Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I'm extremely good at saying things in such a way as to cause people to make an incorrect inference.
A silly example of how this can be done: Everybody says "I could care less", when what they mean is "I couldn't care less". So I may say, "I could care less", which would be the truth if I actually care, but most people would infer that I said, "I couldn't care less". So I've said the truth, knowing full well people are going to interpret it exactly the opposite of what I actually said.
That, sir, is artistry in wording!
What people ignore today is that words have meanings, and those meanings are quite often exact. All too much communication in fora and email (not to mention purely social media) borders on the incoherent.
A digression: although it may cause you and others who grasp the English language some upset, I present here - VERBATIM - the first two sentences of a paper turned in last Sunday by a graduate student in my online course dealing with technology's impacts on society:
"Technology is the development alone with the use of advanced technology equipment that can create a growing considerate into the impending future. Since technology has a pretentious managing and with leadership in more ways than in the past decades."
Read it again and marvel at the multiple failures in those sentences. Honest, this is EXACTLY as it was submitted. How this student passed through a Bachelor's program is mystifying to me, and now she is inflicted upon my graduate course (for the second time, as she failed the course the first time...for reasons which may be observed in the writing sample.)
My job is to tell her the truth and offer corrective ideas without being punitive, which would be wrong and which would create problems. I returned the paper and asked her to re-write it, and I provided counsel on how to structure the writing process so that she has a shot at being coherent in her writing. I doubt she will take my advice, but I like to be optimistic about such things.
Holy cow that sentence was awful! They must have had a sale on big words and she wanted to use them all, without actually saying anything.
I learned something decades ago about brevity taking a lot of work. A few years ago I was exposed to a personal correspondence in the 19th century between two famous people. At the end of a letter, it ended with this: I apologize for the length of this letter, but did not have the time necessary to be brief." Or something like that.
In my emails at work, I've noticed that after I've composed them and have time, I can often cut their length in half, and still make the point. And let's be frank, the less there is to read, the more likely people are to read and comprehend it.
Then, of course, there's always the possibility that the modern student has hired the job (of writing the paper that they are supposed to be writing) out to somewhere overseas with a bad translator. I've wasted some time on a "contract work connection" site trying to augment my income with legitimate work, but not trying very hard - it's appalling how many of the "work requests" are homework assignments (usually not even thinly veiled, at least to experienced eyes.) Those folks are going to be up the creek of things that do not smell good and no paddle in sight...
Fortunately I'm not desperate enough to be the fool to help them.
But yes, I find it horribly jarring when folks refer to the neck "heal" or silicon when they mean silicone, for two of the more common ones I see here.
I can't actually find a website from which that has been cut and pasted verbatim, so at least it's not obvious plagiarism of exceedingly low quality source material.
Fortunately I'm not desperate enough to be the fool to help them.
But yes, I find it horribly jarring when folks refer to the neck "heal" or silicon when they mean silicone, for two of the more common ones I see here.
I can't actually find a website from which that has been cut and pasted verbatim, so at least it's not obvious plagiarism of exceedingly low quality source material.
Last edited:
...
...
A few years ago I was exposed to a personal correspondence in the 19th century between two famous people. At the end of a letter, it ended with this: I apologize for the length of this letter, but did not have the time necessary to be brief." Or something like that.
...
I thought that was attributed to Churchill in a letter to Roosevelt during WWII...
"I could care less" is the sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less."
Just like kids say they are "so over" something they are obviously not over at all.
It's irony.
My observation is that when people say "I could care less", what they actually mean is, "I couldn't care less", as in, "I care so little about that that I could not care any less." But what they say is "I could care less?" I"ve actually asked people, "Really? How much less could you care?"
My observation is that when people say "I could care less", what they actually mean is, "I couldn't care less", as in, "I care so little about that that I could not care any less." But what they say is "I could care less?" I"ve actually asked people, "Really? How much less could you care?"
The original usage was the phrase, "no one could care less than I." The current usage is an Idiom.
Tell the bandleader that he can’t run a band, he can’t sing, he drinks and smokes weed from the time he wakes until the time he sleeps, he’s an incompetent, passive aggressive, selfish, insecure piece of turd that I wasted every minute of me time I spent in his general vicinity.
....well, It’s the truth.
....well, It’s the truth.
Kinda like, "The proof is in the pudding" coming from "The proof of the pudding is in the tasting."
