The Worst Twitter Conversation in History (This Week)?

@Bryce

Wife With A Purpose is most assuredly not a basement-dwelling male without much purpose in life beyond race baiting over the internet. Not at all.

I used to have a satirical character I would play online who was female, and it always annoyed me when people would argue that there’s no way an actual woman would be saying these things so it had to really be a man behind the character. Yes, an actual woman could say those things. That was the point behind the character. Just as there are awful, awful men, there are also awful, awful women. I’ve no doubt that Wife With A Purpose is a very real racist woman, just like the plenty of other very real racist women out there. Have you not read the Honey Badger stuff David posts here?

David Futrelle,

This is a twitter war, in which no matter which side wins, we lose, and by “we” I mean decent people.

Real authors don’t fret over punctuation or grammar. Only worthless English majors do that.

This computer science major would like to inform you you’re an idiot. Codified grammar rules reduce ambiguity and allow clarity of communication. Good authors break them intentionally for literary effect, bad authors break them unintentionally.

And of course if you’re programming getting grammar wrong means the compiler is very displeased with you. Or worse, there is exactly one possible interpretation of what you wrote and it isn’t what you meant.

@guy
Computer scientist high-five! I’m constantly arguing with my compiler to do what I meant to type rather than what I actually typed. And I even have tools like ReSharper that highlight all of my really bad grammar.

I lived a past life writing and editing copy, and I wouldn’t say I fretted over grammar (what’s to fret over?), but when writing or when editing I read it over at least 3 times and cleaned up the errors, because stream-of-consciousness style is ineloquent and often conveys meaning you didn’t intend. Not to mention that in some cases what I wrote could potentially be held against my company in court if someone was misled by it. Language and grammar are pretty important.

@ guest

He, printing that out as we speak. I am sooooooo looking forward to the pub now

Thank you.

Trevithick Day in Camborne is awesome.10,000 pissed up Cornish folk + loads of badly driven 20 ton traction engines. Difficult to see what could go wrong really.

It’s hard to pick a fave Yorkshireman, but I have a special fondess for Fred “Outer space is only half an hour’s drive if your car could go straight up” Hoyle.

Perhaps the most Yorkshire thing he did was write ‘A for Andromeda’. That was a fictionalised account of Jodrell Bank; the only fiction being placing it in Yorkshire instead of Cheshire.

I always think of 2000 as being the Turn of the Millennium. Sounds much more impressive.

Why do we have a president who speaks like a ghetto rat instead of one who uses proper English?

I’m not sure if this is more racist or confusing. Barack Obama talks basically the way I’d expect a Harvard law grad to talk.

We can boost economic growth by making women thinner and hotter. Men will worker longer and harder.

Wat. How is the attractiveness of women in any way linked to how hard men work? I’m a gay man, I’m not motivated to work any harder because muscly guys exist.

A wife getting fat is not just a violation of contract, but spousal abuse as well.

… “Asshole” is clearly too polite a word to describe this man.

Fred Hoyle, Fred Trueman, Judy Dench, Emily Brontë and JB Priestley were, in my opinion, the greatest of Yorkshirefolk. An honourable mention must also go to Alcuin, who was born in York but spent most of his life away from that land.

@ EJ

Fred Trueman, a man who presented a sports programme whilst drinking a pint and smoking. Classic.

All we need is Milo Filo Pilo, Roosh the Doosh, and Paul Elam the human enema to make this the worst twitter conversation to make it into the history books. Or not, considering how they’re so forgetful. I only remember they exist when I come to this site.

Though from what I’m reading, these two vomit bags are doing a good job stinking up the place on their own.

@guest

If it’s anything like his earlier videos, he’s only pretending to drink the scotch and the cig is fake. It’s all for show.

Well, I mean, I give a lot of talks, and I can usually manage to get through between half an hour and an hour without having to satisfy my physical needs in front of my audience. I try to remember to pee first, and have a drink before I go onstage, and I’ll usually have a drink after the talk and before the Q&A. Oh, and my colleagues always ask if I’ve eaten before they allow me to interact with strangers….

I once gave a talk in Glasgow, and just before I went onstage the prep person handed me a pint of bitter. That was fun.