Althouse: "Folks, it's the internet. how he spells or chooses to spell on the internet has no connection to how smart he actually is."

December 6, 2018

"Folks, it's the internet. how he spells or chooses to spell on the internet has no connection to how smart he actually is."

"i'm a university graduate and i've gone on illegible keysmashes repeatedly. get off your soapboxes."

That's the top-rated comment on "A College Student In Florida Was Arrested For Threatening To Kill A Professor For Scheduling A 7 A.M. Final/Rafael Decomas told police he had no real intent to harm anyone" (Buzzfeed).

The tweet in question read, "Bey I gern fucking kill dis professor bey this is my confession to a premeditated murder."

I'll just leave it at that. I need another cup of covfefe.

51 comments:

MadisonMan said...: Because blowing off steam is illegal, should you be surprised when explosions happen?; 12/6/18, 6:50 AM
Buffy said...: The BBC Pidgin edition is hilarious to read. Why do they have it? Oh, because so many residents of the Isle of Britain evidently speak England in such a way that the State deemed it useful to propagate its propaganda in a language they are more likely to understand.; 12/6/18, 6:54 AM
tim maguire said...: That's so bad, it's hard to tell what he's saying. More than just the spelling is off.

Crappy keypads only excuse so much. At some point, you need to proofread. If you don't, then the people whose time you are wasting have a right to complain about it.; 12/6/18, 6:56 AM
Buffy said...: A1 top left of BBCP this morning.

Ghana Police Service arrest den detain bus conductor wey stab 29 year old Nigerian to death for Pokuase, Accra.
Di victim who di mate stab die shortly after dem carry am to Amasaman Government Hospital.
Greater Accra Regional Police Command PRO DSP Afia Tenge, talk BBC Pidgin say di victim Michael Misha dey travel plus four other colleagues for Sprinter bus from Circle to Pokuase.
Ambulances no dey, yet you wan use $12 million for medical drones - Minority blast Ghana gov't
Ghanians react afta Jean Mensah reverse ‘we see am, we pick am, we like am,’ logo
Eight NDC flagbearer aspirants form 'yentua' alliance over 400k filing fees
Along di way argument start for di bus inside between them den di bus conductor over di transport fare.
Police say when dem finally arrive Pokuase, di argument now turn into fight wey di mate grab sharp object for di ground take stab di deceased.
According to DSP Tenge, di killer mate currently dey inside police custody whist dem dey continue plus investigations into di incident.

*Topics Wey Dem Resemble*

Man I hope Florida becomes more like Ghana and England. It’s good that they let felons vote.; 12/6/18, 6:58 AM
Jaq said...: Liberals are conformists, nothing annoys them like a free spirit who knows more than one way to spell a word.; 12/6/18, 7:11 AM
Jaq said...: It gets back to the post about how liberals have sexual fantasies about being bound and controlled and conservatives have fantasies about freedom.; 12/6/18, 7:13 AM
Birches said...: I assumed the bad spelling was part of the schtick.

It's funny when read like that.; 12/6/18, 7:18 AM
Paco Wové said...: Threatening to kill people in a "tweet" probably does say something about how smart you are, though.; 12/6/18, 7:18 AM
Jaq said...: It’s an obvious joke. But we live in the era of that’s not funny.; 12/6/18, 7:23 AM
Oso Negro said...: It bothers me disproportionately to have a proofreading error in texts or posts. I guess it is a concern from an earlier era, when we were schooled to spell properly. I have often wished there were a correct button on this blog, because it is particularly hard for me to correctly hit all buttons when I am posting using my phone. That said, it is a grievous error to equate use of standard grammar, spelling, or diction with intelligence. It is more a matter of culture and schooling.; 12/6/18, 7:28 AM
WK said...: At least he was consistent in spelling “bey”.; 12/6/18, 7:31 AM
Bob R said...: How do you get away with scheduling a 7am final? Asking for a friend.; 12/6/18, 7:36 AM
Wince said...: "i'm a university graduate and i've gone on illegible keysmashes repeatedly. get off your soapboxes."

Isn't the word s/he is looking for "unintelligible"?

Every letter in a "keysmash" is legible.; 12/6/18, 7:46 AM
Jaq said...: I don’t get how anybody could read that as stupid or unintelligible. Except that he didn’t account for the lack of any sense of humor on the internet, it seemed very funny and well written to me.; 12/6/18, 7:50 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: The problem with posting on the Internet is that often people have lost the filter between their brain and mashing the Enter key.

In a real life situation, normal people who don't have impulse control issues, will stop and think a bit before spouting off. Think!! Is this the time and place for this rant? Are these words going to cause pain, harm, anger?. Are they fighting words? What are the consequences of my saying or doing this? Maybe there is a better way to get my point across.

In Internet land, people are anonymous. On the internet no one knows you are a dog, as the old joke goes.....but it is true. In real life, you might get a punch to the nose.

There isn't any real consequence (usually) to saying rude things on the net. We see it all the time in the comment section of this very blog. The rude person(s) just change their identities and continue on.

So people get tuned up. Have another glass of wine. Smoke another joint. Say anything you want and smash that Enter Key.; 12/6/18, 7:56 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Isn't the word s/he is looking for "unintelligible"? Every letter in a "keysmash" is legible."

But "illegible" means unreadable. Something could be unreadable because it is full of typos and misspellings. I don't think "illegible" is restricted to handwriting, where the problem is badly formed individual letters.

The OED has a meaning of illegible "Unreadable, because of language or matter." I don't think I've noticed that. We tend to say "unreadable" if it's the subject matter and the kind of prose.; 12/6/18, 8:09 AM
narciso said...: Hes a gorn green lizard from star trek; 12/6/18, 8:25 AM
tcrosse said...: That's not funny any more; 12/6/18, 8:27 AM
mezzrow said...: CILL my landlord.; 12/6/18, 8:27 AM
stlcdr said...: I’d also say that it’s not illegible or, possibly, unintelligible. As noted above, it’s simply a foolish attempt at humor (foolish simply because of the the dumb clowns with their panties in a wad).; 12/6/18, 8:28 AM
Jason said...: Hawaii people be like "hold my Primo."

http://www.pidginbible.org/Concindex.html; 12/6/18, 8:30 AM
stevew said...: Quite clearly sarcasm or a joke but such are often missed on the interwebs, call it illegible or unintelligible if you will.

Also seems worthy of investigation, arrest is just stupid unless the writer has some history of violence.; 12/6/18, 9:01 AM
Original Mike said...: narciso got arrested?; 12/6/18, 9:08 AM
chillblaine said...: he spelled "my confession..." very well tho.

Hi fam. My chan is operating well. There is a section just for Cope Land, which will be huge, eg, Cope Land Launch; a huge section on Telecom, as I now operate mb telecom, eg, how to make a TIA568B jack; also a huge political section, my latest is a rageboner for Evan McLaren and other stuff. Enjoy.; 12/6/18, 9:22 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Reads like a joke to me.; 12/6/18, 9:44 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Unless they have some reason to believe that this man was actually planning a murder, aside from the tweet, arresting him seems absurd.; 12/6/18, 9:46 AM
Wilbur said...: Original Mike said...
narciso got arrested?

I had the same thought.; 12/6/18, 10:14 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: College student aping ghetto-speak.

Bey dis my confesiion to a premeditated shrug.

I hgope he didn't try to klill the profd.; 12/6/18, 10:41 AM
Ken B said...: That's a modestly credible representation of a Newfoundland accent. It might be an attempt at some other accent.; 12/6/18, 10:45 AM
gilbar said...: speaking of people with an interesting grasp of language
Ocasio-Cortez: ‘It’s inevitable that we can use the transition to 100% renewable energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social, and racial justice in the United States of America’

i'm just fixated on that:
It's inevitable that we can

along the lines of:
it's a Certainty that we Might be able to
I'm Positive it Could happen
It's a leadpipe cinch that we might pull it off; 12/6/18, 10:46 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: "It's a leadpipe cinch that we might pull it off"

Yeah, that definitely might be it.; 12/6/18, 10:57 AM
Sam L. said...: I thought the season on profs was CLOSED!; 12/6/18, 11:01 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: is "keysmash" onomatopoeia?

"I was typing away, when all the sudden there was this big keysmash,and all my words became unintelligible"; 12/6/18, 11:04 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: John Donne:
"License my roving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land..."

I never read or the hear word Newfoundland without thinking of that poem. It is the curse of a liberal education. Studying a map or discussing dogs can lead to erotic poetry.

But I am sure they know all about that at Meadehouse.; 12/6/18, 11:10 AM
J. Farmer said...: Isn't that just ebonics?; 12/6/18, 11:27 AM
Rosalyn C. said...: I've watched too many videos of students physically attacking teachers in classrooms to find this funny at all. Stupid maybe.; 12/6/18, 1:00 PM
Big Mike said...: If Decomas "had no real intent to harm anyone" then why did he send out a death threat?; 12/6/18, 1:00 PM
PM said...: Shouldn't that read "...premedicated murder"?; 12/6/18, 1:04 PM
Big Mike said...: "Folks, it's the internet [sic]. how [sic] he spells or chooses to spell on the internet [sic] has no connection to how smart he actually is. i'm [sic] a university graduate and i've [sic] gone on illegible keysmashes repeatedly. get [sic] off your soapboxes."

Out in the real world Rafael Decomas and Kimmers Quinn will discover that managers really do expect university graduates to know about capitalizing the first word of a sentence and, in general, using the grammar expected of a high school graduate. Rafael and Kimmers may have the diploma that says they're educated, but are they really?; 12/6/18, 1:07 PM
Leland said...: I can accept agree that, despite poor spelling skills, the tweet was able to communicate a message. And because it communicated a message, it suggests a level of intelligence. Still, the guy admitted to premeditated murder, which sounds in this case like attempted murder. Doesn't that speak to his level of intelligence?; 12/6/18, 1:24 PM
Infinite Monkeys said...: I don't think that the point of this is whether or not some rando is intelligent or not, or whether he was making a real threat or not. It's that the most liked comment was defending his misspellings, but every time Trump misspells something, we're treated to a day or more of comments about how he's an idiot.

Let's give the benefit of the doubt to student Florida Man while we won't cut any slack for the president, a man who has at least enough intelligence to succeed in business and get elected president. It's funny.; 12/6/18, 1:43 PM
Mountain Maven said...: How's that open admissions policy working out?; 12/6/18, 2:13 PM
cassandra lite said...: Broward County invited him to become a school safety officer.; 12/6/18, 2:22 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Let's give the benefit of the doubt to student Florida Man while we won't cut any slack for the president...."

What makes you think we should ever cut the same slack for the president as we would for someone who is not the president? "With great power comes great responsibility..." to not act like just another random asshole.

(That said, I would assume any misspellings in Trump's tweets are just typos.); 12/6/18, 2:40 PM
Temujin said...: I ginee mye guddah.; 12/6/18, 2:55 PM
Birkel said...: The University of Florida has classes at 7:25am.
So exams at that hour are hardly surprising.

https://registrar.ufl.edu/courses/classtimes

That makes the joke more obvious, I think.; 12/6/18, 4:15 PM
Mary Beth said...: What makes you think we should ever cut the same slack for the president as we would for someone who is not the president?

Because we're talking about typing (on a digital keyboard) skills. There are a lot of things for which we should hold the president to a higher standard, but I'd like to hear why you think typing is one of them.; 12/6/18, 4:46 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: is there a Death Threat Legibility Threshold that needs to be met,

or do we just let anybody do it?; 12/6/18, 5:35 PM
Big Mike said...: Since when does the professor schedule the final exams? Every place I have ever been the final exam schedule is set by the school based on when the class meets, and the schedule is published before the start of the semester.; 12/6/18, 7:19 PM
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Known Unknown said...: "Liberals are conformists, nothing annoys them like a free spirit who knows more than one way to spell a word."

Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
I've seen those English dramas, too.
They're cruel.
If there's any other way to spell a word it's fine with me.
With me.; 12/7/18, 8:37 AM