What they say and what they mean
A little guide by me into what some people (on the internet and elsewhere) say and what they actually mean.
"So let me get this right" - Let me deliberately get this wrong, reducing all arguments to absurd oversimplification.
"Just saying" - I'm not 'just saying'; but if you take offence at this barbed comment, I will act all surprised and horrified. I am, after all, just saying!
"No offence" - I mean quite a considerable amount of offence.
"I'm not racist..." - I am racist.
"Don't take this the wrong way" - as anything other than an insult.
"But will you also condemn XX atrocity by YY?" - look, the brown bastards are WORSE than whitey.
"You wouldn't be as keen to criticise Muslims, would you?" - look, the brown bastards are WORSE than whitey.
"Funny you didn't mention incident ZZ which also happened recently..." - look, the brown bastards are WORSE than whitey.
"A deafening silence from you on that one" - because you fail to mention something irrelevant and obscure, this means you are a hypocrite.
"I thought you were meant to be a liberal" - I hate liberals, but if liberals don't react in a way in which I assume liberals, whom I hate, should react, I can say they're hypocrites.
"So much for freedom of speech!" - Since you refused to print my pointless inflammatory racist comment, you are the bad guy.
"Of course, you can't say it nowadays" - because some people think racism is a bad thing, or something, it's become disgracefully socially unacceptable to just go around being a racist.
"At last, someone brave enough to tell the truth" - at last, a bigot saying something bigoted in public.
"If you took off your PC rose-tinted glasses for a minute" - and popped on my jaundice-tinted bigoted ones, you'd see things as I do.
"Nice post, but what about XXX?" - what about something entirely unrelated, which I can try and engage you with in abysmal circular discussion for about 55 years?
"This post is biased" - and so am I, but my bias is the nice, allowed kind, while yours is the evil, bad sort.
"This blog post isn't objective" - unlike my trolling comment underneath, obviously; and yes, I have wilfully misunderstood the idea of a lot of blog posts.
Feel free to add your own examples below.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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December 13th, 2010 - 10:28
“Well, my name is Candice, i’m 19, blonde, blue eyes and a hot little body”
really means
“Well, my name is Gerald, i’m 48, bald, one glass eye and i’ll be needing your credit card details if you don’t mind ever so…”
December 13th, 2010 - 10:32
“I’m entitled to my opinion” – how dare you try and repress my bigoted, racist views.
“Whatever” – it is not even worth arguing with me, for I am far too stupid to realise how stupid I am.
December 13th, 2010 - 10:34
How can you say that………damn wish Id said it first.
December 13th, 2010 - 10:34
“I think you’ve missed the point” I then introduce something irrelevant that I think is more important (and probably racist)
December 13th, 2010 - 10:59
Teresa Nielsen Hayden once made a similar list at Making Light – and I wince, because I know I’ve been exactly that sort of arsewit on more than one occasion.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009897.html
December 13th, 2010 - 11:02
“so what you’re saying is…” – this is nothing like what you just said, but it’s much easier for me to counter an imagenary argument than attempt to say anything about the real one.
December 13th, 2010 - 11:16
By the way,I hope you are all downloading Liar Liar by Captain Ska!
http://www.tescoentertainment.com/store/mp3/captain-ska–liar-liar/2%3a48247063/
December 13th, 2010 - 11:26
“But you never mention that we did….” Our one small good deed more than makes up for our many big evil deeds.
December 13th, 2010 - 11:28
“Your talk is crass” – Our talk about hanging, flogging, jailing, national service, cat o’ nine tails, turning hose pipes on them, jailing and sterilisation of parents for not knowing where their children are, and vigilate mobs is sensible.
December 13th, 2010 - 11:29
“With respect . . . ” I’m about to leave you in no doubt as to how stupid I think you are
“Health and safety gone mad” I’m going to conflate health and safety with an example of a school not being able to afford the insurance premium payment for an event because of ambulance-chasing legal firms duping parents into being over-litigious
“What about *my* human rights?” I want the right to be racist, sexist, homophobic and disablist.
December 14th, 2010 - 15:45
LIKE!
December 13th, 2010 - 11:38
We need a deficit special:
“magic money tree” – I don’t understand economics.
“we’ve no money left” – I don’t understand economics, or irony.
“Britain is bankrupt” – I like seeing other people suffer, and feeling all noble and brave while I do so.
“Labour’s profligate waste” – I didn’t get that job cleaning toilets in the council run leisure centre like I wanted.
“feather-bedded” – paid less by the taxpayer than bankers.
“gold-plated” – based on employee and employer contributions.
“public sector” – evil, wasteful, publicly accountable trolls who work for the benefit of others and used to have fair terms of employment.
“private sector” – lovely happy bunch of people who exploit low-paid, low-skill workers and are answerable to no-one but themselves.
December 14th, 2010 - 06:45
““public sector” – evil, wasteful, publicly accountable trolls who work for the benefit of others and used to have fair terms of employment.”
You beat me to it! I was going to put that!
December 14th, 2010 - 15:46
Ha Ha!
December 13th, 2010 - 12:36
Brilliant post.
“Open your mind” – Adopt my viewpoint unquestioningly, even though I have absolutely no arguments to back up my claims
“Hitler was a liberal” – I have never heard of Godwin’s Law
December 13th, 2010 - 13:34
I can never read the words “open your mind” without adding “Quaid” at the end.
December 13th, 2010 - 12:38
Fantastic post! My face are those comments that point out a minor error in your blog (like a typo) and take that as evidence of their moral and intellectual superiority. I can spell better than you, thus my right-wing paranoia is justified. Where does that one come on the list of liguistic fallacies, I wonder?
December 13th, 2010 - 12:54
Don’t forget…
WAHH THEY WOULDN’T DARE SAY THAT ABOUT ISLAM AND MUSLIMS!!!
December 13th, 2010 - 13:38
This site may be of interest:
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
December 13th, 2010 - 13:47
“Wake up, sheeple!” – I am too stupid to realise that my half-thought-out prejudices have also largely been handed down from other people. I am certainly too stupid to realise they were largely handed down from idiots.
December 13th, 2010 - 13:50
“The EU is planning to…” or “The EU has banned…” – “The EU” is planning/has banned no such thing. (This is true in 99.99% of cases, in my experience.)
“The European Union” – actually just one small part of the EU, be it an institution, an agency, a directorate general, an individual commissioner, an individual MEP, a lobbying organisation, or something vaguely “European” like the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe, or an individual politician from an EU member state, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the EU beyond being based on the same continent
December 13th, 2010 - 13:55
“Class war” – attemp to defend the poor or weak against class war.
December 13th, 2010 - 14:04
“You’re not listening to me!” – You’re not agreeing with me, and I think that’s unfair for some reason.
December 13th, 2010 - 14:15
“this post will get moderated” – I am about to say something racist.
“if I’m right” – I am right and there is no alternative
“it seems to me that” – this is what is going on, usually followed by a useless anecdote to prove it
“as has been noted before” – it sounds like I am referencing a wide body of published literature, but I am actually referencing myself, for the third time
“maybe I’m being a bit harsh” – racist comment imminent
“think about it” – agree with me
December 13th, 2010 - 14:18
“Don’t bother submitting a negative view on this subject as it will be removed. Democracy in action, eh?” – My incitement to murder was deleted.
December 13th, 2010 - 14:36
“I’m the victim here!” – Victim only of my own blinkered bigotry and the mistaken belief that saying these words guarantees that people will now see me as the underdog rather than the aggressor
“I can’t help you there!” – I don’t want to help you there. Suffer.
One guy I used to know kept getting into trouble with women, because he had no idea that his catchphrases – “Don’t get hysterical, woman!” “Calm down, dear!” “Take a chill pill!” “Are you on the rag?” and “Who died and left you a penis?” could possibly be considered inflammatory in any way. They worked in the sitcoms he watched, and everybody laughed, so why didn’t they have the same effect IRL?
December 13th, 2010 - 14:38
“I call Godwin” – I don’t actually know what Godwin’s law suggests.
December 13th, 2010 - 14:53
“This is an outrage! I refuse to pay my council tax/licence fee while it funds this filth/PC nonsense” – I’ll continue to pay my council tax/licence fee, for fear of a brush with the law which would see my arse kicked out of the Golf Club before you could say “Metric Martyr”
“They should be out catching the real criminals*” – I’m under the impression that murder cases would be solved a lot quicker if traffic police were removed from their duties of stopping me from doing 40mph past the school, and instead turned their hands to highly complex forensic investigations.
*”Real Criminals” – Anyone who breaks the law, with the exception of;
- Speeding (provided the perpetrator is a nice middle-class ‘family’ type, and not a ‘youth’)
- Shoplifting (provided it’s a pensioner forced to steal food to survive the evil McBroon’s raid on her pension)
- Hate crime (Because if the so-called ‘victims’ are going to complain about having pigs’ heads left in their doorways, they’d do well to jolly well remember whose country this is, and anyway it’s their own fault for forcing Winterval on us every year and banning us from saying ‘Black Coffee’, froth froth etc)
- Parking Offences (Provided the offending vehicle is Ford Mondeo or better)
- Drink-driving (See Speeding)
December 13th, 2010 - 15:01
“We aren’t even allowed to display our flag anymore in case it offends someone!” – No-one has ever actually tried to stop me flying a flag but I feel aggrieved anyway because, you know, other people and stuff.
December 13th, 2010 - 15:04
“I don’t care/don’t know who that is/have no interest” – I probably do care/know who that is/at least have an interest enough to be reading this, but I’d like to make it publically known that I don’t care so that you all know how superior I am.
December 13th, 2010 - 15:56
http://rhodri.biz/they-just-dont-get-it/
December 13th, 2010 - 17:29
“End of” – My argument is rather weak so I would prefer that you just accept it uncritically.
December 13th, 2010 - 17:54
‘You’re not allowed to express an opinion which differs from the Accepted View on here’ – ‘I have just posted something utterly fuckwitted and am sulking because everyone is pointing out he flaws’.
December 13th, 2010 - 19:26
“We’ve had an interesting exchange of opinions”: my argument has been carefully and forensically dissected, examined and disproved. I have been made to look like a laughing stock, and still can’t bring myself to alter my original views. Still, at least you didn’t swear.
December 13th, 2010 - 23:20
“Fact” – No, it isn’t.
December 14th, 2010 - 00:29
“QED” – I have no idea what QED means.
December 14th, 2010 - 01:52
“pointless inflammatory racist comment”:
Anything I happen to disagree with
December 14th, 2010 - 09:17
I tend to disagree with pointless inflammatory racist comments. Do you?
December 14th, 2010 - 06:48
“80%* of the British public** believe***….”
*or some other absurdly high number.
**Daily Mail readers.
***have been told and therefore made a lot of noise about it.
December 14th, 2010 - 10:38
Following on from Jessica..
“Everyone thinks that..” / “The vast majority thinks that..”
1. I discount and mentally block anyone who doesn’t agree with my statement, therefore 100% of people I’ve asked do agree.
2. My argument isn’t credible enough to hold it’s own so I need to strengthen it by pretending lots of people agree with it.
In reality I don’t have the first idea if the majority of people agree with my statement or not. Should I ever do a survey I will make sure I ask a group of people who I know will agree with me.
“Science says…” – my favourite journalist told me
“I would like to debate with you..” I would like to push my opinion (which I believe is factual) onto you and for you to accept it as is.
December 14th, 2010 - 14:59
I always wonder where so called ‘surveys’ get their insane numbers from. Nobody, not ever, has ever approached me in the street or online or anywhere and asked me if I think Britain is becoming a Muslim state and whether or not I’m worried that because some take outs serve halal meat that we’re all going to be forced to live under Sharia law by 2015.
Which I’m kind of sad about really, because I’d really love it if somebody DID pop up and ask me stuff like that.
December 14th, 2010 - 11:25
“whose round is it?” – I know it’s not mine as I’ve just bought the last one and I’m pretty certain it’s you over there you tight-fisted bastard so get them in quick before you try to sidle off home early claiming you can feel a head cold coming on
December 14th, 2010 - 13:35
Any comment that involves “me thinks”
December 14th, 2010 - 15:10
“You can’t say that!” or “That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”: The coherency of your arguments suggesting something is wrong with the world frightens me, can I have some comforting platitudes instead?
December 14th, 2010 - 16:37
“…the list is endless.” – I’ve run out of examples.
December 14th, 2010 - 21:13
“Whatever…” – Oh shit, I got pwned but I’m damned if I’ll admit it.
December 15th, 2010 - 11:51
“You’re not allowed to say x here” – I am allowed to say x, but if I do lots of people will point out that I’m wrong.
“You’ll probably delete this” – If you don’t delete this I’ll look like an idiot, if you do no-one will be able to see it rendering it pointless.