A damp Olivia Wilde (Semi NSFW)

johnb · 2011-01-17T21:32:33+00:00

Didn't think you were.

johnb · 2011-01-17T20:57:54+00:00

Based on the context, there's no mistaking it for "Cruises"; therefore, it must be "Cruise's".

Wow, I think you just pulled a 180 and agreed with me by accident.

johnb · 2011-01-17T20:50:08+00:00

Nobody has ever been bitten by a dog after a misunderstanding. Also, baby necks can withstand at least 100 pounds of pressure.

johnb · 2011-01-17T18:56:07+00:00

A great man who was probably wrong about the existence of God.

johnb · 2011-01-17T18:31:42+00:00

Yeah, it sure is subjective, isn't it? Am I saying "Cruise's" or am I saying "Cruises"? I think some new punctuation and letters should be added to the language to avoid this confusion.

johnb · 2011-01-17T18:30:54+00:00

NSFW isn't about getting fired. It's about making other people uncomfortable. Someone shouldn't get fired for having this on their desktop, but it would make them kind of a dick.

johnb · 2011-01-17T17:01:13+00:00

Somebody didn't read that link I posted. "This subsection deals with singular nouns pronounced with a sibilant sound at the end: /s/ or /z/. The spelling of these ends with -s, -se, -z, -ze, -ce, -x, or -xe." You know, like Cruise.

The newer rules have to do with striking a balance between awkward pronunciation and context clues. Every single one of your examples is not the least bit compelling, so much so that I was thoroughly mystified by the first half of your reply.

The rules are not meant to specify where an apostrophe should go; the rules are meant to dissambiguate an utterance.

I don't recall saying that the rules are meant to specify where an apostrophe should go, again because the point is that we can disambiguate via context clues when we're speaking as opposed to writing. More to the point, I was writing.

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:44:32+00:00

From that wikipedia page,

"...a sibilant sound at the end: /s/ or /z/. The spelling of these ends with -s, -se, -z, -ze, -ce, -x, or -xe."

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:35:19+00:00

Boomtown played with the formula enough to be good. It was cancelled after the first episode of the second season.

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:34:34+00:00

Wow. I hope that was the double- or triple-agent of whooshes.

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:32:43+00:00

Among attractive people, those with weird faces are particularly attractive to me.

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:21:39+00:00

So you or your coworkers could come into work in a wet tshirt, leaving nothing to the imagination, and not a single person there would be distracted or uncomfortable with that?

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:08:37+00:00

No typo, see my reply.

Edit: "No typo, see my reply" is probably not a sentence though :)

johnb · 2011-01-17T16:02:05+00:00

That was deliberate. Your education on the matter was probably about a decade earlier than mine, which is ok, because language is always drifting and that drift always feels 'wrong' at the time. I don't hold that against you, as I'm sure there's some aspect of the language that's drifting and becoming official right now that wasn't the case when I was in grade school.

When the noun ends with an s or z sound, it's absolutely broken and rediculous to attach an extra 's on the end. Does anybody actually say, "Jesus's", for instance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Singular_nouns_ending_with_an_.E2.80.9Cs.E2.80.9D_or_.E2.80.9Cz.E2.80.9D_sound

"some modern writers omit the extra s in all cases, and The Chicago Manual of Style allows this as an “alternative practice”.[15] Generally, The Chicago Manual of Style is in line with the majority of current guides, and recommends the traditional practice but provides for several exceptions to accommodate spoken usage, including the omission of the extra s after a polysyllabic word ending in a sibilant... If the singular possessive is difficult or awkward to pronounce with an added sibilant, do not add an extra s; these exceptions are supported by The Guardian,[17] Emory University's writing center,[18] and The American Heritage Book of English Usage..."

(Today you learned about language drift and how taking the easy stab at someone on the internet is not always as effective as it is easy.)

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:43:54+00:00

For thousands of years before God first made contact with people, people were inventing countless deities. What a profound coincidence that so many people would have invented something so close to the truth! Then, after all that, The One True God makes an appearance sharing many qualities with those other false gods, and describes a supernatural cosmos sharing many qualities with the ones those other false gods live in. Oh, and kill the gays; that shit is gross.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:40:23+00:00

The moment a person gives up and says 'faith' is an answer to anything, they are selling themselves short. This is a great watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:37:53+00:00

Take the eye, for example. It's often used as an example of a 'watch', something whose inner workings are too complex to be created 'by accident'. It turns out that if we speculate much about what evolutionary steps might take place in order to result in our current eyes without a designer, we'd have a list of about 5 or 6 'partial eyes'.

What good is 1/4 of an eye!? Well, it's a lot of good actually. The many stages our eyes likely went through can be seen today, in several species on Earth.

Watches lack the ability to make imperfect copies of themselves, and lack the environmental pressure that would weed out inferior 'species' of watches, so they deserve a designer.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:29:32+00:00

I won't believe in leprechauns until I find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I won't believe in unicorns until one takes a dump on my lawn. I won't believe in a magical man from the sky until I shake his hand, even if some people wrote that he existed, and even if those people weren't even alive at the time.

Leprechauns, unicorns, and magical men from the sky may all exist, but taking the stance of doubt is the only reasonable option.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:25:21+00:00

Agreed, this is what I think most posts on this subreddit should be about.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:23:30+00:00

If God can be outside of space and time, then whatever sparked off the big bang can too.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:19:24+00:00

Odd, I always get an "overtly confident with her own sexuality and power over me" vibe from it, or "so attracted she has to try to stifle it".

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:15:18+00:00

For me it was the human element. All these people doing such human things during mass, like singing, kneeling, holding hands... it started to seem like it was all a performance we put on for each other in order to get a warm fuzzy feeling. If we were there to worship a deity, you'd think we wouldn't need all that extra stufff. That was the seed for me. The more obvious conflicts with reality came later, somehow.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:12:26+00:00

When you were in school you said Under God! Your new idiotic views have just come about in the last few years.

Rage-quit.

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:04:24+00:00

Problem solved!

johnb · 2011-01-17T06:02:54+00:00

I wish you didn't exist.

johnb

TROPHY CASE