I should know this from my years on the internet

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1333503]

Comments

[oh6.livejournal.com]

Implying or stating that the person you are are arguing is a bigot.

Criticizing their grammar.

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Criticizing *his* grammar.

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

If singular 'they' is good enough for Geoffrey Chaucer, Billy Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Huh; you don't think we've *improved* English since then? Shows what you know, you idiot bigot!

(Um, entirely humorously meant, couldn't resist practicing what I'd just voted in the poll.)

[kraig.livejournal.com]

shirley that would be "bigoted idiot," no?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Hmmm; I think both are syntactically valid. But "bigoted" gets into my "can't pick which letters to double" problem big-time :-).

[kraig.livejournal.com]

Hah, fair enough! What if you just doubled them all, and you get a win in that if somebody calls you on it, you can call them a speeling natzi?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Tthhatt mmigghhtt bbe inntterressttinngg.

[kraig.livejournal.com]

You missed all the vowels. Clearly the mark of a bigoted idiot. Or an idiotic bigot. Since you can't even misspeel correctly, clearly none of your other arguments can be logical either, so I won't bother addressing them save to dismiss them mockingly.

Sheesh! I will now go write a blog post decrying the decline of society based on my interactions with both people I've seen today.

[kiya]

Thou'rt not willing to take up arms against that abomination, the singular "you"?

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Then sidetracking the conversation into a prescriptivist vs. descriptivist debate, because few things are more productive than beating that particular dead horse.

[avram]

Criticizing their grammars.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Surely you mean "Criticising hir Gran'ma"?

[avram]

"Circumcising her grandma"?

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Grandma got run over by a flame war
posting here from our house, Christmas Eve...

--Dave

[bwross.livejournal.com]

Isn't criticizing grammar implying that the person is an idiot?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

As mentioned elsewhere, ignorance is not equal to idiocy.

[bwross.livejournal.com]

Never said they were. Marking a mistake in grammar in normal conversation may be noting ignorance. Criticizing grammar during a flame war... that's very much trying to imply idiocy.

[brooksmoses]

In a flame war (which apparently you're assuming as context of that comment): Yes, usually.

Sometimes it is implying that the person whose grammar is criticised is an idiot for having bad grammar.

Sometimes it is implying that the criticizer is an idiot for being tone-deaf enough to context not to realize that their well-meant corrections will be read that way because they're in the middle of a flame war.

I'm not entirely sure that the latter is all that rare.

And, well, okay, also sometimes it's meant humorously. That's an exception where it doesn't imply idiocy.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

You can be an idiot but not a bigot, but you cannot be a bigot without being an idiot.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Pithy but not true. In many cases it's simple ignorance, which is not the same as idiocy, that leads to bigotry. Bigots can and frequently do learn better.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Burn! Burn the heretics, before their vile maunderings corrupt the True and Innocent! Burn them lest their spiteful lies lure others away from the True Faith! There are no excesses in the defense of Truth; go forth, Defenders of Virtue, and destroy the Infidel with Holy Flame!

-- Steve's decided that all things are acceptable in moderation, including moderation.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can answer this question without knowing whether the person I am hypothetically arguing with is an idiot, a bigot, both, or neither.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

they are wrong on the internet. therefore, all of the above.

[dsrtao]

No one can be convinced of their own idiocy. Sometimes they can be convinced of their own bigotry.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

But only if you use an acceptable tone.

[chriskarate.livejournal.com]

This question presupposes that one isn't in an environment where idiocy and bigotry are, through obscure mental yoga, seen as virtues.

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

When in such an environment, I prefer simply to leave, because we will never get anywhere. Then nuke it from orbit.

[redbird]

Persuasive to whom? And of what?

Sometimes the point is, in fact, to convince third parties that the person you're arguing with is an idiot, bigot, or both, rather than to persuade anyone of a point in the nominal topic of argument.

Right, Vicki, there you go answering one of James's argument-causing polls seriously.

"Your Godwin Can't Save You Now!"

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Accusations of genocide always convince the other person to run howling into the internight. Unless that other person is a little unreasonable. Then a mass-attack by war-zeppelins is the only sensible course of action.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

It would depend entirely who you were trying to persuade.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's more effective to imply the other person is (a) drunk.

[cofax7]

I suspect the point is that one can rarely persuade either an idiot or a bigot that they are being stupid or prejudiced.

However other viewers/readers might be informed by the conversation, as I have been in times past.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Does anyone try to *persuade* in an internet argument?

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I believe there is a lot of attempts to persuade the audience that the speaker deserves cookies, at least.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

Something about this question reminds me of Hitler.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

God, you are such a mean girl. This is exactly like dealing with cliques back in high school.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

*cries*

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Getting into a discussion of what a bigot is in the abstract; eventually someone will jump in with citations that such-and-such *can't* be bigoted behavior, because they do that. Cognitive dissonance ensues.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I usually phrase that as "Nothing in the rules says you can't do both." supergee usually calls it "Embrace the power of 'and'."

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Neither of those is at all an effective tactic.

Giving them input that, should they process it correctly, will lead them to ask the question "am I being an idiot/bigot here?" is in line with the Socratic method, and much more workable.