Posts by Dr. Boli
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: Is it true that the state legislature of Florida accidentally outlawed computers, smartphones, and the Internet? I heard something like that, and it had me a bit worried. —Sincerely, Tim Cook.
Dear Sir: No, it is not true. It is true that Florida outlawed “any machine or device or system or network of devices” that could be used for on-line gambling, which means any device capable of connecting to the Internet; and it is true that this provision in the law effectively outlaws computers and smartphones, and thus the Internet itself. But that was no accident. The Florida state legislature does not like the Internet at all. The Internet has made fun of it over and over again, and now it is time for the Florida legislature to have its revenge.
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IN THE NEWS.
Fourteen patrons were stranded for more than three hours this morning when an escalator at the Bland Street Fitness Emporium stopped moving.
“We were riding up to the second floor, where they keep the stair-stepper machines, and all of a sudden I heard this ka-CHUNK,” said one patron who identified herself as “Britney.” “Then the escalator just, like, stopped. It was scary.”
According to call logs, an emergency repair crew was dispatched at 9:37 this morning from the Peerless Moving Stairway Corp. office in Hays, but it took the workers until 12:48 to get the escalator moving again.
Several patrons described symptoms of panic, but all gave credit to an unnamed Methodist minister as the hero of the crisis, saying he kept the victims calm and dissuaded them from the desperate measures some of them had contemplated.
“He told us stories about Isaiah or Elijah or someone,” Britney explained. “Man! I didn’t know crows could do that.”
When the escalator finally started moving at 12:48, the cheers were described as “deafening.”
“So we finally started moving at, like, one in the afternoon,” “Britney” related, “and by the time I got to the top I was just too worn out from my ordeal to do any exercise. So I took the elevator back down, because it’s going to be a long time before you get me on one of those escalators again.”
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
On this day in 1789, a mob stormed the notorious Bastille in Paris and, at the cost of ninety-eight of their own lives, succeeded in freeing the four ancient forgers, two lunatics, and one aristocratic pervert imprisoned in the fortress. It is recorded that the aristocrat was not suitably grateful.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.
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MEMORANDUM.
TO: All Employees
FROM: The President
RE: Corporate Personhood
Doubtless you are all aware that, under the laws of the United States, as interpreted by no less an authority than the Supreme Court (which I gather has some influence in these matters), a Corporation is legally a person, with all the rights and privileges attached to that exalted position, although (curiously enough) none of the responsibilities.
The Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co., Inc., is proud to carry on a long tradition of corporate personhood, or “corporate Persephone,” as my spelling checker would like me to write, and I hope you all find that as amusing as I did. We have exercised our right to freedom of speech, for example, by bribing every politician in the Capital District, with the happy result that cookie-control legislation has been defeated every time it was proposed in Albany.
But what good are all our triumphs if the corporation is not treated as a real person? As a legal person, has it not legal feelings? Why, then, is the corporation never invited to any of your children’s birthday parties? After all, the corporation, through its representatives (namely the board and myself), likes ice cream and cake as well as anybody.
The next time your child has a birthday, don’t forget to set a place for the Schenectady Small Arms & Biscuit Co., Inc. You’ll be helping a corporation that means a great deal to all of us feel more like the real person our Supreme Court has said it is. And, in return, the Corporation is inviting you all to its 125th birthday party next Tuesday during your lunch break. Don’t forget to bring a suitable gift.
With Love,
J. Rutherford Pinckney,
President.
NOW IN PRESS.
THE MOST MISSPELLED WORD: IS THIS OUR ANSWER?
Last month we spent some time trying to find the most misspelled word in the English language. After much effort by many contributors (to whom Dr. Boli is suitably grateful), we came to the tentative conclusion that the most misspelled word might be the contraction “you’re,” which is very often spelled “your.”
Our survey is slightly skewed, however, by the nature of the Internet itself. Though the Internet is indeed a democratic institution, where anyone can say anything, it is nevertheless true that a disproportionate amount of the writing on the Internet comes from either professional writers or amateurs who write regularly—bloggers, for instance. This is, in fact, merely a tautology: more of the writing on the Internet comes from people who write more. Such people, merely by exercising their writing ability so often, are bound to be better spellers than the general public, most of whom seldom write anything if they can help it.
Where, then, shall we find a good representation of the spelling habits of the general public?
The obvious answer is Craigslist. Here people who normally would not write if they could help it are motivated to write by greed or simple necessity. And we can take a general survey of Craigslist users’ spelling habits very easily, because the search engine is very simpleminded: it does not attempt to work around our misspellings the way Google does.
So we search for the common phrase “If you’re interested” in the Pittsburgh section of Craigslist, and here is what we find:
“if you’re interested”: 514 postings
“if your interested”: 625 postings
The misspelling is more frequent than the correct spelling in a representative sample of the general population. It should be noted, by the way, that Pittsburgh’s largest industry is higher education.
So are Pittsburghers unusually illiterate? Let us look at Mobile:
“if you’re interested”: 100 postings
“if your interested”: 185 postings
Detroit:
“if you’re interested”: 979 postings
“if your interested”: 1083 postings
Buffalo:
“if you’re interested”: 268 postings
“if your interested”: 345 postings
Baltimore:
“if you’re interested”: 478 postings
“if your interested”: 405 postings
Tampa:
“if you’re interested”: 925 postings
“if your interested”: 868 postings
St. Louis:
“if you’re interested”: 770 postings
“if your interested”: 660 postings
It would seem, therefore, that the misspelling and the correct spelling of “you’re” are almost evenly balanced wherever we look, and that if anything the advantage goes to the misspelling.
Do we learn anything useful from this observation, other than that despair is a reasonable response to any detailed observation of human behavior?
Perhaps not. But the next time you talk to a lexicographer who insists on “description, not prescription,” and scoffs at the idea that the educated, rather than the general public, ought to set the standard for English usage, challenge him to revise his dictionary to include “your” as the correct spelling of the contraction for “you are,” with “you’re” as an obsolescent variant. See if he is true to his principles.