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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3190 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 8, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Have you ever gnashed your teeth at the choice of an author to use " – " rather than "—", "he" rather than "they", or a semicolon list within a single paragraph rather than a bullet list comprising multiple paragraphs? Well, gnash no more! Never forget that nothing can stop you from ripping that author's """copyright-protected""" """intellectual property""" out of the webpage or the paper page on which it sits, and forcibly remaking it to suit your fancy. Word, LaTeX, Notepad++—there are many ways to fuck the text into submission and ejaculate your grammatical and orthographical preferences all over its fertile womb. Just Do It!

Ew.

This most recently happened to me with Annals of a Fortress, a book which is certainly out of copyright. Unfortunately, my text editor refused to parse the archaic format of ink-on-paper, leaving me ravished by the author’s lust for semicolons.

As I said: rip the text out of the page! Just retype the whole thing in your text editor of choice. People do stuff of this nature all the time.

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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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