liar in Iraq but it was an illegal war because he never got the UN resolution and it was based on a lie - that Saddam had weapons ready within 45 minutes of course the weapons he never had but I would like to see the father of soldiers killed in Iraq challenging him on this and someone said Tony Blair You’re a War Criminal also and what do you think about this also then you angry about it? Are you making any sense of all the things that happened you angry about it? > [@What is the most serious crime anyone ever got away with because of a legal loophole or technicality](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-serious-crime-anyone-ever-got-away-with-because-of-a-legal-loophole-or-technicality/773715/1): > > Also, there was a man called John Downey who was suspected of being involved in the 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing in which 4 soldiers were killed but he got away with it because he had got a letter and there was a mistake made by the police force in Northern Ireland it said the police force in Northern Ireland was not aware of any interest in him by any police force in the UK also which led to the letter being sent and it said he wasn’t wanted for questioning in relation to any crimes he may have committed before 1998 but in fact he was wanted for questioning by one police force but the judge ruled that he couldn’t be prosecuted because it would be “an abuse of process”. > Any other examples > Also any examples of where someone was probably guilty but got away with things because of something well like this > [@Why did Status Quo (band) never have much success in America](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-status-quo-band-never-have-much-success-in-america/773716/1): > > This is about the band Status Quo yes the Status Quo (band) which are regarded as an institution in Britain as British as fish and chips and Big Ben yes very good band however they never really managed to “crack America” or whatever you would usually say and they are a very good rock band but they only play three chords and Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt have been in it the longest but I believe they are soon to hang up their Fender Stratocaster guitars for good. they have performed over 4500 live shows to audiences in excess of 20 million people and they have done more than a million miles on the road and one of them has had a quadruple heart bypass and they are still going but of course I saw them live in 2005 with Mel C of the Spice Girls and Meat Loaf and it was really good. > [@Does anyone else share my hatred of NI politician Gregory Campbell?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-else-share-my-hatred-of-ni-politician-gregory-campbell/748595/1): > > Well now he’s a politician in Northern Ireland and I have to say as many people in Ireland know that he is the biggest sectarian bigot in the whole of Ireland. Well some of the things he says about the IRA and Bloody Sunday are pretty odd about let’s not worry about what the British Army did on Bloody Sunday he wants to know about what the IRA did and he also made fun of the Irish language in Stormont in Stormont he said Curry my Yogurt and a can of coca cola Curry my Yogurt and a can of coca cola which sounds like something in Irish which means Chairperson I want and Chairperson I want to say something or something like that and he wouldn’t dare make fun of Polish or Romanian or another minority language so I was just wondering if anyone in Ireland or whatever what you think about him and if you share my hatred of him then? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-indecipherable-dopers/788470.md?page=7)