One way I come up with subjects to write about is letting my mind run free, and the best way for me to do that is to mow grass. While I was mowing, the word “crepuscular1” came to mind, along with the fact that the number one birther these days has a PhD from Harvard. I asked myself: is birther writing more or less difficult than anti-birther writing?
I set up a research project, but the results weren’t interesting. The writing here is about 11th grade level, and Corsi and Unruh at WorldNetDaily tend to be somewhat higher, so that didn’t provide any sensational headline. Anomalous multisyllabic words exemplified by “crepuscular,” appearing in sentences lengthier than characteristic sentences in an article, can bias the Flesch-Kinkaid readability results towards a higher reading level than one otherwise resulting from the analysis of material in a publication. The preceding artificially “dumbed up” sentence rated a grade level of 26.2.
The good thing is that I have this neat word to use about birthers, I have an article about something, and I have learned that I should run my articles through a grammar checker.
1Crepuscular refers to animals that are active at twilight, an apt word I think for the birthers.
Like you, I have to define crepuscular every time I use it. I get similar results with penultimate (next to the last as in ‘the penultimate chapter of a book’.)
“the number one birther these days has a PhD from Harvard.”
In Corsi’s case, PhD stands for ‘pile higher and deeper.’ WND is written at about an 8th grade level.
And still goes over many reader’s heads.
Not the Unruh and Corsi articles I checked.
Penultimate I knew; crepuscular I had to look up.
I never have trouble with penultimate. I play croquet and the next to last hoop is called penultimate; the last hoop is rover, then you peg out.
WND commentator Jack Cashill has a PhD from Purdue.
Sounds like it should mean “crunchy on the outside”. I fact, as far a I’m concerned that IS what it means. (Hey, if Burfers can decide what “Natural Born Citizen” means, I can choose my own definition of “crepuscular”.)
Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber (university and airline bomber), has a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan.
What was his major? Chickens?
Yellow journalism major.
Apropos of the title of this thread, I first encountered that wonderful word thanks to Edward Gorey
Anyone else think birtherism is reminiscent of The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave?
They may write reasonably well, but they certainly have lost any claim they may have had to be regarded as legitimate journalists.
I have written to Unruh several times, spelling out for him how Supreme Court conferences operate. When the last few birther appeals were scheduled for conferences, I explained to Unruh that they had already been rejected because not a single justice had asked the government to file reply briefs and that the conferences were mere formalities. Unruh ignored what I wrote and he continued to beat the drum that SCOTUS might grant cert in those cases.
As for Corsi, I’m still waiting for him to provide evidence that his Hawaii P.I. actually has a license. And while he’s at it, he can explain to us why he didn’t know about the “two-citizen parent” requirement when he wrote “Obama Nation.”
I suspect Unruh already knew everything you were telling him, but admitting it had no profit margin.
That wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve long suspected that Farah, Coulter, et al. don’t really believe a lot of their bile, but it is very lucrative bile.
I messed with a co-worker and told them that Rush Limbaugh is really a liberal, making money hand over fist off of the right wing with his I am an Entertainer not a Journalist speil. I expect i’m off the xmas card list. He will never listen to Rush the same way. Good times.
If you really want to mess with a co-worker, ask if they heard the rumor that Ann Coulter had an abortion at Planned Parenthood.
I was in the check-out line at Costco, and the cashier told me she listens all the time to Glenn Beck. I said to her, “did you know Beck fell off the wagon? I hear he’s back in rehab.”
Shocked silence.