# What silly things can't you suspend your disbelief about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 22, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340 "2009-05-22T21:43:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/61 "2009-05-26T01:50:31Z")
No, I think the author used it herself. ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/62 "2009-05-26T01:52:18Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I was talking books with a friend, and she said that she had to put down a novel in the middle because the author used “irregardless”. Because it’s not a real word, and it’s bad grammar, and a writer should know something like that. Meanwhile, I sat there and pretended that I’d never ever made such a gross lexiconical mistake. Irregardless isn’t a real word?! ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/63 "2009-05-26T01:59:56Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I can’t get past mistakes in biology. This is my big one too. Recent plant cultivars in period movies; new world plants or animals in ancient old world settings; and why do CGI birds have no bones in their wings and are not subject to inertia? Smokers who don’t inhale. Wow, there are so many more that I can’t think of right now . . . ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/64 "2009-05-26T02:01:39Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I was talking books with a friend, and she said that she had to put down a novel in the middle because the author used “irregardless”. Because it’s not a real word, and it’s bad grammar, and a writer should know something like that. Meanwhile, I sat there and pretended that I’d never ever made such a gross lexiconical mistake. Since people actually use it, it’s a “real word”. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/65 "2009-05-26T02:03:34Z")
> [@chacoguy420](#): > > Hot shot crime inspector, with cutting edge technology, takes a picture of the crime scene, with her brand new high tech camera and you hear the\* film\* advance. :rolleyes: To be fair, most digital cameras have sound effects. It helps me know when the shot has actually been taken. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/66 "2009-05-26T02:11:11Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > “Zoom in!” > > Keyboard sfx, and no mouse pointer motion, as somehow exactly the correct area of the image is chosen, zoomed to fill the screen with unnecessary animation. > > “Enhance the image!” > > The image is instantly sharpened to an absurdly clear level; clearer than a real security camera at full scale, let alone zoomed. > > “Run his face through the magic computer face matching software mainframe CPU firewall IP USB RAM hard drive database!” > > Two words: Fuck off! This is always annoying, but in Taken, it’s taken to a whole new level: Liam Neeson finds a cell phone, and while he’s at the airport he takes the chip out of the phone and jacks it into an airport photo kiosk–and then proceeds to do the magic CIA image enhancement–obtaining a perfectly clear image from a reflection in a pair of eyeglasses or something–_at the friggin airport kiosk_. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/67 "2009-05-26T02:18:17Z")
> [@liirogue](#): > > Irregardless isn’t a real word?! It’s a remarkably stupid word, of course, as it adds a prefix to a perfectly good word and then ignores it. But it’s as real as “flammable,” which is just as stupid. No, I’ll take that back. Flammable is marginally less dumb than irregardless. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/68 "2009-05-26T02:27:02Z")
There was a scene in a very, very stupid book by Tabitha King that I read like 25 years ago, there are these people who get shrunk down to be like 3 inches tall. In this scene, this tiny person undresses–and her silk dress falls down around her fee like water or something. Uh, a piece of silk fabric, even the finest, that small, would be approximately as stiff as cardboard at that scale. The book is full of the same failure of imagination with liquids; these tiny people drink water perfectly normally, when in fact a drop of water would be a gelatinous blob almost as big as your head. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/69 "2009-05-26T02:28:10Z")
> [@liirogue](#): > > Irregardless isn’t a real word?! Neither is inflammable I guess ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/70 "2009-05-26T02:38:53Z")
> [@SaintCad](#): > > Neither is inflammable I guess _[Inflammable](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inflammable)_ is actually older than _[flammable](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flammable)_. Grammar Nazis like me often complain about the latter, as the etymology in the second link is, ah, suspect; some think it more likely that _flammable_ was born in the minds of those who (reasonably) mistook the first syllable for a negating prefix. _Irregardless_ is still stupid, though, as it’s always taken to be synonymous with _regardless_, and the negating prefix is just noise. I blame the Welsh, but then I blame them for everything. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/71 "2009-05-26T02:46:20Z")
So as not to totally hijack the thread I will say something on topic but… What’s wrong with flammable? Ok I don’t like it how disabilities in a TV show that doesn’t normally have it (Not looking at you _Numbers_ and _House_) automatically means it is poignant. Case in point: In a recent episode of _The Mentalist_, which has no disabled characters whatsoever, there was a guy in it in a wheelchair. Upon seeing this I said out loud (to myself…) “His wheelchair will have something to do with this somehow”. Later in the episode we learn the guy isn’t disabled and used it as a front. Can’t a guy be in a wheelchair (deaf, blind etc.) without it having to be ABOUT his wheelchair (deafness, blindness, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/72 "2009-05-26T02:53:52Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > So as not to totally hijack the thread I will say something on topic but… > > What’s wrong with flammable? Since I seem not to have made it clear earlier, and since I brought it up (I think), I’ll explain. _Inflammable_ is the older word and has a clear etymology from the Latin. _Flammable_ is newer, and though it’s alleged to descend from a different Latin word, many word nerds suspect and aver that it’s actually comes from people seeing the word “inflammable” and misunderstanding it; they think the _in-_ is a negator. The meaning of _inflammable_ would be clearer if, when its spelling was standardized, they had chosen to spell it **en** flammable, but that’s water under the bridge. I’m torn myself. I think the misunderstanding explanation for the origin of _flammable_ is probably correct. But I also think that _inflammable_, spelled that way, is ambiguous in a way that _flammable_ is not, and given that we don’t want 14-year-old kids thinking that ethyl alcohol is not likely to catch on fire, it’s probably better to use the dumber word. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/73 "2009-05-26T10:02:20Z")
When hypnotism is used in a movie and/or book, they usually get it wrong. I am usually all about saying: _If you wanted reality, what were you doing at a movie?_ but this is one of those rare times it annoys me. ---
**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:** [May 26, 2009, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340/74 "2009-05-26T10:39:35Z")
> [@SurrenderDorothy](#): > > 1. When people in hospital shows especially are told there’s no hope and nothing that can be done and then they’re all, “please save him! he’s my only husband!” or the adorable little daughter comes up and is adorable or whatever and suddenly it turns out that there IS a cure after all and they just didn’t cure him before because… they save all their hard work for people with adorable families? > > 2. This is just something that bugs me- when someone says something and then the scene changes and someone else reacts to it in the new scene, which would be some time later. Like someone in the lab says, “she was pregnant!” and then they cut to the detectives getting out of the car at a crime scene after, presumably, being together in the car for a while on the way there. And as they get out of the car, one of them is like, “pregnant?! she must have been so scared!” and they have the entire conversation like they must have just stopped talking entirely between the last scene and this one. #2 is easy to explain. The line was said TWICE. Once in the old location, and once in the new location. It might not have been said by the same person. In your example, perhaps right before the first cop got out, the second cop had just finished saying “The lab says she was pregnant.” Of course, the above scenario should be abundantly clear or sufficiently unimportant, otherwise I have to figure out what happened, taking me out of the narrative. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-silly-things-cant-you-suspend-your-disbelief-about/497340.md?page=3)