The Posts I Most Enjoy

[dirt doctor]

It was a dark and stormy night and there I was detecting in a seedy part of town. How did I come to this place in such terrible weather? Was it because of what "she" said or was it my own inner demons that drove me to dig, dig, dig? and what was that 76 signal?

Just last Friday I was sitting in my office off Maple Avenue. The blinds were pulled down and the neon sign across the street was blinking on and off when "she" walked through my door. She was a short drink in a tall glass.

"Are you happy to see me or is that a detector in your pocket?"

Actually, it was a Minelab G5000. I carried the battery slung low in a holster under my left arm.

Mickey Spillane LIVES !!! Nice one Chestnut .

 

[SafeMode]

"1st. point in writing for an audience, make sure the audience can understand." I figured that most herein were capable of reading at a fifth grade level, a benefit of the doubt that was my undoing and further complicated by my gratuitous civility. At least I need not wonder who's been supporting the Dr. Seuss corner of the market...

As a general rule, you should use the simplest, easiest word that clearly conveys your meaning. If there are two or more synonyms you could use, pick the easiest one to understand. Of course, there are times when you do need to use bigger or more unusual terms because there just is not a simpler synonym that still accurately gets across what you want to convey.

You also need to consider what audience you are writing for. If you are writing for young children, you will want to keep your vocabulary very simple and restrict yourself to common words. If you are writing for professional scientists, you will need to use a more complex vocabulary. If you are writing for the general public, you will want to be somewhere in the middle.

There was a time in my life when I thought some people were pretentious if they used a $10 word when a 50 cent word would have sufficed. But now I feel like it wouldn't hurt if people started expanding their vocabularies. I see the street slang and texting abbreviations as a sort of dumbing down of our culture. I think we need to start using sentences that are not totally monosyllabic.

Definitely keep it simple for smaller children, but slightly older children should expand their vocabularies even at a young age. Using simple words is fine to convey the point, but larger words can expand the point even more, drawing even more attention to it. In addition, using big words gets people's attention, and even though they might make a remark about it, they will often find themselves using that word later. So, using big words can only be a good thing, especially in these days where everyone shortens their words in "text speak."

 

[Awendaw]

Omg

 

[ParkHunter]

Park, whatever your intentions for asking, yours is the first fair question asked. My intention is to learn. I will admit to having a knack for pissing some people off, although that usually isn't my intention. Kahlil Gibran said that the most sensitive of men will hasten to hurt your feelings lest you precede them and hurt theirs. Well what happened herein wasn't exactly a preemptive strike, but I admittedly and consciously escalated it. It's funny - the same thing that has turned people off herein has pissed off others, as well. I remember a deputy telling me that when he first met me he hated my guts because he thought that I was always trying to show off. Then he realized that was just the way I talked. As an only child I grew accustomed to hanging with older people and acquiring some of their tastes. My circle was apparently different than many others, but I don't regret it. But what the by-passers to this carnage don't know - couldn't know - is how much similar !!!! I've endured throughout my life for simply communicating in the way to which I've become accustomed. Can it come across as pretentious? Yeah, I guess so. But it isn't. It's the way I am. When I first posted the offending comment, I wanted others to be candid with what they thought about while detecting. I'd recently read a post by someone who really did a great job of communicating what their hunt was like. It really put me on the ground with him and I felt like I was with him in a manner that no video could accomplish (so much for the pic and a thousand words). I simply wanted to see more of the same by still other posters herein. While I have made my grievances with the group known, it has also shown the capacity to be generous (save for possibly showing where everyone does their hunting). I thought my request for more details was a reasonable one; when I got chewed out for communicating that request, I got angry. I don't regret anything I've said, but I do regret how this has evolved. I am a polarizing man by nature. People love me, or hate me. Rarely is there anything in between. But I will say this: Sometimes they have changed their minds about me. That they have come to dislike me is a given. But others have come to appreciate some of my talents, particularly those for whom those skills have proven profitable. But hey, we don't always use our superpowers for good, 24/7. I apologize to you, Park Hunter, for using your question to give some context to what I've posted. But thanks for asking.

OK. So you do or do not metal detect?

 

[Pulltabby]

Not likely will use those ridiculous ! words on a MD forum period !

 

[MN Shutterbug]

"Are you happy to see me or is that a detector in your pocket?"

Actually, it was a Minelab G5000. I carried the battery slung low in a holster under my left arm.

LMAO

 

[dirt doctor]

That's funny Pulltabby !

 

[MN Shutterbug]

So, using big words can only be a good thing, especially in these days where everyone shortens their words in "text speak."

Within reason.

 

[Ice Scratcher]

Bs imo ymmv..

<*)))>{

 

[SeabeeRon]

Where's Beerdoodle when we need him??!!?

 

[Turtle Creek]

As a general rule, you should use the simplest, easiest word that clearly conveys your meaning. If there are two or more synonyms you could use, pick the easiest one to understand. Of course, there are times when you do need to use bigger or more unusual terms because there just is not a simpler synonym that still accurately gets across what you want to convey.

Looks like he used to do this. And do it well. I have seen some of his past writings. His older writing style is drastically different than the Original Post, and certainly was much more friendly/less authoritative.

 

[Ice Scratcher]

I can use BIG WORDS too!

 

[stewart73]

What the heck is everybody so upset about?? A guy writes a post in overly-flowery language and people hit the roof. Right, I get that it's not the way most people write on an MD forum, but there are many people out there who do in fact speak this way. Would probably be tough going if we all posted that way, but as it stands that is not the case. This forum is made up of all different types of people and that's what makes it great. And posts like the original sure beat those so badly strewn with errors that you can barely make out what the guy is trying to say...but make fun of those posts and you get crucified. I prefer the overdone to the unintelligible (or simply lazy) any day.

 

[ParkHunter]

What the heck is everybody so upset about?? A guy writes a post in overly-flowery language and people hit the roof. Right, I get that it's not the way most people write on an MD forum, but there are many people out there who do in fact speak this way. Would probably be tough going if we all posted that way, but as it stands that is not the case. This forum is made up of all different types of people and that's what makes it great. And posts like the original sure beat those so badly strewn with errors that you can barely make out what the guy is trying to say...but make fun of those posts and you get crucified. I prefer the overdone to the unintelligible (or simply lazy) any day.

Maybe you missed the part(s) where he insulted mainly all users for having lower than a 5th grade education level?

Nothing but friendly advice given, in return with retaliation from your "grammatically correct" fellow.

I advise you read the beginning pages if you haven't.

 

[abbynormal]

Hey Writercop, can I ask 2 friendly questions?
1- What sign are you? I am a Scorpio, to be fair.
2- What have you written? I love to see all the talents on here- there are some threads displaying some of our members' wonderful artistic talents.

I have not noticed any writers on here before. Would I be able to read any of your works? What do you write?
Thanks!

 

[SafeMode]

btw just to fit in, my above post was created from 3 different ones i copied from the net.

id rather be detecting than use a word that has more than 3 vowels

 

[Ice Scratcher]

Where's Beerdoodle when we need him??!!?

X2!!!

I really miss his wit around here...

<*)))>{

 

[S.Klick]

I Have been looking Through My Bartenders Dictionary But I cant Find Any of the Ingredients WriterCop mentioned, Are They in the Rum or Vodka section???

 

[Beaker]

http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp

0100100100100000011001100110111101110101011011100110010000100000011011010111100100100000011001100110100101110010011100110111010000100000011101110110000101101100011010110110100101101110011001110010000001101100011010010110001001100101011100100111010001111001001000000110100001100001011011000110011000100000011001000110111101101100011011000110000101110010001000000111010001110111011011110010000001110111011001010110010101101011011001010110111001100100011100110010000001100001011001110110111100100000011000010110111001100100001000000110101101100101011001010111000000100000011001110110111101101001011011100110011100100000011000100110000101100011011010110010000001110100011011110010000001101101011110010010000001110000011011110111001101110100001000000111010001101111001000000111001001100101011011000110100101110110011001010010000001110100011010000110010100100000011001010111100001100011011010010111010001100101011011010110010101101110011101000010000100100000001000000100100101110011001000000111010001101000011000010111010000100000011101110110010101101001011100100110010000111111

 

[MN Shutterbug]

http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp

0100100100100000011001100110111101110101011011100110010000100000011011010111100100100000011001100110100101110010011100110111010000100000011101110110000101101100011010110110100101101110011001110010000001101100011010010110001001100101011100100111010001111001001000000110100001100001011011000110011000100000011001000110111101101100011011000110000101110010001000000111010001110111011011110010000001110111011001010110010101101011011001010110111001100100011100110010000001100001011001110110111100100000011000010110111001100100001000000110101101100101011001010111000000100000011001110110111101101001011011100110011100100000011000100110000101100011011010110010000001110100011011110010000001101101011110010010000001110000011011110111001101110100001000000111010001101111001000000111001001100101011011000110100101110110011001010010000001110100011010000110010100100000011001010111100001100011011010010111010001100101011011010110010101101110011101000010000100100000001000000100100101110011001000000111010001101000011000010111010000100000011101110110010101101001011100100110010000111111

Congrats, and yeah you're weird.