Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

While working on my website today, i had to write:

“above: This is called smotherbox↗.”
  — http://xahlee.org/sl/tor.html

and also:

“above: A maid entirely clad in rubber gear↗. The collar she's
wearing, with its unusual height, is called posture collar↗. She's
also wearing a gas mask↗ and a inflatable ball mitten↗.”
  — http://xahlee.org/sl/bdsm.html

Note the phrases “... is called smotherbox” and “... is called posture
collar”. Normally, one would write it with a article like this: “...
is called a smotherbox”. But as you can see, from a logic perspective,
the “a” doesn't belong there. The item's NAME is simply “smotherbox”,
not “a smotherbox”.

Most grammarians are dumb-a.ses when it comes to logic or mathematics.
However, they are forgivable, since vast majority of human animals are
dumb-a.ses in one way or another, actually, vast majority of human
animals are dumb-a.ses in vast majority of aspects. For example, a
mathematician, doesn't necessarily even have a basic understanding of
the world's histories, and this can be said to just about any one, of
any profession, except professional historians. (World History, as
histories from Asia to Europe to Oceania, from individual nations and
regions to continents, from the view of a decade to eras to eons, from
the specialized aspect of human progress, diversity, to specialized
subject of (history of world economics, math...))

In the above, i used the specialized knowledge in the areas of
mathematics and history, to illustrate a idea. You can now suppose
that _mathematics_ and _history_ are just two fill-in-the-blanks, and
fill it with any academic subject, and realize for a fact the vast
majority of human animals know sh.t, on the whole.

I've stated how grammarians are dumb-a.ses. But given the above, you
now understand it is really not special, because after all just about
everyone are dumb-a.ses. But, here's the catch: Those dumb-a.ses, who
refuse to accept the fact, are the true, f.cking real dumb-a.s. And is
the criminal of humanity. (criminals here is defined as those who do
society harm) (I say they are criminals here, in a serious way as the
word implies, not as some beak-tweaking. In my opinion, which
gradually formed into a thesis over the past half a decade, is that
human-animal's woes, such as the perpetual wars, stem in part from
this criminality.)

In my life of education of the educated, i have realized the task is
not easy. From the education of grammarians and writers, to the
education of mathematicians and professional computer programers.

Often, the task is not merely difficult, but easily kindles antagonism
and a power struggle, especially if the communities are predominantly
males (such as professional computer programers manifesting in various
comp.lang.* newsgroups) or if the target throng are young (i.e.
students, such as those infesting the various comp.lang.* newsgroups)

They would, find all ways to attack you verbally and calling names
(aka troll-crying), without a single word on the subject i raised.  
And they would (the young males in programing language groups) start
persecution by the means they know.  (such as starting to announce you
IP address or domain info, in part as a way to show to others that
they are IN-crowd among the computing geeks by this know-how, and in
some serious cases they HARRASS you as defined by US law. (this has
happened to me once.))

OK, i digressed a bit. What i was going to say, is that if you are the
average grammarian or writer, chances are, you probably never had even
the most basic study of mathematical logic or linguistics. Therefore,
when i say you are a fool (or when i showed you some fact pertaining
this), you should look at it and probably accept it with your tail
between your legs. You should do this because it is for your own good.

Live, and learn. For you, and for me.

PS if you were wondering about the forms “a vs an”, please your
highness see:
To An or Not to An
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/20040717_an.html

 Xah
 xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/