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#143555 06/03/05 02:42 PM
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Submitted for the prescriptivist's enjoyment, and the descriptivist's sniping:

http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/nq/


#143556 06/03/05 03:34 PM
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Sniping? ~ no way, Dgeigh! No, this descriptivist really enjoyed the joke of a pedant completely killing communication :)


#143557 06/03/05 04:12 PM
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Much of the time I don't "get" Non Sequitur. But I love when it features Obvious Man. That I get. He's as good as Dave Barry and tsuwm rolled into one.

(nice to see you back in these here parts, Dgeigh!)


#143558 06/03/05 04:20 PM
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There's nothing *non-sequitur about it (this time). However, it might be irony. (he-he/running away-e)

Don't all prescriptivists have an obvious *relationship with thier ego(s)?


#143559 06/03/05 09:16 PM
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See, this is really what I love about this board - the ability to BE a prescriptivist without killing communication. (Because I'm far too, too nice and polite ever to correct anyone in public. I just scream at my radio.)


#143560 06/03/05 09:47 PM
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sniping

What I'd like to know is how he knew what the caller's state of mind was. For all he knew the caller was anxious about Obviousman's potential for going off on some rant about word usage. Personally I think O'man was just being nice.


#143561 06/03/05 09:58 PM
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For all he knew the caller was anxious about Obviousman's potential for going off on some rant about word usage.

My liver hurts.


#143562 06/03/05 10:49 PM
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Dgeigh, that was hilarious! Thanks! How do you people find these things?


#143563 06/04/05 01:53 AM
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We communicate widely ;)


#143564 08/28/05 12:38 AM
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Could someone please post Obviousman's suggested replacement word? -I think it was 'eager' but I'm not sure and this has been bugging me for quite a while now :/


#143565 08/28/05 11:39 AM
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I think 'eager' is the word that you're looking for, zeronix. It also m ight be worth pointing out that, per the OED, the meaning for 'anxious' that O'man was railing against has been in use since the mid 18th century.


#143566 08/28/05 12:33 PM
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...when I try to refresh my memory I get today's strip, not the aforementioned Jun 3 '05. And the archive, alas, retains only one month. :-(


#143567 08/28/05 02:18 PM
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The original strip had Obvious Man as a guest on a call-in show responding to a caller who said that he had been anxious to talk with Obvious Man. O'Man stepped outside his role and ignored the obvious facts that language changes and that definitions of words are not carved in stone.


#143568 08/28/05 03:08 PM
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Fong... I'd thought the (obvious part of the) humor was that the normaly calm, cool and collected obvious man ripped the caller a new *one... fulfilling *his anxious destiny...


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