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The New and Improved Art of War
by effenheimer at 09:35 PM on March 28, 2003
I have been having this ongoing debate with some joker who keeps posting to one of my old entries. Whoever this person is, they have inspired me to use one of my responses to them as fodder for a new entry on the art - and yes it is an art - of verbal combat.
Like Tsun Tzu before me, I hope these rules for verbal combat whether they be for letters, emails, comment boards or presidential debates will form a tome that will be studied centuries after I am gone.
1) really smart people don't go on about how smart they are. much in the same way that really cool people don't worry about how cool they are or constantly try and remind people of how cool they are by saying "i'm so much cooler than you."
2) even if one is blessed with an amazing vocabulary, one does not heave every single "big word" they know out there at once just to impress people because ... see no. 1.
3) if you are going to use a shitload of big words a. get your grammar down pat first and b. use the words correctly because...
4) synonyms you find in a thesaurus really arent interchangeable, they are just similar. for example, if you want another way to say 'beautiful' and you go to your thesaurus and it says 'pulchritudinous,' you can't just say that 'Gwyneth Paltrow is pulchritudinous' because the word means 'beautiful like a young boy.' using verbs and nouns like adverbs and adjectives and vice versa is usually a dead give away that you don't know what you are talking about.
5) never call for a truce after a long public exchange when you and everyone else reading can tell who the winner is. you know when you're beaten, just admit it and THEN maybe mutual respect will follow. there is nothing sadder than someone who can't hang who tries to get the winner to bow out to save their self esteem. either that or just give up without comment and let them wonder.
6) just because you are the smartest thing on the "Queer as Folk" message board doesn't make you Bertrand Fucking Russell. Don't assume because you whipped the piss out of some 6th grader pretending to be a 34 year old marketing executive for GM doesnt necessarily mean you are the greatest communicator since Cicero.
7) Don't pretend to be something you aren't, it will come through in your writing every time. By being your pathetic self, you improve your pathetic self through combat. if you pretend to be someone else, the only thing you improve is your silly assed online persona i.e NOTHING.
comments (34)
I'm SOOOO much cooler than you.
by Eviltom at March 28, 2003 10:32 PM
Pulchritudinous is a disgusting looking word. As for Ms. Paltrow, she may be beautiful. But she exudes all the raw sensuality of a dingy dish rag. Cool piece, as usual.
by Anna at March 29, 2003 8:26 AM
oh NO YOU DIDN"T! first off, GP was so hot she burned my eyes in Great Expectations. I think you are on to something though anna, she is pretty, but not conventionally sexy. she is more hot like your best friends mom when she wa younger and you feel guilty about it but you still think about her when you spank it.
or she's cute like that really sweet girl you fell in love with in 9th grade when it was really not possible to do anything constructive about it.
but she isn't what I would call hot, not like that.
Confidentially, the role I thought she was the hottest in was the Royal Tennenbaums. she drove me crazy as margot. kind of sad and lost and a bit perverse. maybe it was all the dark eye makeup.
by eff at March 29, 2003 12:05 PM
Eff, I've toyed w/ the idea of a post about what I call "chick beauties." Paltrow is one, as is Reese Witherspoon. Carmen Electra, on the other hand, is a"guy babe." Before she turned into a hideous caricature of herself, so was Pam Anderson. I don't know how to classify Catherine Zeta Jones. In Zorro, definate guy babe material. In those cell phone commercials, I dunno.
by Anna at March 29, 2003 1:18 PM
I want to take this opportunity to mention that I find Angelina Jolie's lips frightening. Imagine kissing that... it would be like kissing... a giant kissing fish...
Eff, your exchange with Pantera was fucking hilarious. But I do think she's gotten your shorts in a bunch. You seem pissed. If you really didn't care, I don't think you'd bother posting about it.
by Linz at March 30, 2003 8:33 PM
If smooching a giant kissing fish is wrong.........I don't wanna be right!
Eff, which post? I have to see this.
by Ezy at March 31, 2003 5:06 PM
Okay, the post Eff is refering to is here.
by mg at March 31, 2003 5:34 PM
I think Angelina Jolie's lips are the celebrity lips I'd most like to kiss. The woman's HOT.
by Leaffin at March 31, 2003 10:42 PM
I think everything BUT her lips is hot. Her lips look... flappy...
But that's why the gods didn't make us all the same, I spose.
by Linz at April 1, 2003 8:40 AM
AJ's lips look like if you kissed them they'd pop! they look swollen like there's something wrong with them. Sweet ass though. Great rack, but i would take the lips down a notch.
Pantera really doesn't piss me off, i just write pissed off. frankly, it was fairly dispassionate on my part, but I do get annoyed at people who try to pass themselves off as something smarter and better than what they are.
every person has a certain ability, a personal best to which they can rise. too often, people try to sound smarter than they are and end up sounding stupider than they are. I also can't stand people who ~put crappy stage directions inside of tildes or other lame marks like they are dramatic~
For centuries, great writers communicated simply with the power of their words. Shakespeare didn't need emoticons to let people know when he was trying to write happy or angry and he didnt even use stage directions in his freaking plays as much as some people use in emails and posts and comment board quips.
And finally, i smelled blood in the water and had to go for it.
I hope the ladies don't find it offensive, but i do find it enjoyable to sort of classify the different kinds of attractiveness going on in the world. This really opens up the field to more women being descibed in flattering terms, so i dont see why anyone would object.
I think 'attractive' is a good general term for all kinds of appealing. or maybe appealing is a good term.
renee zellwiger is cute and doable, but I just don't find her sexy. Madonna is sexy but I still find her repugnant in many ways. In order to be beautiful, one need not be sexy and I think it helps to be austere and almost unapproachable like Mary Tyler Moore was when she was younger. I dont even want to see her nude, you know?
There is a spectrum here too. from skanky (courtney love, pam anderson, jenny mcarthy) on one side to to "probably doesnt crap" (audrey hepburn, catherine deneuve, princess diana) on the other. in the middle you get various moderates like those chicks on friends and then there is the cross axis which i havent really defined but its probably based on purelevel of attractiveness so that when you are done, you have four quadrants that give a more complete picture. This is just a theorectial model.
I still find intuitive descriptions more informative and pleasing. For example, Susan Serandon is definitely hot, she has that experienced older woman thing going for her like she could teach you a thing or two about respect and when you were done, young chicks wouldnt stand a chance.
Britney Murphy is cute in a stupid "could fool her into doing it" kind of way. she has a kind of alluring daddy-issues thing going on that give her a kind of sexual availability.
Cameron Diaz is cute and funny and in spite of the sexy stuff she does, i think she would really be kind of a buddy type that you are attracted to intially because of her looks and then pretty soon you are doing her favors and talking about her problems on the phone all night.
Catherine Zeta Jones has changed. Initially she was kind of ravishing like "oh my god" hot. lately she's put ona few pounds is more voluptous. She defintely leans toward beautiful because she has grace and confidence and isnt just a there to be done.
Courtney Love is a super skank. She is like Madonna but without all the class. She is a wicked cold-hearted dengue woman who leaches off guys but can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. she is predatory and alluring in a taming of the shrew kind of way.
by eff at April 1, 2003 11:22 AM
I am sometimes guilty of using *this* to show action, but something about those
~really long ones that involved a lot of stage direction~
irked me greatly. Icky, icky, ick.
I still can't shake the vibe that you're stooping but I also understand that you're enjoying the battle that you keep winning. And, like Ezy, I hope that it continues for my own entertainment.
What about Macaulay Culkin? Is he hot?
by Linz at April 1, 2003 2:59 PM
Eff, I am going to have to agree with Lindsay on both points-it doesn't seem like you are as "dispassionate" as you say you are. If you didn't care, you wouldn't spend all of that time responding (no matter how fast of a typer you are, all of those long responses took some effort).
Also, I find the repitition of the stage direction very icky. Those should be used sparingly!
And eff, is name calling ever mature or necessary to make a point? I teach my high school social studies students that when writing persuasively, if they have to resort to name calling, they are using it to cover up deficiencies in their own argument. Is it ethical to use the services of strippers if you so obviously think that they are the scum of the earth? Doesn't that put you on the same level as them? Don't most strippers have a down and out story like your ballerina friend? What about the strippers who are using it to pay for college? (I knew a few in college.)
by Shannon at April 3, 2003 10:46 AM
Yeah!
by Linz at April 3, 2003 11:00 AM
~shrugs and shakes his head while typing these words on the keyboard and looking at the screen to make sure there are no typos~
by JC at April 3, 2003 12:20 PM
~leans forward in anticipation of a comment, and while reading it, cocks her head at a 45 degree angle and looks down the side of her nose, then nods head slightly in an acknowledgement of the need to return to work~
~returns to work~
by Linz at April 3, 2003 1:36 PM
~reads comment and chuckles audibly, then looks around to see if coworkers noticed~
by JC at April 3, 2003 2:12 PM
~belly laughs at the hilarious turn this comment stream has taken, slowly shakes head in amused disbelief, wonders to himself why Pantera is so quiet all of a sudden~
by Ezy at April 3, 2003 3:59 PM
i can't bring myself to do it, but hee-hee.
now stop.
by shannon at April 3, 2003 4:12 PM
Eff, where are you? I have openly challenged some of your assertions without so much as a sidewise glance! Are you so wrapped up in disparaging a stripper that you have no time for belittling a school teacher? I think I'm jealous.
by Shannon at April 5, 2003 7:40 AM
Well, Shan, what would you do for a dollar?
by mg at April 5, 2003 8:29 AM
Jesus, forgive me for not living here.
~reaches under desk to scratch that itch that won't go away, checks to make sure no one saw, sniffs fingers, returns to typing~
no offense, but I really don't care much for teachers, Shannon, with all due respect, I don't feel like a heated battle with you. I'm not balck bart or quick draw mcgraw.
I will say this: my ninth grade english teacher emailed me recently to "make a point or two" about what she teaches her kids and what she taught me and asked why I don't follow her teaching point by point.
So I bascially told her to fuck off. I'm not a writer because of any teacher I had, in fact, i am writer in spite of several teachers i had. i also told her the best writers in the world don't write at a ninth grade level and in spite of what one might tell your students is right and wrong, I'm on a higher level. I did't stop with high school or college. I done went to grad school and learned all sortsa shit about language and how to communicate with people and linguistics and I've read great writers and speechifiers from the dawn of the printing press to the darkest corners of the internet and its all swirling around in my head. luckily for me, i work intuitively.
do any of us really have to answer to our teachers?
I diagramed an assload of sentences and read "Charlie" and learned where and when to use "WHOM" (a word I despise).
Now, you can tell your students that if they have to resort to name calling it's because of a weakness in their position, but then they are beginners playing by the basic set of rules. It's like RISK, there are two sets of rules for playing risk. in one set the rules are simple to avoid confusion and there are things you can't do. then when you play the advanced version with all the optional rules, there are all sorts of things you can suddenly do.
now, if you can tell me exactly how I should have a debate with astripper about how her profession is basically softprostitution without implicitly or explicitly calling her awhore, I'll do it. to have a debate of that nature and pretend one is NOT calling names would be an insult, an aggravating and infuriating lie. I will battle it out, but I'm NOT going to lie to someones face and tell them i respect them when I clearly don't. Say what we or I will about Pantera, this argument was basically about me denouncing her profession and by extention, her. If that isnt personal, nothing is.
as for your other point, i went over that about a dozen freakin' times with pantera. One is not ethically bound to consider themselves the equal of someone just because they use their services. i also never said stipperswere the "scum of the earth". apparently you don't tell your high school students not to deliberately misrepresent the arguments of their opponents. I said strippers are sextrade workers, the soft end of it, but still...
Now, if i want to look at your cooter and you take money from me to let me look at it, why does that mean I should respect you? I'm sure you don't have a maid, but if you did and you had her clean your house before a big party, would you then invite her to stay for the shing dig? I'm sure you might, but most often than not no. because we always draw distinctions to keep things neat.
You are a high school social studies teacher, you MUST have smoked weed at some point, would you invite the guy you buy weed from to babysit your kids and doesnt it make you a hypocrite for not wanting yourdrug dealer to even know where you live or marry your daughter? ethics are a word game 90 percent of the time. It would be ethically wrong to use their services if I thought they should be outlawed or closed down or that made illegal. I just think "dancers" are kidding themselves.
I don't care if they are paying for college or crack. Does it make a hooker not a hooker if she is paying for college?
by eff at April 7, 2003 12:00 PM
Jesus, forgive me for not living here.
~reaches under desk to scratch that itch that won't go away, checks to make sure no one saw, sniffs fingers, returns to typing~
no offense, but I really don't care much for teachers, Shannon, with all due respect, I don't feel like a heated battle with you. I'm not balck bart or quick draw mcgraw.
I will say this: my ninth grade english teacher emailed me recently to "make a point or two" about what she teaches her kids and what she taught me and asked why I don't follow her teaching point by point.
So I bascially told her to fuck off. I'm not a writer because of any teacher I had, in fact, i am writer in spite of several teachers i had. i also told her the best writers in the world don't write at a ninth grade level and in spite of what one might tell your students is right and wrong, I'm on a higher level. I did't stop with high school or college. I done went to grad school and learned all sortsa shit about language and how to communicate with people and linguistics and I've read great writers and speechifiers from the dawn of the printing press to the darkest corners of the internet and its all swirling around in my head. luckily for me, i work intuitively.
do any of us really have to answer to our teachers?
I diagramed an assload of sentences and read "Charlie" and learned where and when to use "WHOM" (a word I despise).
Now, you can tell your students that if they have to resort to name calling it's because of a weakness in their position, but then they are beginners playing by the basic set of rules. It's like RISK, there are two sets of rules for playing risk. in one set the rules are simple to avoid confusion and there are things you can't do. then when you play the advanced version with all the optional rules, there are all sorts of things you can suddenly do.
now, if you can tell me exactly how I should have a debate with astripper about how her profession is basically softprostitution without implicitly or explicitly calling her awhore, I'll do it. to have a debate of that nature and pretend one is NOT calling names would be an insult, an aggravating and infuriating lie. I will battle it out, but I'm NOT going to lie to someones face and tell them i respect them when I clearly don't. Say what we or I will about Pantera, this argument was basically about me denouncing her profession and by extention, her. If that isnt personal, nothing is.
as for your other point, i went over that about a dozen freakin' times with pantera. One is not ethically bound to consider themselves the equal of someone just because they use their services. i also never said stipperswere the "scum of the earth". apparently you don't tell your high school students not to deliberately misrepresent the arguments of their opponents. I said strippers are sextrade workers, the soft end of it, but still...
Now, if i want to look at your cooter and you take money from me to let me look at it, why does that mean I should respect you? I'm sure you don't have a maid, but if you did and you had her clean your house before a big party, would you then invite her to stay for the shing dig? I'm sure you might, but most often than not no. because we always draw distinctions to keep things neat.
You are a high school social studies teacher, you MUST have smoked weed at some point, would you invite the guy you buy weed from to babysit your kids and doesnt it make you a hypocrite for not wanting yourdrug dealer to even know where you live or marry your daughter? ethics are a word game 90 percent of the time. It would be ethically wrong to use their services if I thought they should be outlawed or closed down or that made illegal. I just think "dancers" are kidding themselves.
I don't care if they are paying for college or crack. Does it make a hooker not a hooker if she is paying for college?
by eff at April 7, 2003 12:16 PM
~bristles and waits for command from big sister to pounce on Eff & slap his ass around~
Eff, is there anything you aren't jaded about? Do you have any rainbows?
You say realist, I say pessimist.
by Linz at April 7, 2003 2:10 PM
linz, if you're feeling the need to pounce on somone and slap some ass, give me a call ;-p
by JC at April 7, 2003 2:17 PM
Fine, fine, fine. Teachers can obviously be added to your grudge list. I don’t want to get into a heated battle either, unlike Linz, I do enjoy debates, but only when they are friendly, not scratch your eyes out back and forths (I was just in a feisty/silly mood Saturday morning when I posted, I wasn’t trying to start a Pantera-esque brawl!).
Just a couple of things though: you are right, you did say repeatedly that just because you used the services of strippers doesn’t mean that you have to respect them. You also said that I wouldn’t invite my maid to a party that I was having, or my dealer to marry my child. I am not sure if I follow your logic. Do you ever invite the people that perform services for you into your home to hang out (besides strippers)? Does this change if they have a more “respectable” job like being your dentist or your mechanic, or does it just apply to lowly professions like stripping, dealing and housecleaning? Just because I am paid more or have more education than the person that sweeps my classroom (you were correct to assume that I don’t have a maid) doesn’t mean that I don’t respect them and the job that they do. Who am I to assume that I am better than that person? Maybe I am misunderstanding the analogy that you drew between looking at my cooter, respect and maids.
Also, one thing that you didn’t respond to was that you say you were dispassionate about your debate with Pantera. This struck me as odd since you spent so much time putting her and her profession down. She obviously was getting under your skin. Why spend so much time writing dispassionate posts? Why waste your time degrading people? You know that saying about when boys tease little girls, it is usually not because they think she has cooties, but because they secretly like her. I think that you need to get in touch with Pantera and get together with her-for a real, honest to goodness, old fashioned, buy flowers, dinner and a movie date (not paid sex).
Last thing: you’re right-names like dumb ass and skank do sound much better when you have a masters. They really drive that dispassionate argument home.
by at April 7, 2003 5:14 PM
woo hoo! a post about a commenting war has started another!!!
may it never end!
by JC at April 7, 2003 5:18 PM
Sorry- I forgot to put my name on the last post, suprise suprise it was me!
Unrelated sidenote: I AM ON SPRING BREAK! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Shannon at April 7, 2003 5:20 PM
Amen JC! On both of your last posts.
by Ezy at April 7, 2003 5:25 PM
No No No!!! I am a peace lovin' tree-hugger. Make love not war!
by Shannon at April 7, 2003 5:57 PM
Right on Ezy, right on brother.
by Joseph at April 7, 2003 7:44 PM
ahem...~looks around as if she being spoken of like she’s invisible, cracking her knuckles watching Eff stick stinky fingers to his nose~
Go with Elfy pants to lunch? Now there’s a hoot!!! My gawd, what on this earth would that little encounter be like, I do wonder. Especially with a showy display of finger sniffing, pure class there. I’m guessing he could pull that one off at the local “Hizzy’s house of Whores.”
Furthermore, he will want a lap dance too. He’ll beg and pester me until I get fed up! I am most certain he’d get his lap covered, but not by ass, but by my plate of food. Oh and I’m even more sure we’d argue til the sun came up and went down again, prolly over a bunch of nonsense like we have been so far.
I’m guessing Eff isn’t such a bad dude after all. I may have to consider lightening up on the poor guy…~thinks seriously for a brief, fleeting moment~ no wait…I won’t !! ~laughs~
I also agree, “name calling”…I am guilty of it too…It’s immature, silly, below my standards…~giggles~ But he started it! ~points a childish little finger at him and pouts~
Later
Pantera
by Pantera at April 8, 2003 6:33 AM
Pantera! Now that you're here we will talk about you like you ARE in the room.
by Linz at April 8, 2003 11:23 AM
OH FOR FUN! Believe me, shannon i am not in the mood for no more fussin and a feudin'... least not for a while.
I had some good teachers and some really shitty ones. The shitty ones stick with me because they were REALLY shitty whereas the good ones were basically nice to me one day out of 900. but when i say shitty, i mean, abusive, physically, emotionally what have you. this is a working class town and that means some people get away with it because if your poor, nobody will take you seriously anyway. that was then more than now.
perhaps i cannot claim to be dispassionate (was that my word originally?) but I do have levels. Some of the stuff I've gotten into on my old college newspaper web site has been really vicious. I think i can best sum up my feelings on this subject with something i've said to people in the past who thought they saw me pissed. "Oh believe me, when you see me pissed, you'll know it/" of course, i never really get enraged over the internet.
I was enraged when my boss called me a piece of shit. I call that rage, "The quiet before the storm." No, if I'm yelling insults, I'm not as pissed as I could be and when Im arguing on here i don't feel pissed even if i am writing like a lunatic.
maybe i just have daddy issues, is that so wrong?!
by eff at April 8, 2003 5:02 PM
I think all BadSemite Authors are RUGGED OPTIMISTS. That sums it up. Except for LINZ. She is a Frightened Pessimist. These bad events must come to pass, linz, the bigots, the wars, the violence, the whole spectrum of sentient emotion and action... Fear no longer, Linz, I've been here many times before... Be a BITCH... let it out... it's okay, it's not your fault... Be mean, be Selfish, CUT down the oldest of trees, and you will then realize the BLISS of TRUE LIBERALISM.
by LOCKHEED at April 8, 2003 5:23 PM