Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3221 to 3225 (16 - 20 May 2016)
Skewbrow:
I somehow doubt the pun was directed at American English in particular. At least I read as a pun at English in general.
But I'm with TrillHo. The pun was an unnecessary one. There are contexts where it holds. If your language repertoire is close to mine (Finnish, English, Swedish, German), then English is the odd one out in many ways - the pronounciation of vowel combinations in particular. But, if your repertoire is, say English, French, Spanish, then my (past) complaints about the inability of English speakers to pronounce 'J' or 'Y' or umlauted vowels "my way" would ring hollow.
The explanation to the differences is probably (can't site a source, sorry) historical. Spanish and French have obvious common roots. Swedish OTOH is a Germanic language. Finnish is not, but largely copied the phoneme-to-letter(combination) mapping from German/Swedish. English, having a mixture of French, Germanic and Gaelic roots, is hit with traditions pulling in opposite directions. Also, standards of written English are old (very much so in comparison to my native Finnish), and therefore the language is lugging a ballast built up over the centuries. This (IMHO) is the main reason the US has an illiteracy problem. Your learners are battling this handicap.
Anyway, there are many languages and many conventions. The strangeness is in the ear of the listener.
Case:
--- Quote from: Zastie on 18 May 2016, 23:41 ---That's an awfully detailed speculation, do you already have sketches drawn up too to go along with it? Are you going to make that panel reality even if Jeph doesn't? Are you willing to go the distance?
(Okay yeah I need sleep..)
--- End quote ---
FWIW - That is what is referred to as "Head-can(n)on" in here, and I've seen more detailed canons, and ... much "looser cannons" than those BenRG generally puts on the upper deck. (What I was unhappy with, I've already said, and I've also said I generally enjoy Ben firing a "broadside", so YMMV)
Personally, I've found it conducive to my mental health to try and regard the speculation in here as a form of "collective emergent performance art" ... :wink:
This IS, after all, the WCDT - usually just one step removed from alt-canon (and-, if it were not for the moderation, slash-fic) - it's tempting to groan about other people's "mental mortar", while forgetting the "Howitzer weighing down on your own skull" ...
---
General ether:
That happily cited line about "projection" that Tova has in his sig - I remember when Westrim made that comment, but not the specific topic (probably a relationship arc with Marigold - they do tend to be ... "combustible").
On the other hand - This IS THE WCDT ... :-\
It certainly IS good to remember the artillery everybody is wearing in here - but it's not a nifty catch-all putdown. For starters, IDENTIFICATION with a character is NOT psychological projection.
The first MIGHT veer into the "generalization fallacy", the second is about psychological defence mechanism of the "You are always so rude"-type, thrown about by a very rude person - likely upon being called out.
The underlying (internal) conflict is that the "projector" is unable to acknowledge their (aggressive?) impulses, for whatever reason - maybe they were raised to not overtly aggress - and hence subconsciously pretends them to be the impulses of the person they are attacking - they 'project' the impulse from themselves onto the other in their internal narrative.
This is by no means simple - and it is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO OBJECTIVELY PROVE to be either PRESENT, or ABSENT. Which is probably the reason why the 'projection defence' is so widespread.
This also means that 'you're projecting' is pretty much what Oddtail said it is - At the very, very best, it can be a hint to a receptive person about a malcognition. More likely, it is an excellent "You shut up now, you!" - since it is impossible to conclusively refute.
As Oddtail pointed out, the discussion most likely is over after "you're projecting" - it's a derail, an impossible-to-refute red-herring, and an ad hominem fallacy (your argument is wrong because you are somebody who is likely to projectidentify/generalize) all rolled into one. With the option to shoot off a "Don't be so sensitive ... you're always so sensitive ..." if the victim protests.
Pretty much "Check your privilege" without the social benefits (however slim or great they might be - we have threads-worth of discussion on that one, over in Discuss)
(EDIT BELOW HERE: Spelling, clarity)
As a rational argument, it pretty much useless outside a counselling session - If one wants to refute a claim based on insufficient data, why not say "Excuse me, but this strikes me as an example of the Generalization Fallacy?" In order to discuss whether a fallacious generalization was made, there's no need to attack the other's identity, or identification - no need to even touch upon it - so why do that?
And, let's be honest here: The latter (attacking the other's identity, or identification) is at the very best, at grave risk of being an asshole move. At worst, it's an intentional asshat-move aimed at someone who has far more at stake than you do.
Not cool, IMO.
---
@Tova: Thanks for your thoughtful reply -> I'll have more on that, but the (other) points you make more than deserve a response in a separate post.
@RoXtar: Thanks for the clarification!
--- Quote from: neurocase on 17 May 2016, 23:02 ---WRT the shortening of names, one could consider me unfortunate. "Seb" is really the only way to shorten Sebastian, so I definitely don't have any options!
--- End quote ---
"Basti" is pretty common in Germany.
Eastrim:
--- Quote from: Skewbrow on 19 May 2016, 11:47 ---I somehow doubt the pun was directed at American English in particular. At least I read as a pun at English in general.
But I'm with TrillHo. The pun was an unnecessary one. There are contexts where it holds. If your language repertoire is close to mine (Finnish, English, Swedish, German), then English is the odd one out in many ways - the pronounciation of vowel combinations in particular. But, if your repertoire is, say English, French, Spanish, then my (past) complaints about the inability of English speakers to pronounce 'J' or 'Y' or umlauted vowels "my way" would ring hollow.
The explanation to the differences is probably (can't site a source, sorry) historical. Spanish and French have obvious common roots. Swedish OTOH is a Germanic language. Finnish is not, but largely copied the phoneme-to-letter(combination) mapping from German/Swedish. English, having a mixture of French, Germanic and Gaelic roots, is hit with traditions pulling in opposite directions. Also, standards of written English are old (very much so in comparison to my native Finnish), and therefore the language is lugging a ballast built up over the centuries. This (IMHO) is the main reason the US has an illiteracy problem. Your learners are battling this handicap.
Anyway, there are many languages and many conventions. The strangeness is in the ear of the listener.
--- End quote ---
You're right, it was English in general. The point still stands that the joke was that English 'A's aren't outliers - here are some completely unrelated languages that are just as 'strange'! Puns don't have necessity- that is completely aside from the point of a pun.
--- Quote from: Case on 19 May 2016, 12:07 ---General ether:
That happily cited line about "projection" that Tova has in his sig - I remember when Westrim made that comment, but not the specific topic (probably a relationship arc with Marigold - they do tend to be ... "combustible").
As Oddtail pointed out, the discussion most likely is over after "you're projecting" - it's a derail, an impossible-to-refute red-herring, and an ad hominem fallacy (you are wrong because you are somebody who is likely to projectidentify/generalize) all rolled into one. With the option to shoot off a "Don't be so sensitive ... you're always so sensitive ..." if the victim protests.
--- End quote ---
I do too. Still have it bookmarked; it's from here. It's from when Angus was considering the New York job and lots of people were projecting their relationship difficulties or future planning on to the situation.
Projection is one of the words that has shifted in meaning, something else discussed in this thread. Yes, it used to refer only to people who were recognizing aggression in others but not in themselves. It's morphed over time; as used here (and in that years ago quote) it is taking ones own recognized traits and seizing on commonalities with the recognized traits of others without considering differences, alternatives, or insufficient information. In that sense, noting projection is a call for objective analysis and consideration of alternatives.
It's like seeing a woman who is depressed and with an infant in public and going "OMG, I had post partum depression too! Don't worry honey, you'll get through it!" Perhaps that's true (certainly it's butting in to someone's private business). Perhaps she looks at you in confusion, "this is my niece. My boyfriend just broke up with me and my sister is on a date night with her husband."
Is it cold in here?:
Welcome, new people!
oddtail:
@Eastrim: I still think a "you're projecting" is not very useful in a discussion. Even if it's true, it doesn't necessarily invalidate the arguments made. And there *were* arguments made for Brun being autistic other than "she behaves just like me".
@Random832: counting the same vowel sound spelt differently as more than one vowel is somewhat problematic. The word "vowel" is ambiguous - it either refers to particular sounds (to oversimplify: sounds that are included in each syllable and make it a syllable), or to letters that conventionally represent vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u, and optionally y, plus the variants of those with diacritics). Combining the two is a category error. I was taught in college that generally, when talking about sounds in languages, especially in the context of phonetics/phonology, spelling is completely irrelevant and should be ignored (because spelling is an artificial constraint/convention that does not necessarily reflect the structure of the natural spoken language - English being an excellent example actually - while phonetics and phonology can be analysed in a somewhat objective and scientific manner).
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