Hard News: Compromise
362 Responses
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i think perhaps it is now appropriate to say
"lol owned"
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or perhaps "you jus got skooled"
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It could be a verb if it was serving as a request (stop! shut up!), as in "please can you theatre now".
i'll run with that explanation. seems to be the most common usage, after all.
assoc. prof hay, much appreciated.
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Jen wrote:
"It could be a verb if it was serving as a request (stop! shut up!), as in "please can you theatre now".Che wrote:
I'll run with that explanation. seems to be the most common usage, after all.okay, it's your word! When used in isolation, I guess you can't really tell whether the user is actually telling the person to 'theatre', or declaring the thread to be 'theatre'.
But you better edit the wiki to have a better example (since you can't really use a verb after 'call' - e.g. 'call stop on this thread' and 'call shut up on this thread' are bad.)
You should also perhaps consider censuring those people who use it unambiguously as a noun:
merc:
Ditto, this is GREAT THEATRE, my hearts racing!
Che:
for the benefit of all involved, i am calling a final theatre
merc:
Dude, you are all powerful and I accede to the Final Theatre!
as well as the several egs of 'I call theatre'.
While there are examples like this (where it's clearly used as a noun), I haven't actually seen anywhere in context where it's used unambiguously as a verb....
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meh. i think the confusion is half the fun.
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Golly.
Alright, if anyone cares, I'm saying:
1. I don't think that Craig's original comment was offensive, nor was it intended to be so.
2. It was fair enough to take issue with its logic, but not to impute motive.
3. Craig's subsequent replies were needlessly bitchy.
4. The use of the "theatre" call was appropriate, given that the discussion had become inappropriately acrimonious.
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Jen is right, since even absurdities require semantics to make them absurd- and the orignial call of "theatre" in a theatre,"theatre" fairly clearly refers to a theatre....
On the other hand-since you can't really use a verb after 'call'
why not? Before anyone explains- I hereby call "retreat" and "surrender!"
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why not? Before anyone explains- I hereby call "retreat" and "surrender!"
Forcing me to swallow a huge chunk of pedantry about gerunds.
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I don't think that Craig's original comment was offensive, nor was it intended to be so.
Actually I did think it was offensive, because there has been on-going criticism of Miss Clark for not using her husband's name, and for not having children, which I have always interpreted both as people saying that she's not a real woman. It's a way of putting a powerful woman down. It's that word, "legitimately" which does the work of making the comment offensive, because it implies that the only correct way for her to be known is by her husband's name and identity, and that somehow, the person calling her by her husband's name is better placed to understand who she is, than she is herself.
But YOU ARE RIGHT that I imputed motive where I had no reason to. I should have asked Craig what he meant before criiticising his motives. I think it was an easy enough mistake to make - a standard way to belittle Helen Clark is to call her Mrs Peter Davis - so I asumed that's what Craig was doing, because of those words "pedantic" and "legitimately". Nevertheless, I should have been more careful.
I don't think that what I wrote justified what was subsequently written about me. It might have justified me being told I had made a mistake, that I had misinterpreted Craig, but not what was actually written.
My concern was not just that I was subjected to what you call bitchiness, and I saw as abuse, but that no one asked Craig to stop, despite all the comment elsewhere on PA, and that when someone did, another poster leapt in to defend the person who was being bitchy / abusive. THEATRE was only called after Craig was told, by a newcomer, that he was out of line. So it wasn't THEATRE when Craig was being bitchy / abusive to me, but it was THEATRE when someone posted a comment critical of Craig.
What's a girl to think about all this?
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I don't think that what I wrote justified what was subsequently written about me. It might have justified me being told I had made a mistake, that I had misinterpreted Craig, but not what was actually written.
Yep. The proper response was "not what I meant", or, better yet, Heather's interpretation.
My concern was not just that I was subjected to what you call bitchiness, and I saw as abuse, but that no one asked Craig to stop, despite all the comment elsewhere on PA, and that when someone did, another poster leapt in to defend the person who was being bitchy / abusive. THEATRE was only called after Craig was told, by a newcomer, that he was out of line. So it wasn't THEATRE when Craig was being bitchy / abusive to me, but it was THEATRE when someone posted a comment critical of Craig.
What's a girl to think about all this?
Er, let's not get too hung up on "theatre", chuffed as I am for it to have actually become part of the culture of these forums.
Craig presumably couldn't help himself dropping a few snark bombs in what could have been reasonable replies, but people called him on his tone immediately, and more than once. I hope he apologises to you, but I don't think it went unremarked.
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I hope he apologises to you, but I don't think it went unremarked.
Indeed, as I said in one of my posts subsequent to the one which I posted when I was very upset.
I have agreed that I imputed motives to Craig where none were intended. Craig, that is meant as an apology for attributing motives to you which you didn't have, in this instance at least. I know that you are happy to criticise Helen Clark, and others (you are an equal opportunity critic) quite openly, and as I have said before, even if I don't agree with you, I usually enjoy what you have to say, and the way you say it.
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Truth is it's very hard to determine when snarkiness is going over the line, but very important there is a line; we've all been in fora where there isn't. It's enormously hard to read tone and "voice" sometimes. But ups to Deborah and Russell for talking it out like adults! I hope Craig turns up to do the same!
Back to the pedantry: "thearte" may be a little too fresh for there to be an established usage and I can't be bothered finding instances. Shouting "retreat!" is an imperative not a gerund, and while it's origins are nounish, I wonder if shouting "theatre" may not be a similar imperative? Until usage setles down, maybe wiki accept it as a "nerb". -
What is the law that sez whenever ytou make a pedantic point, your grammer or spelling go all to duggery?
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for talking it out like adults
I'm glad you only said "like" an adult, Rob. I would hate to be mistaken for an actual adult. :-)
Proud to be a Pedant!
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Jen:
since you can't really use a verb after 'call'Rob:
why not? Before anyone explains- I hereby call "retreat" and "surrender!"Yeah, sorry - perhaps I wasn't being very clear, there.
I guess we can distinguish two uses of call:
(1) something that means basically 'shout' - in which case you can shout any old thing - putting the thing in quotation marks as you do above makes it clear that it's that use. You're just quoting what was shouted, and so you can quote any part of speech.
(2) something that means 'declare' as in: call leg before wicket, call time out, call a stop, call one's bluff, call closure, etc.
Since the wiki said 'I call theatre on this thread', I was assuming use (2), since completing the phrase with 'on this thread' works well for use (2), but not for use (1).
And in use (2), what comes after 'call' is a noun.
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Thanks Deborah. I'd say more, but I've been up half the night with a rather distracting gastric bug ...
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(Monday morning and everyone's gettin' a bit of work in before posting?)
At the risk of offending the PA intelligensia; over at TradeMe we just used to say "This thread is dead" and that was usually pretty much it. This on-going long-winded discussion over "Theatre" is a little overblown, dontcha thunk?
NB - I haven't been on TM this year so who knows, maybe they're calling 'Theatre' over there too.
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i'm just happy we got assoc prof hay to 10 comments.
the evil plan comes together!
mua... mua.... muahahahah-oooo chocolate biscuits...
oh, and RB 'white food' is good for gastro.
white rice, white bread, potatoes, egg whites. that kind of thing.
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WHITE POWER!!
sorry, couldn't help it
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"Theatre" would be a little to subtle for most Trademe messageboard posters.
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"Theatre" would be a little too subtle for most Trademe messageboard posters.
Not if we send over a few PA posters to rabbit on and on about the precise meaning for a few pages on TM.
And while we're over there we could correct their spelling and grammer. They R qwite atroshus and seem 2 dlite in it.
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FWIW I called theatre because the topic had been relatively amicable for an hour, and the newbie waded in and dredged up the argument again. Given that Craig has a reputation for lashing out when he feels like he's being unduly accused, I honestly didn't think anyone would take his vitriol seriously. That's not to excuse it, but that's why I thought the subject was better dropped at that point.
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merc,
Heather, I think at that point you created FINAL THEATRE! a sub-species of the genus THEATRE! One must be careful now for we are being closely watched for crimes against nouns, though hopefully not against lexicon and one would hope that we are granted some license, being that we are creating a new lexicon, a new usage and a brave new world.
I however must be censured for my using THEATRE! out of context when I described a running thread as great THEATRE! I was in fact using in it's usual noun form and should not have used the now familiar caps and ! Yet, having been owned and schooled, thanks Ben, I will not be taking heed, I am afterall (sic), A Bad Machine.
I do now understand University Presses publication decisions more fondly following this insight into academia's inner grammar machinations...it's a proprietory pride thing. -
Sometimes I get this odd feeling like I've inadvertently walked into the middle of performance art. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..
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merc,
Of course. It's the underwords (sic) that cast the longest shadow and so, the most meaning (for me). To me all the rest, the intellectual, the over-logic (sic) is just so much strange need to attempt straightening the wicked crooked pathways of untidy genius.
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