Going Nowhere Fast

unauthorized fucking thing!!!!!!

(warning: loud chirping throughout)

(With reference to this post here.)

In the very early days, the public-facing Internet was small enough that you could just, like, remember where everything was. Contrary to the modern Internet's rapid content churn and walled-garden siloing, early websites tended to have deep, statically preserved content archives and dense cross-site linking, so it wasn't uncommon to set about finding previously visited sites simply by retracing one's path from memory. Even simple bookmarking was sometimes derided as a crutch for people who were too lazy to learn how to navigate the Internet "properly"; indeed, once web browsers added built-in support for bookmark lists, some people refused to use them as a matter of principle!

Once the Internet grew to the point where this approach was no longer feasible, there was a period of a few years where various parties tried to construct human-curated, hierarchical directories of the entire Internet. This was, of course, doomed to fail, as the Internet was growing faster than it could be manually catalogued, but they gave it the old college try. Some popular search engines such as Yahoo actually started out as directories of this type, and only later added search functionality. Meanwhile, communities of interest adopted a more targeted approach, with dedicated "links" pages containing curated recommendations for other, similar sites becoming ubiquitous on personal websites, while users who lacked the time or expertise to offer curated links could participate in webrings and other volunteer-operated directory services.

The bulk of the page count is concerned with how to use the internet, both on a concrete level (e.g. "here is a list of file transfer tools, how to use them, and a discussion of their tradeoffs") and a conceptual level (e.g. "what is the internet actually useful for", or "how do you figure out answers to questions about it this book didn't think to ask"). However, there is also a catalogue of sites -- some WWW, but many other protocols are also represented -- sorted by topic.

Here's the start of the directory of directories, listing sites that are, themselves, directories of sites:

You were aware of websites through word-of-mouth and things like “carefully enunciated URLS on television.”

A presenter would announce over the text, “to learn more, go to H-t-t-p colon slash slash, kratts creatures dot com” - or whatever, and it would linger for a moment so you could write it down if you wanted.

In those days you went “on the internet” to do specific things. That definitely included wasting time and poking around, but the expectation was that if you wanted a website you were told about it and the website was a place with additional information rather than a first port of call. Librarians knew websites and could suggest them. Museums and attractions distributed paper bookmarks, business cards or flyers with the website url written on them.

Early search engines were AltaVista, which used Boolean operators, and Ask Jeeves, where you could ask “natural” questions.

Bitching and moaning

Hater-ology

Doing a goofy little bit about it

Having a buddy say "that's so fucked up" at intermittent points (you can also be your own buddy)

A few years ago I argued with a lawyer while we wrote a thing about "is comprised of". "is COMPOSED of" is correct; "comprises" is correct. The combination is not a thing, but style guides have taken to saying it's acceptable because of widespread usage. I took major psychic damage from this term while editing a medical journal so while usually I'm a descriptivist, I'm gonna be a bitch about this one. That medical journal's style guide was five inches thick, and the editor who worked on it took three mental health leaves in the 18 months I was there.

That particular team of traumatized editors aside, the term is not one with a specific functional use by a particular community.

The horse community IS a user of the term "favoring" as a verb denoting a behavior. This is a big jump in significance and I'm not equating them, but there are living communities where "spirit animal" also means something, and a ton of people picking their own usage doesn't change that, and we have had that discussion plenty. Communication internal to a community that also has external usage is fine, but if we are cavalier about how we care about other people's communities, and take no time to be curious about those communities and see their humanity, the attitude will bleed into our language.

And we're certainly not going to take time to look up every single word to see if someone, somewhere, has a specific meaning. But we have incredible resources at our fingertips to find out information, and an opportunity to find out about communities we didn't know existed through words we don't know the full meaning of-- and maybe even join them, if those communities turn out to be somewhere we belong. The world is wide; curiosity is vital.

(In reference to posts about “favouring the injured limb.” In this thread I became mildly cross when a self-proclaimed linguist claimed to have ‘taken away my leg to stand on’ without first taking a cursory glance at where I had gotten my leg.)

(Also girl-mercury and I have been friends for a long time.)

So, Dr Glass practices a craft called “sashiko.” It’s a traditional embroidery craft, Japanese in origin, popularised in the visible mending movement. It’s similar to embroidering with basting stitches. However, it’s typified by distinctive design choices; involves specific techniques and materials; embodies intentional philosophy; and is still tied to living cultural practices in Japan. Although the craft is an open practice, “sashiko” has a specific meaning, and traditional teachers of the craft are politely clear that if your work is divorced sufficiently from traditional sashiko intentions/practices/methods/materials, it is no longer sashiko - you’re just doing embroidery. Which you can certainly do - hey, cool, you’re doing basting stitch embroidery! - but it is not sashiko.

This is a point of active friction in the community.

This morning, Dr Glass witnessed a social media argument in which a white English-speaking American confidently made the statement, “sashiko can be whatever you want it to be,” and when corrected, stated the exact same argument: “language evolves.” A wonderfully parallel argument.

On the one hand, the crafter clearly perceives herself to be taking a progressive descriptivist stance, breaking down barriers, and boldly evolving a living craft beyond the pretentious, pedantic gatekeeping snobs. Who could be mad about language evolving!

On the other hand, English-speaking teachers of the traditional craft don’t seem to be interested in “language evolves” as a challenge - they repeat politely and firmly- “you may say and do as you like, but it isn’t sashiko.” Traditional practitioners have been clear that it’s just plain wrong to call things sashiko if they don’t meet the criteria; people are uncomfortable with The Racism And Its Implications; it’s generally felt to be Not Cricket to insist that a personal definition is as valid as the community definition; and contorting “language evolves” into an excuse has simply pissed everyone off.

Besides, as everyone points out every time this happens - BASTING STITCH EMBROIDERY IS A THING. Why don’t crafters just use THAT term? Or come up with a cute contraction? Why insist on ownership and control of the word sashiko? (It’s 100% clear that the intention here is to appropriate and whitewash Asian practice, deliberately divorcing the craft from its material context, to make it more pleasant to consume as an aesthetic.)

“Language evolves” seems to be evolving (ha) in these instances into a magic spell for shrugging off correction when you’re in the wrong. I’m not incorrect, actually - words can mean anything I want them to. It’s an interesting thing to observe, back-to-back. I wonder if it’s widespread. Someone who cares more could do something about studying it!

Because - by god - look at the behaviour that’s enabling! Arguing that “language evolves” means you can’t be corrected when you’re wrong? The whole bit with “hello, linguist here” from a person who DID NOT READ?! When the alternative to defending ignorance is the wonderfully pleasant activity of LEARNING MORE ABOUT HOW PEOPLE ACTIVELY USE WORDS?

One that comes to mind is "nimrod." Originally meaning a skillfull hunter, its sacrastic use in Bugs Bunny cartoons to mean "idiot" or "buffoon" when describing Elmer Fudd caused it to shift to an almost opposite meaning.

Thoughts?

(In reference to my addition to a post about the word “favour,” in the context of an injured limb. In its context, which is often veterinary, the injured limb is the one that is “favoured”. The majority of respondents to the poll believe that one “favours” the UN-injured limb, with many in the notes claiming that this should be considered semantic drift, and that “there is no incorrect answer” because “language evolves.”)

I’m not a linguist, and I’m all for language evolving.

“Nimrod” is a cute case study. If you think about it in terms of evolution, there were NO pressures on keeping “Nimrod” reserved as a legendary Biblical hunter. It wasn’t being used for a specific working purpose; it wasn’t preserved in communities, anchored to practical duties, part of people’s living vocabs. It was able to drift because it was a literary reference, and found a funnier purpose.

“Favouring an injured limb”, on the other hand, is a descriptor actively being used by communities that talk about injured limbs. It has material utility and meets a need. It has a clear definition and rationale. It’s under continuous practical use. Flipping the definition, or claiming that it has another definition in YOUR head, just isn’t the same linguistic pressure as all the people using it correctly for material purposes. Just because the public aren’t familiar with its use, and are assigning it vibes based on other senses of the word, doesn’t mean that the word is up for drift.

“Teehee, I think it should mean the opposite thing!” is not hugely helpful or useful given the pragmatic gap between “active use” and “misreading”. People are USING it to mean something else. In fact, claiming that “the opposite meaning is just as valid” is clearly causing a lot of confusion in the notes of that post - is this helpful when talking about limb injury?

Further, “Language evolves” means that language evolves.

I do not believe that “language evolves” means:

Illiteracy wins wherever it secures a majority.

Vibes-based readings are just as valid as genuine literacy.

Misunderstandings matter more than material usage.

Laypeople’s confusion can and should change the meaning of a technical term that a community are actually actively using in a different sense.

Being genuinely wrong, with sufficient confidence, means you get to declare yourself correct, because of your own personal feelings, and further,

that this extra-special-double-down wrongness is ESPECIALLY allowed, suddenly, when it comes to processing information, because “it’s how language works.”

The apparently unchallenged genuine belief that this is how language functionally works.

The belief that language works on Internet-points rules and “language evolves” is a magical backdoor to making “both sides” arguments.

The belief that a grandma doing this confers additional respectability, and that respectability is the same thing as being correct.

That a “definition” of a word that meets no useful criteria for a definition - a vibes-based interpretation that is not defined, observed, recorded anywhere, agreed upon, serving any purpose, or meeting any need (because it’s just vibes and people being wrong) is really BASICALLY the same thing as the existing definition, which actually meets those criteria.

Because vibes.

That it doesn’t matter if your personal interpretation is materially unhelpful, not useful, more confusing, directly contradicts the technical use, and is generally materially worse than if you just used the existing word properly - because it’s YOUR personal interpretation.

That “I feel like this should be the case” is equal to things actually being the case.

That, in general, “vibes” are as important and valid as actual material professional diagnostic use of a word.

Both sides of a directly contradictory argument are equally valid and correct - even in a case where one side is bringing evidence, and the other is bringing a misunderstanding based on other definitions of a word.

Those are all things that people on this post seem to think are included in things like “language evolves and meanings change 😌”. I do not agree that they are included. I know that people feel they do. That’s where my stance diverges.

My stance is that I literally don’t approve of the sentiments embodied in those bullet points. I don’t believe they’re rooted in good judgment, or a clear understanding of linguistics. I don’t believe they improve communication or clarity, or meet a material need, or plug a communication gap. I don’t think that “favour” is THAT confusing, when the limb-injury definition is freely available on the same public internet that people are on right now. I don’t believe that “that’s just how language works” is a super-special case where everyone ✨ magically gets to be right ✨ because it’s how their grandma used it, when we recognise that nothing else operates like that. I don’t generally think that being loudly wrong is just as correct as being quietly right.

And I have never seen any evidence that “language evolves,” used by people who work with language, genuinely means ANY of those things. “Language evolves” is stuff like “nimrod” and “chaise lounge.” It is not “myeloma and melanoma are the same thing” or “misreading is just as valid as reading.”

In Colorado the big cats, elephants and hoofstock LOVE when it snows and are out playing instead of taking an all-day heat siesta. The primates, birds and for some reason the anteater eally like the high wind days. Bears, hippos and a lot of the smaller mammals like porcupines and red pandas love the rain.

Home in Suffolk, UK

Reblog to get this out of mtg circles

Fam, be careful with your time online. I highly recommend sinking some time and energy into offline pursuits.

Try: knitting or crochet; gentle movement, stretching, walking if you can; playing a musical instrument, whether it's piano or penny whistle; and especially reading.

I do not mean performative BookTok reading that we do for likes because our neurotransmitters have been nerfed by modern life.

I mean actual reading that we do for ourselves alone.

If reading is hard, if attention or energy or memory are operating at a deficit, I get it. Nevertheless, please try. If you notice you're skipping across big chunks of text like a river stone, if you can't finish a paragraph, slow down, pronounce the words out loud. Stop sometimes and ask yourself what you just read. Explain the story or article or poem to your blorbo or your cat or a stuffed animal.

If your head feels scrambled up, no judgment. We may have incredibly intractable neurochemical reasons that this is hard. Just tell the blorbo, "That's hilarious, I don't remember any of what I just read. Let's read it again, together."

(Please don't ask A.I. to do this for you. Please. It's your right to read and think about it your own way. A.I. doesn't actually understand anything. Please don't assume it will guide you safely through this next weird phase of our human culture.)

If reading longform, offline, makes you feel bored or anxious, be gentle and patient with yourself. Start with stories you remember well, reliable sources of well-being. But please know you will need to put some backbone into it in the long run.

I think we are going to need to rebuild our ability to think, to process experience. This will be an unsupported activity. In fact, most of the really powerful cultural forces are making it very hard for us to notice, feel, perceive, or think clearly.

Not sure what, but something's happened quite recently that is making this situation much worse, some kind of tipping point.

Please read something every day.

so where do you start? before you even pick up a book, it's probably a good idea to put some thought into how having to do this at all makes you feel, and why that might present another barrier. it's hard, and it's ok to admit it's hard, and that you maybe don't have the skills you want to have anymore. it's good to acknowledge your feelings surrounding this.

then try something small. offline, an actual piece of reading material like a physical book if you can. if it has to be digital, that's ok, too. it's more than ok to start with a book intended for children, even. after all, that's where you learnt these skills in the first place, and so many kids' books are intended to help build reading and comprehension ability. don't be ashamed of it; lots of well-funded groups like corporations and others have worked very hard to make sure this skill has eroded as much as possible.

do what greenjudy says and be gentle. take care of yourself. take breaks if it's hard, try not to get frustrated.

one of the best things you can do for yourself is to not be afraid if it's hard. it's not a sign you're doing it wrong. it's because you're building new roads in your brain, or maybe fixing the bad roads that already exist. if it helps, you can imagine little tiny construction guys in your mind repaving or smoothing out the land for something new, whatever floats your boat. it's not easy for the construction guys, either, but hey, these roads need to get built or fixed, right? they're doing something really worthwhile and so are you.

it's ok to read and think about easy things until you feel ready to take on more of a project. it's like scales at the piano; they're not meant to be hard, they're meant to support muscle memory and technique so that you can tackle bigger challenges. reading and thinking are no different.

reading is itself an act of revolution. being able to think on top of it is even more so. helping people can also mean helping ourselves, because we're people, too.

IF ITS WATER AND NOT THE OCEAN ITS (likely) LIMNOLOGY

I wanted to be a marine biologist as a kid, but life and undiagnosed ADHD happened, and now I live far from the ocean without a college (university) degree (at all). Also I don't think I knew there was a difference.

Anyway, the educational system up here in Canada is just different enough to fall on my face without warning, so: