Dudes, seriously? If you’re this bad at spelling, run your damn memes by someone you know who can spell before posting them for all of the Internet to see.
Dudes: The word is spelled “therefore.” With an “e” at the end. Also, center your text properly! In addition, I would suggest that you 1) lay off the rape jokes and 2) try to make even a little bit of sense.
Dudes: it’s “than,” not “then.” They are different words, with different meanings, and you used the wrong one.
Also, that first sentence is a mess. Change “or have internalized misogyny” to “nor do they have internalized misogyny.”
Once again, a feminist has to do the work that MRAs should be doing themselves. At least this time they spelled “misogyny” correctly.
As for you, dear readers: Feel free to discuss the arguments (or the spelling) of any of these memes. But you can use this as an open thread, too.
dust bunny –
I’m actually a big fan of Helen Fisher’s work in applying biology to anthropology and gender. Don’t get me wrong, she’s problematic as hell and very much researching to create profitable “Mars/Venus” models of love and gender, intensely prone to cishetero binary reductionism in how she interprets her own data.
But she’s smart, and the actual data and models she presents show a very different, very gender fluid picture of humanity before she paints her reductive narratives atop them. What she says about testosterone vs. estrogen brain systems was marvelously helpful to me in getting my own identity sorted out and in learning to understand just where our societal concepts of femininity and masculinity get it right and wrong as far as the biology.
@kupo
To be fair to the annoying lump of banhammer fodder, Arash is ESL. Iranian, if I remember correctly.
@ Leda
The Muslim/Moslem thing is interesting. Technically both versions are correct. There’s no agreed standard for transliteration from Arabic to English, so the ‘O’ versus ‘U’ thing crops up a lot. One example is CIA using Usama bin Laden and the Brits using Osama.
But the ‘O’ variant does seem to be beloved of islamophobes for some reason. It reminds me of how bigots in the 70s would say they were not ‘racialist’. They would not use the word ‘racist’, but it was a pretty clear red flag. (Of course racialist and racist have different meanings so they were even wronger)
@Guy
I’m also a computer scientist. Human grammar and computer grammar are very different. Prescriptive grammar is more like saying all programmers must use one specific coding standard (for example, starting curly braces on the same line rather than on a new line) and anyone who follows different rules is wrong.
Language has grammar, and people using a local dialect’s grammar are still following a set of rules. Sometimes people push the boundaries of those rules (this is where the analogy breaks down because computer language grammar can’t be bent in this way), and it’s because we push those boundaries that language is able to grow and adapt to our ever-changing environment. The problem comes in when you try to say that “y’all” or “ain’t no” or “bae” are wrong. They’re not wrong. They fit into the rules of a grammar that’s different from the one you prefer, but that doesn’t make them wrong.
That actually isn’t an error, it’s a dog whistle. Muslim is an Arabic word, and as such was originally written in Arabic rather than the Latin alphabet. Languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet can be written in it by a process called romanization, where characters are converted to analogous letters or combinations in the Latin alphabet. The decision of what corresponds to what is somewhat arbitrary, and Japanese actually has multiple methods officially approved by the Japanese government*.
Moslem is actually an alternate romanization of Muslim. I don’t know the full backstory and there’s various rumors of questionable veracity about why, but Moslem was historically standard and at some point Muslim became considered more accurate, so people who still use it are generally being wrong on purpose and calling back to old attitudes. There’s also the Qur’an/Koran; I think Qur’an is preferred but I’ve seen both used by non-Islamophobes.
*one converts a given kana to the same romanji in all cases, the other focuses on sound rather than writing; sensei uses the first and the other would give it as sensee. There’s also some other schemes used by foreigners for entirely valid reasons regarding how they natively write long vowels or because romanizing a name to You got stupidly confusing.
@Leda Atomica: Thanks, I really appreciate the reply.
Sin is such a stupid concept, especially if you subscribe to the idea of an omniscient and all-powerful creator. If they made me like this, why would they decide that ‘Oh, right, those things you like? SIN. Sucker.’ and not do the same to other people? Why do some people play on a harder mode, involuntarily? (She says as a self-aware cis white lady who gets lots of other privileges.)
I think the worst part is that she doesn’t even realise that it is stressing me out, because I just carry on as normal. Right now we’re finding places on whatsapp for her stay, and talking about where we’re going to go.
I also wanted to talk to her when I was alone in my house, because I don’t want to cry in front of my room mates. Not that they wouldn’t be totally supportive! It’s more of the whole ‘this is intensely personal to me’ kind of thing.
I’ve got the house for another twenty minutes. I think I’m going to go and put some beers in the fridge and play dragon age: origins. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?
@Alan
I did not know this! I admit it’s a little bit ignorant of me to think “moslem” is incorrect then, but I thought “muslim” was a commonly agreed correct spelling of it in English.
But still, why insist on “moslems” or even sometimes “muslins” (that damned cloth!)? I just always took it as a sign of misspelling because mostly other parts of the arguments are usually woven of some randomly spelled words.
The racialist thing is interesting too. Whenever I’d go to England to see my friends, they seemed to use “racialist” to mock people with hidden racist values.
@kupo
yes language is fluid, but standardization is a matter of usefulness: if there is no standard then language falls apart and if standards are unchanging that language gradually dies.
my objection is to individual “errors”, their forms are rare and not some alternative grammar used by an underprivileged group.
so if there was no temporary agreement on what is right grammar then you wouldn’t say my grammar is terrible.
i’m just mocking their spelling, because there are so many tools available for spell checking but i’m not aware of any tools to check grammar so actually my grammar mistakes are way more justified than their spelling.
+english isn’t my first language, i’m more than happy if anybody corrects my errors 🙂
@Leda
Same reason why we hear “The Democrat Party” from Republicans, “Females” from MRAs and misgenderings from transphobes. They don’t think their SWORN ENEMY!!! deserves even that tiny ounce of respect.
@Rhuu
I hope you’ll make the best of it and that it won’t tax you too much! (There’s always hoping, right?)
And if it’s of any comfort it’s 20 minutes to 9pm in Finland. 😉 Cheers!
One of my favourite questions. Answer? An omnicient being would NOT create this rule.
You play ’em and beer ’em.
@SFHC
You said it!
Imaginary Petal,
I’d be happy to help but I haven’t done it yet because I just woke up and am a bit groggy from the painkillers. Would you mind reposting the link sometime tomorrow just in case I or anyone is well meaning but forgets?
Ellesar,
George W Bush actually does have dyslexia, or maybe it’s not confirmed but just speculated. But as far as I know, that doesn’t have an effect on the ability to speak articulately. Considering the amount of privilege he has and the excellent education he had just handed to him, I’m guessing a lot of his issues with speaking well are a put on. He tries to sound an everyman Texan rather than a privileged prep school boy. People who wanted to buy it, did.
Arash,
Nobody cares about your obsession with the regressive left except Orange Tango Drinker. You should track him down on the YouTube comments sections of the videos he likes and talk about it with him there, because nobody here is interested. Stop trying to make fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.
Thread,
I kind of go back and forth on much of a fair target spelling is. It can absolutely be classist and ableist to make fun of the way somebody writes. On the other hand, incoherence seems to be a feature of the manosphere, not a bug. They can’t all have disabilities or come from impoverished backgrounds where nobody taught them how to write properly. Especially given the tendency of MRAs to be libertarians. Libertarians tend to be a very privileged group. I also think that if you’ve taken the time to sign your silly meme like it’s a great work of art, you should take the time to spell check a little. So I think in this case it’s okay to mock the spelling, but I’m judging the mockery of writing on a case by case basis.
@arash: You’re not using any capitalisation, which is not gramatically correct. Sentences start with a Capital letter.
If someone was worried about their grammar (and if I’m making something that will be seen by people, I typically am), you can use Microsoft Word’s grammar checker.
There are also add-ons for grammar checking, in firefox and chrome. I don’t know which browser you use, but I’m sure if there are add-ons/extensions, they’ll have grammar ones.
Perhaps they aren’t aware of add-ons that check spelling?
You saying “X is harder for me than Y is, so they should be doing Y right and it doesn’t matter that I’m not so good at X” is problematic. Anything can be justified like this, some people are better at some things than others. Some people have to just try harder to achieve what others see as a basic level of competency.
Having read this discussion, I still feel okay rolling my eyes at these types of spelling mistakes, petty as it is. The content is awful, and I’m judging the content someone put out there, and not the person. *proceeds to totally judge the person whoops* I guess I just mean that I’m likely to have already written this MRA off, since they are usually saying such terrible things?
I will try to be more accepting with spelling and grammar errors in posts online, however. You never know what their situation is, and I need to remember that.
@Leda: YES! I will totally take that as permission, haha.
@Kupo
Maybe it’s just that there’s this regular poster on another blog I read who uses that line of argument while actively being a jerk about it. No spaces after periods, it’s really annoying and I have never encountered anyone else who does it on purpose.
It is kind of like coding standards, but a given company usually uses fixed coding standards for a reason. None of them are objectively wrong, but using different ones creates confusion. I don’t mind people using grammatical patterns different from the ones I use, I mind people rejecting the concept of following grammar patterns in general, which is how I have encountered the argument in the past. I’d also object if someone used a grammar so different I can’t understand the meaning on a forum where it isn’t standard, but I’ve never seen that be an actual problem in English.
@Rhuu
Spellcheck is integrated into Firefox, Chrome, and Microsoft’s new browser. Grammar checking isn’t and also tends to be a bit imprecise. I might use Word for checking long-form posts but it tends to have trouble with HTML formatting.
@weirwoodtreehugger
and why are you so obsessed with me?! only you and SFHC have been displeased evidently and want to remain ignorant and try to silence me.
anyway it’s the second thread that i’ve ever mentioned regressive left, heaven knows how you define an obsession!
@Rhuu
Somebody uses internet regularly but doesn’t know even search engines can spell check?! i can’t believe it, sorry.
I’m not criticizing people randomly, my argument is that it’s impossible for a specific group of people (MRAs) to have so many tools at their disposal yet be “unable” to use them.
*MRAs are exclusively regular internet users, even their so called movement is mostly an online community.
Another displeased here. Also, expressing opinions other than yours does not equal silencing. Silencing is a real social issue among oppressed groups and I wish you wouldn’t use that term so freely.
And even if it was just certain individuals voicing their thoughts against what you wrote, it doesn’t make their opinions less valid.
Not true.
Apparently, remembering that someone was a troll in another thread constitutes an obsession now?
As this blog has a relatively small number of commenters, it’s really not that hard to remember when someone was a tedious asshole in the past.
Unless Arash was making a Mean Girls reference back at me? Not sure here.
It’s not just them, you’re the one insisting on remaining ignorant, and you’re the one trying to inject your talking points into threads that have nothing to do with them in order to shout over others.
Grammar is more difficult to check with a program. Spelling, however, is easily checked with a program. Those who know they have a problem, and who want their (short) meme to be taken seriously, really should use spellcheck, unless it’s a “cheezburger” sort of meme. In that case, though, it really works best if one follows the unwritten rules of people’s ideas of “cat grammar”.
It’s not that difficult to take less than a minute to spellcheck something you hope will change hearts and minds, is it? However, people who like to rant don’t usually seem to care enough to do so; this may be because they feel superior enough to others that they don’t care what others think.
Speaking of large pills, we did a study where people had to swallow an actual camera. No lie. Apparently it’s a fairly easy way to get a good view of the upper colon. It was an incredibly tiny camera, but OMG it looked huge to me to be something to swallow. Plus, it was flushable afterwards (thank goodness, because I did not want to have to collect the thing); it transmitted its thousands of pictures to a capture device. Technology is amazing.
@WWTH
Ugh, wisdom teeth. I’ve had 3 removed in separate operations, and will undoubtedly need the 4th done too, but insurance won’t cover it until it’s abcessed or the like.
@Rhuu
*hugs* if desired. My sympathies.
@Chiomara
Glad to hear things are going a bit better for you. Sorry to hear about the nightmares.
@Imaginary Petal
I took the survey, but was not offered a chance to do the tasks; it just took me to a ‘thank you for participating’.
@Dust Bunny
Because after a (fairly low) threshold, lack of universally consistent* spelling seriously impedes communication. Grammar is another matter; it’s really much easier to parse grammars that are variant from your default (IME, anyway).
*Consistent rather than correct, as while I have quite strong opinions as to which spellings ought to be used, it’s not important that those specific spellings be used as that everyone uses the same ones.
@Leda Atomica
“nobody cares” or “shut up” or repeated accusation of being a troll or MRA are brand new forms of rational argument and not methods of Silencing?!
I wished there was more meaningful communication but they’ve made their choices.
I’m quite familiar with methods of silencing and i’m experiencing it on regular basis being a minority in a muslim society, and because of this experience i’m nearly immune to such tactics but no i’m not using it so freely.
Almost exclusively, ok?
Just because people don’t directly talk to you, doesn’t mean they are not displeased. They may just be avoiding the endless, boring, long worded discussions.
Baby, I wanna know!
Lying that you’re sexing me
When everybody knows
It’s clear that you’re upset with me
Oh, oh, oh.
Sorry, got carried out.
@Dalli
Thanks for the sympathy, hun. You’re the bestest.
(come at me, Mariash :p – just being silly to lighten up the thread.)