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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
...irregardless
Google "carbon cycle".
This word carbon, as in "carbon neutral", is not a buzzword. There's a reason we talk about "carbon" in general instead of specifically discussing "carbon dioxide".
When we say "carbon" we don't accidentally refer to elemental carbon in the form of graphite, we mean carbon in all its forms.
Understanding the storage of carbon in all its forms and in all its reservoirs, and understanding the fluxes between these reservoirs, is essential to knowing how the earth (solid earth, oceans, and atmosphere) will respond to disruptions in the carbon cycle, such as the big one we've caused by removing large quantities of carbon from the planet's crust and adding it to the atmosphere as CO2.
Cary, if you've been waiting for the letter that would provide a perfect vehicle for your long-simmering Gawker retort--which is clearly the only reason you chose to respond to this asinine letter--you could have done substantially better. That was, frankly, lame. And now you've had your go, and Choire will embrace it.
"the song was about a guy getting out of prison after all and not a war hero."
Coffee through my nose funny!!
I've long thought of myself as having "low social cohesion factor," evidenced by my desire to run the other way when seeing a mob on the march. I liken social cohesion factor to the attractive Van Der Wahl forces that holds water molecules tightly together, causing surface tension. In my metaphor, surface tension is the resistance you run into when trying to use simple reason to refute widely held foolishness.
Your points helped to clarify my own little theory. It's hard for most people to deal with thoughts that run contrary to the crowd.
OTOH, isn't using "synecdoche" as a verb itself a metonymy? Or is it just a misuse? :)
Excellent post, your work is another good reason to subscribe.
It's a Civil War song
Around her neck
she wore a yellow ribbon
she wore it in the springtime
in the month of May
and if you ask her
why she wore the ribbon
she wore it for her lover
who was far, far away
LW, thank you so much for giving all of us grammar/usage fanatics a chance to vent. It is such a rare opportunity to be able to indulge, even though it probably falls on deaf ears (my favorite is "hopefully").
I was giving my teenage daughter a hard time about using a wrong word, and brought out the saying, "If you can't say what you mean, how can you mean what you say?" She just rolled her eyes & said, "Whatever." ;-)
Brouhaha isn't hyphenated.
Now everyone has come out with their pet peeves, so here's mine: I owe you a debt of gratitude.
Doesn't "debt" mean that something is owed? So owing a debt is redundant. It sounds like you are owing to owe someone, i.e. putting it off. You need to thank them, but it's like you're too busy, you're going to get around to thanking them someday but not right now. Then, at some point in the future you will acknowledge your actual debt, not just "owe" them the debt. Sometime after that, I suppose you will be able to thank them.
Just say thank you! Say it right now!
Isn't what makes something "organic" is presence of carbon?
I'm just saying. I move that until we clarify whether to call things "carbon neutral" or "carbon dioxide neutral" that we put off all efforts to actually combat climate change. Let's be sure to focus on what is key, i.e. semantics.
After all, why reduce an issue to something simple that the hoi polloi can understand. Be precise! Don't take the advice of C students even if it is potentially right (and even if perhaps it occurred when 80% of Harvard Grads did not graduate with honors).
I like how Cary picks up on the mob culture, when many brains become one that is smaller and radically less edu-ma-cated. The quantity over quality that seems to direct groups. Moo, baaa!
I agree with and was about to post something similar to In the Woods who said:
"Frankly, these days, I'm just happy when someone speaks in a complete sentence with correct grammar. It's especially nice when words are pronounced correctly, too. And when someone uses a word I rarely hear outloud, like "hegemony," I think I could be in love."
Recently a co-worker used lachrymose while talking about wine. He slipped it in there in such a clever and humorous way that I did feel love! I expect very little from people I am just chatting with, at least when it comes to language.
LW, there are words used more often than carbon that need to be changed: nigger/nigga ( or any other racial, negatively charged words, a long list ), hella ( find some new way to express 'very' ), like ( when used more than once in a sentence ).
I'll be thinking of you as I go through my day, noticing all the incorrect grammar and misuse of language. Maybe I can even learn something! Icky thump!
Bless you, my chile! You have born witness to the acceptability of dye-sect and this is the same as vye-brato, both of which my third wife used to beat me down as a simple-minded lowbrow hick, when, in fact, those pronunciations do appear at least in the American Standard (and energetic you have apparently looked further, or farther, even). I will admit, however, that Eye-talian is probably not exactly correct, but two outa three ain't bad.
Marry me!
What is ironic, is the letter writer appears to get so angry at what someone calls "carbon neutral" vs "carbon dioxide neutral". If one does any research (even with good ol' Wikipedia) one can get a better ideaof why carbon was chosen and not carbon dioxide. Which is disappointing that Cary chose not to do any research on the terminology and encouraged the ignorance by letting the LW just assume everyone else was being ignorant (and therefore being guilty of what the LW is complaining about!). The combustion of non-renewable energy sources like oil and coal increase carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, which contain various mixtures of hydrocarbons, even gasoline is a mixutre of various molecules containing different numbers of carbon atoms, which use of these causes increase in an individuals carbon footprint, and carbon neutrality is a method devised to find a means to offset this usage, or not using carbon energy sources to begin with. To refer to it as carbon dioxide only would dismiss all the other components of the carbon cycle! And imagine how long every article would be if you started listing every carbon containing compound involved in the creation of carbon dioxide by name.
Only one "Editor's Choice" letter even points out that other compounds other than carbon dioxide!
Now if the LW had written to complain about how people think they are carbon neutral (when this is virtually impossible... I think Al Gore is full of himself when he says he is carbon neutral). It is admirable to try to be so, but I believe the majority who think they are carbon neutral probably aren't even close.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
