• Lvxferre
    link
    fedilink
    3
    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    wtf does this even mean

    OP is asking two things:

    • the most controversial shit that you say
    • the shit that you say and think “mmh, maybe I’m wrong but I’ll keep saying it”

    …or at least that’s how I interpreted it.

    • @Semjaza
      link
      24 hours ago

      I read it as these two questions:

      1. Which controversial sentence said over public broadcast media do you disagree with the critiques of?
      2. Which controversial broadcast sentence do you come closest to agreeing with, even if you don’t think it true and hate yourself for even contemplating as true

      Don’t know if I’m right or but that reading makes most sense to me after a couple of passes and some thinking.

      • Lvxferre
        link
        fedilink
        23 hours ago

        We’re both interpreting it slightly different ways:

        • you - the utterance is specific, the speaker is unspecified
        • me - “utterance” is a placeholder for “discourse”, the speaker is whoever answers the question

        To be honest this is really cool. Now I’m curious if one of us got it right, or if we’re both reading it wrong.

      • Lvxferre
        link
        fedilink
        3
        edit-2
        5 hours ago

        As you said in the other comment, the sentence is grammatically OK¹. However, it’s still a huge sentence, with a few less common words (e.g. “utterance”), split into two co-ordinated clauses, and both clauses are by themselves complex.

        To add injury there’s quite a few ways to interpret “over the airwaves” (e.g. is this just radio, or does the internet count too?)

        So people are giving up parsing the whole thing.

        I also write like this, in a convoluted way², but I kind of get why people gave up.

        1. I’m not sure if it’s semantically OK due to the word “utterance”.
        2. Except when translating stuff, since I’m forced to roughly follow the “informational layout” of the original. That’s usually a PITA but it helps wonder for clarity!
        • Call me Lenny/Leni
          link
          fedilink
          English
          239 minutes ago

          But that just means its issue is it’s verbally unfamiliar, no?

          Makes me wonder how many people read scriptures/manifestos.

          • Lvxferre
            link
            fedilink
            14 minutes ago

            [Just to be clear for everyone: I’m describing the issue, not judging anyone. I’m in no position to criticise the OP.]

            The unfamiliar vocab is just the cherry on the cake. The main issue is that it’s hard to track everything; at least, when reading it for the first time. And most people don’t bother reading an excerpt enough times to understand it.

            Makes me wonder how many people read scriptures/manifestos.

            Almost nobody, I believe. And I’d go further: I don’t think that most people read longer texts that would “train” them for this sort of stuff.