Keith Olbermann got suspended from his ESPN show for tweeting "Pitiful." He was responding to a tweet by a Penn State graduate who'd tweeted "We are!" (linking to an article about raising $13 million for charity). Olbermann proceeded to tweet "PSU students are pitiful because they’re PSU students — period."
"Pitiful" is a strange word. When we see it alone, as in Olbermann's tweet, we assume it conveys contempt. The 4th meaning in the OED is: "Evoking pitying contempt; very small, poor, or meagre; paltry; inadequate, insignificant; despicable, contemptible." $13 million is very small if the idea is to balance the harm that was done to Penn State's reputation in the recent scandal, and Olbermann has been a critic of the settlement.
"Pitiful" can mean "Full of or characterized by pity; compassionate, merciful, tender." You'd think that literal meaning would predominate in the absence of context, but it doesn't. "Pathetic" works the same way. We assume the sarcastic version: "Miserably inadequate; of such a low standard as to be ridiculous or contemptible." The older, more literal meaning — "Arousing sadness, compassion, or sympathy, esp. through vulnerability or sadness; pitiable" — is overshadowed to the point where you can't even use it without explaining yourself.
And you can't explain yourself on Twitter.
February 27, 2015
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45 comments:
Keith Olbermann -- Solitary, brutish, nasty, and 6'4".
He's got a good voice, though.
"Pitiful" v. "pitiable" is like "nauseated" v. "nauseous". I've given up trying to get people using the right word.
I'll never give up on sink/sank/sunk, ring/rang/rung, etc.
I think you're giving Olbermann too much credit.
I provoked KO on Twitter and earned myself a Block. The man is as pouty and childish as Kanye West, desperate to prove that ESPN hasn't muzzled the most courageous voice of a generation.
But he's one rung away from narrating infomercials and he knows it.
Surely Mr. Olberman has the intellectual ability separate Jerry Sandusky from a student attending Penn State.
Anyone,from an ESPN watcher perspective KO passes his prime a long time ago.
Johanna Lapp, "one rung away from narrating infomercials" made me laugh out loud.
Kow Kollege Keith weighs in on Penn State students?
He defended his school of agriculture degree from Cornell on the grounds that the acceptance ratio for the ag school was about the same as that of the Ivy League Cornell...
Keith does not seem
to get that the pool of applicants to the ag school are not also applying to Penn, Yale, and Dartmouth. This is because Kieth is not very bright.
Certainly not as bright as the average Cornell ag student who went to straight up learn agriculture.
Sort of odd that he'd trash some students raising money for a charity because of what officials at their school did several years before those students even attended. I mean, I know he's a jerk, but this is strange form of collective punishment. Maybe we should blame all Pennsylvanians, or all Americans?
Also, Twitter has destroyed so many careers I really don't understand why famous and powerful people don't have the sense to avoid it.
Olberman was the first of the accusers of men style of sports programing. They had critics before like Howard Cosell who started as an emotional boxing announcer. But Olberman invented serious attack mode of reputations as a sport in itself.
Olberman was so bad that when MSNBC went after the leftist niche market, they hired him to trash President Bush 24/7.
Olberman was so good at veritable public executions that inevitably he suffered Robespierre's fate.
"Brando said...
Also, Twitter has destroyed so many careers I really don't understand why famous and powerful people don't have the sense to avoid it."
Because then spotlight then avoids them. This is a guy who donated to Bill Clinton's charity by giving him a check on the air. Pitiful.
He doubled down after people took offense. It's pretty clear what he meant, and this is not the only supporting example:
" Keith Olbermann @KeithOlbermann · Feb 23
I'd like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics."
The worst person in the world.
I don't get why he was suspended, personally.
We need employers to stand up to the easily offended once in a while and stand by their employees.
You can always find bitches to bitch.
""Pitiful" v. "pitiable" is like "nauseated" v. "nauseous".
The misuse of "nauseous" was a word crime to our professor of surgery. God help the resident who used it.
Penn State students raised over $13,000,000 for pediatric cancer research. Its the largest student run philanthropy in the world and has been raising money long before the Sandusky scandal.
Only KO could find this pitiful.
No, it isn't very pretty what ESPN without pity can do.
Olbermann is an adult and he was picking on children. Pitiful
This was only the start of KO insults toward PSU and its students.
The mighty KO was provoked and put those dumb students in their place. They didn't respect his authority.
Next, KO gets in twitter feud with Jerrry's kids
This post is pitiful. It is tortured word analysis, something real attorneys eschew. "It depends on what the meaning of is, is." Her guy.
Who wins the pool on how long Olberman lasted before he self-immolated? I know you are out there!
Thread winner is Ann Althouse @9:22 with a perfect blend of witty with pity.
I find him loathesome, on par with finding dog poop on the sole of my shoe.
Well "pitiful" is a good word to describe that posturing putz Olberman. Pathetic slides right in there as well.
There's only one greater narcissist than Olberman on scene right now; and oddly enough his last name starts with "O" as well.
I don't get why he was suspended, personally.
We need employers to stand up to the easily offended once in a while and stand by their employees.
You can always find bitches to bitch.
Agreed. And KO has done so much worse than this too. I honestly wonder if this wasn't all some big publicity stunt to get his name back in the news. He's on ESPN2, after all. I bet his ratings aren't top notch.
Michael K, I went to a hospital recently complaining of various symptoms, and the doctor asked me, "Are you nauseous?"
Alas, I was too sick at the time to reply, "You tell me."
I'd forgotten that KO was a matriculate (not sure he graduated) of Cornell's Ag School.
With leadership abilities like his, I'm sure he was president of his fraternity--Alfa Falfa Moo.
Also, Twitter has destroyed so many careers I really don't understand why famous and powerful people don't have the sense to avoid it.
It's like crack cocaine for attention junkies.
It is astonishing at times to witness the defensiveness olby clearly possesses regarding his inability to be admitted to the actual Ivy League part of Cornell vs the Ag school (which has quite "non-ivy" admittance criteria.)
This defensiveness and his general perpetual adolescent personality disorders (amongst other issues) guarantees periodic meltdowns over essentially nothing, such as this incident.
The brain that got Keith Olbermann in trouble: his own
Once again, Althouse's analysis is miserably inadequate. And, also, of such a low standard as to be ridiculous, but not quite contemptible.
Poor, poor pitiful me.
The word that got Keith Olbermann in trouble: "pitiful"
In the words of Mr. T : "I pity the fool!"
Another word that is frequently misused is ironic. It's ironic that KO uses the word pitiful in anything but a self referential way.
If KO were a character in a novel, it would be a good bit of dramatic irony to have him run down the bona fides of students at Penn State by dint of his faux Ivy League pedigree.
Since this is real life, it is ironic and moronic at the same time. Neat trick KO!
Olbermann and Penn State fans - they deserve each other.
Never did a bunch of more arrogant holier-than-thou obfuscationists exist.
THON money goes into the Four Diamonds fund at Penn State Hershey. As of 2012, 82% of Four Diamond's money came from THON.
A whopping 12% of Four Diamond's funds were used in 2012 to pay for pediatric cancer care. 2% was used on "family support."
74%, in 2012, was spent on an "Experimental Therapeutic Fund" that as of that year funded little else but the salaries for two researchers newly brought to PSU Hershey.
Unless you or a family member/friend suffering from pediatric cancer lives in the Hershey, PA area, THON does basically nothing for you or your relative/friend. It's a PR thing for Penn State through and through.
http://pennstatehershey.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=f5841510-5118-400f-96c8-e227688de024&groupId=304420
Unless you or a family member/friend suffering from pediatric cancer lives in the Hershey, PA area, THON does basically nothing for you or your relative/friend. It's a PR thing for Penn State through and through.
Whatever. I am in a children's hospital right now with my daughter. She doesn't have cancer. Lot's of kids here have cancer. Lots of kids here have other horrific stuff. There are stories here that would rip your heart out. Stories here that would make you open your wallet, well, maybe not you. This kind of care is extremely expensive. Sorry they couldn't fund it all.
NYT must be the only place in the world where you can find NCAA rendered with four periods.
Oddly they did not do so for ESPN (which is of course an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network)
@deepelemblues, Everything that goes on at any University is PR.
My son listens to Olbermann, so I hear him quite a bit. At least once or twice a week, he'll do some sports commentary that is genuinely unconventional and better researched than the conventional wisdom on ESPN. It doesn't make up for the moral preening and the fact that he is a nasty piece of work. But I can see why people keep hoping he will pay off.
To those commenters insisting that nauseous and nauseated are not synonyms, my Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition cites two meanings for 'nauseous': 1. causing nausea or disgust 2. affected with nausea or disgust. There immediately follows a paragraph subheaded "usage", from which I'll only bother to copy the first sentence- "Those who insist that 'nauseous' can only be properly used in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for 'nauseated' are mistaken." The same book, for the word 'pitiful', gives the following definition: 1.(archaic) full of pity; COMPASSIONATE 2. a. deserving or arousing pity or commiseration b. exciting pitying contempt(as by meanness or inadequacy)
So, you ignorant arrogant grammar nazi's spouting off without consulting a dictionary are just pitiful, and make me nauseous.
Curious George said...
"Brando said...
This is a guy who donated to Bill Clinton's charity by giving him a check on the air. Pitiful."
And Clinton took it. Shameless.
ndspinelli said...
"This post is pitiful. It is tortured word analysis, something real attorneys eschew. "It depends on what the meaning of is, is." Her guy."
Sick burn, and right on the money.
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