Comments for Confessions of a She-Geek http://taholten.wordpress.com Various observations about pop culture, the media, current events, and other stuff Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:21:41 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 Comment on Where Have All the Verbs Gone? by Alan http://taholten.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/where-have-all-the-verbs-gone/#comment-8 Alan Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:21:41 +0000 http://taholten.wordpress.com/?p=7#comment-8 I believe the habit is a throwback to the days of newspaper journalism, when headline space was short and an editor sometimes had to be very creative to come up with a succinct-yet-descriptive headline. My suspicion is that verbs are still around, they've just taken refuge as nouns. I believe the habit is a throwback to the days of newspaper journalism, when headline space was short and an editor sometimes had to be very creative to come up with a succinct-yet-descriptive headline.

My suspicion is that verbs are still around, they’ve just taken refuge as nouns.

]]> Comment on Please won’t someone think of the dandelions? by Alan http://taholten.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/please-wont-someone-think-of-the-dandelions/#comment-7 Alan Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:17:27 +0000 http://taholten.wordpress.com/?p=9#comment-7 When I lived in NJ, we told our 5-year-old to only play in grass that had dandelions. If there were dandelions, you could be assured that the lawn had not been chemically sprayed. When I lived in NJ, we told our 5-year-old to only play in grass that had dandelions. If there were dandelions, you could be assured that the lawn had not been chemically sprayed.

]]> Comment on Common Sense, Isn’t by Alan http://taholten.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/common-sense-isnt/#comment-6 Alan Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:13:44 +0000 http://taholten.wordpress.com/?p=12#comment-6 A curious example of manipulating people's automatic trust of the Internet came when I received a forward of the infamous "Barack Obama is a Muslim extremist!" e-mail. It began (and I'm paraphrasing from memory only slightly), "There's no need to look this up on Snopes because we checked and it's TRUE!" Of course, anyone who <i>did</i> look it up on Snopes would have found that practically every sentence in the e-mail contained a slanderous falsehood. But it's interesting that whoever wrote it deliberately relied on people's tendency to assume that because they were told <i>sans</i> evidence that some site on the Internet said it was true, it must be. Speaking of automatic trust of the Internet, isn't it also curious that--at least where the Internet is concerned--we have swung 180 degrees from the days when technology was automatically <i>dis</i>trusted? Think of all the cautionary tales that were written about how technology would harm us. Now the Internet has become as trusted (and misused) a source of information as television, newspapers, and libraries once were. A curious example of manipulating people’s automatic trust of the Internet came when I received a forward of the infamous “Barack Obama is a Muslim extremist!” e-mail. It began (and I’m paraphrasing from memory only slightly), “There’s no need to look this up on Snopes because we checked and it’s TRUE!” Of course, anyone who did look it up on Snopes would have found that practically every sentence in the e-mail contained a slanderous falsehood. But it’s interesting that whoever wrote it deliberately relied on people’s tendency to assume that because they were told sans evidence that some site on the Internet said it was true, it must be.

Speaking of automatic trust of the Internet, isn’t it also curious that–at least where the Internet is concerned–we have swung 180 degrees from the days when technology was automatically distrusted? Think of all the cautionary tales that were written about how technology would harm us. Now the Internet has become as trusted (and misused) a source of information as television, newspapers, and libraries once were.

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