One Danimal will most likely be all over the tenuous and poorly reasoned legalistic parts of Mr. Austin’s most patronizing and foolish letter. So, because I am a twit, I will offer up a critique of his writing. In the main, my goal will be two fold: One, demonstrate Austin’s need for a goddamn dictionary; and two, make fun of him for being a ninny.

Let’s start with his first paragraph which, to my mind, is entirely too long. The first sentence or two are typically ad hominem, but the phrase “insatiable lack of comprehension” is just too funny to pass up. From Webster:

Main Entry: in·sa·tia·ble

Pronunciation: (“)in-‘sA-sh&-b&l

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English insaciable, from Middle French, from Latin insatiabilis, from in- + satiare to satisfy — more at SATIATE

: incapable of being satisfied : QUENCHLESS

– in·sa·tia·bil·i·ty /(“)in-“sA-sh&-‘bi-l&-tE/ noun

– in·sa·tia·ble·ness /(“)in-‘sA-sh&-b&l-n&s/ noun

– in·sa·tia·bly /-blE/ adverb

Therefore, according to El Scottorino, my “lack of comprehension” is incapable of being satisfied. I guess I can see what he’s trying to accomplish here, but that construction would certainly fail my WR 122 class. Seriously, remove the “lack of” part and you’re left with “insatiable comprehension” and that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Later, in the very same sentence, Mr. CityLimits uses the phrase “erroneous error.” That is what we in the business call a ‘double negative.’ As far as I can tell, if my error is erroneous, then my statment must be correct. Or, perhaps, Scottyboi was going for redundancy, who knows? But, let’s offer up some definitions of error and erroneous just to help Scotter along in future. This time from Dictionary.com:

er·ror n. 

1. An act, assertion, or belief that unintentionally deviates from what is correct, right, or true.

2. The condition of having incorrect or false knowledge.

3. The act or an instance of deviating from an accepted code of behavior.

4. A mistake.

5. Mathematics. The difference between a computed or measured value and a true or theoretically correct value.

6. Abbr. E Baseball. A defensive fielding or throwing misplay by a player when a play normally should have resulted in an out or prevented an advance by a base runner.

er·ro·ne·ous adj.

Containing or derived from error; mistaken: erroneous conclusions.

Ahh…Scottywhottydoodah, you’ve just accused my error of being wrong, meaning that my initial statment must certainly be correct. They let this man teach? He’s not even literate. Like this next thing, that Olly already quoted, but I feel the need to edit into something coherent:

However seductive and entertaining a thought that might be for Jarrett White and those of his ilk who look back on the Confederacy as some beacon of light in a smoke-filled, poorly lit room at the seedy basement of a strip club, it bears no basis in reality or fact.

First of all, it’s a run-on. Secondly, GAH and PHE! There must be some way to turn that monstrosity into two or three grammatical constructions, but I’ve neither the patience nor the inclination. I will point out that the “or” right at the end there should probably be “nor.” Perhaps that’s my own voice seeping through, but at least mine comes from a hygenic mouth.

The last thing I’m going to deal with is Mr. Capital-of-the-state-that-performs-the-most-executions-every-year’s final assertion, it reads as follows:

All in all, this is an issue that must in the end be decided, one way or the other, and I assure you all that the first time that gay couple married in Massachusetts can compel the State of Kansas to recognize its marriage, the conflict will indeed spill into the political battlefield, and the war will be an ugly one. But I suppose we can always turn to Mr. Dreier for solace when that day arrives, now can’t we?

Let’s ignore, for the moment, that it’s obvious Scott (Mary, Queen of) doesn’t like gay people. That quote above is only two sentences. It should be four, the third comma in the first sentence should be a period. Yeah, okay, he used a conjunction to join those two clauses, but the rest of the sentence really needs to be broken up into smaller chunks. So, for the edification of Mr. Mr.-Powers-International-Man-Of-Mystery and our readers at large, I’m providing a revision:

All in all, this is an issue that must in the end be decided, one way or the other. I assure you all that the first time a gay couple married in Massachusetts can compel the State of Kansas to recognize their marriage, the conflict will indeed spill into the political battlefield. The war will be an ugly one. But I suppose we can always turn to Mr. Dreier for solace when that day arrives, can’t we?

Look, four sentences…doesn’t that look better? I also made a few minor changes, for instance, the appropriate possessive pronoun for the marriage of a gay couple is “their” not “its,” Mr. Scottorum. But, in any case, now for my most substantiative and salient point: Scott, you are a douchebag. Douchebag, douchebag, douchebag.

NOTE: Sorry for the long post, here’s a link to some naked people to make it up to you.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2004 at 12:00 by Timothy and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.