Are U Worthy?

Friday, 10th Mar, 2017 by Krilling for Company in Über-Transgression..., English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Transgression... and tagged 23 working days, Alan Moore, Are U Worthy?, counter-cultural, counter-cultural community, counter-culture, daily basis, dot dot dot, Genesis P-Orridge, Guardianese, Guardianistas, in terms of, issues around, J.G. Ballard, Jeremy Corbyn, Kathy Acker, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Michael Moorcock, nagged by doubts, Norman Foreman B.A., phantasmagoric phrase, prior to, Stewart Home, The Guardian, transgression, transgressive, twenty-three, Vote Corbyn, Will Self, William Burroughs | Leave a comment

If you’re nagged by doubts as to whether you really are a keyly committed core component of the counter-cultural community, then simply engage issues around the following issues…

1. In terms of “in terms of”, how often do you hear this phantasmagoric phrase in terms of a daily basis?

2. Please hierarchialize the following core components of the counter-cultural icon community in terms of their “in-terms-of”-usage metrics: Will Self, J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs, Alan Moore, Miriam Stimbers, Michael Moorcock, Kathy Acker, Genesis P. Orridge, Alan Ginsberg, Stewart Home, Hubert Selby Jr., Norman Foreman (B.A.). (I.e., if you think Foreman uses “in terms of” most in terms of usage metrics, put him first; if you think Acker uses it second-most, put her second; etc.)

3. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “prior to”…

4. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “issues around”……

5. Engage issues around 1 and 2 again, replacing “in terms of” with “Vote Corbyn”………

Once you’ve engaged issues around the above issues, email your answers to Evaluator!@NakedKrunch and you should have your doubts laid to rest within 23 working days…

Previously pre-posted on Overlord of the Über-Feral…

• Les Sez
• Don’t Do Dot…
• Terminator!
• Metricizing Michael…
• Terminal Breach
• More Termination…

Terminal Breach

Thursday, 8th Sep, 2016 by Krilling for Company in Über-Transgression..., English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Linguistics, Post-Transgressive Fiction and tagged 23, 23 times, Bill Burroughs, dot dot dot, English usage, ghost of William Burroughs, Guardian newspaper, Guardian-reader, Guardian-readers, Guardianista, Guardianistas, heroin, heroin enema, in terms of, The Guardian, transgression, transgressive literature, twenty-three, William Burroughs, William S. Burroughs | 2 Comments

It’s said that, if you hear “in terms of” 23 times in 23 hours on the 23rd of the month, the ghost of William Burroughs will appear and offer you a heroin enema.

I don’t know whether this is true.

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• William S. Burroughs
• Alan Moore, C.B.E.
• Michael Moorcock
• Will Self
• Stewart Home
• Cormac McCarthy
• Dr Joan Jay Jefferson
• Serpent’s Tail
• Titans of Trangression…

Don’t Do Dot…

Thursday, 10th Dec, 2015 by Krilling for Company in English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Linguistics and tagged "Stories I Have Tried to Write", bad writing, core, core metric, counting syllables, dot dot dot, dots, ellipses, ellipsis, English language, English usage, Guardianese, Guardianistas, headlines, in terms of, key, key indicator, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, linguistics, M.R. James, on a permanent basis, polysyllables, pretentious and polysyllabic, pretentious writing, prior to, simple English, simplicity, spike, stylistic trick, syllables, trailing dots, urgently throbbing monosyllables | Leave a comment

It’s a mistake to think that Guardianese, the optimal dialect of keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community, mandates optionizing on a permanent basis for the pretentious and polysyllabic. Yes, Guardianistas are addicted to phrases like “in terms of” and “prior to”, but they also like urgently throbbing monosyllables like “key”, “core” and “spike”.

These are unnatural words, taken from headlines, not from normal English. They reveal an important truth: simplicity can be pretentious too. The two aspects of Guardianese come together in phrases like “key indicator” and “core metric”. I would say that “vital sign” and “important statistic” are better and more natural English, but you can’t tell that by counting syllables.

And sometimes Guardianese doesn’t use any syllables at all… Guardianistas also like the stylistic trick of trailing dots. I find it cheap and irritating, so I’m glad that one of my favourite writers thought the same long ago. In his essay “Stories I Have Tried to Write”, M.R. James (1862-1936) said this:

In parenthesis, many common objects may be made the vehicles of retribution, and where retribution is not called for, of malice. Be careful how you handle the packet you pick up in the carriage-drive, particularly if it contains nail parings and hair. Do not, in any case, bring it into the house. It may not be alone… (Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. They are certainly an easy one. Let us have a few more……) (“Stories I Have Tried To Write”, 1929)

In short: Don’t do dot…

Elsewhere other-engageable:

• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Titus Graun
• Reds under the Thread

Get Your Tox Off

Friday, 28th Nov, 2014 by Krilling for Company in English usage, Guardianistas, Statistics and tagged contemporary usage, dot dot dot, English fiction, English usage, feral, ferality, Google, Google Ngram, Google Ngram Viewer, Guardian, Guardian English, Guardian-readers, Guardianese, Guardianista, Guardianistas, lexical statistics, lexicostatistics, linguistic analysis, linguistics, majorly maximal, Maverick Messiah community, Maverick Messiahs, modern English, ngram, ngrams, statistics, toxic, toxic term, toxicity, toxification, toxify, word analysis, worst suspicions | 2 Comments

There’s only one word for it: toxic. The proliferation of this word is an incendiarily irritating abjectional aspect of contemporary culture. My visit to Google Ngram has confirmed my worst suspicions:

Toxic in English

Toxic in English fiction

“Feral” isn’t irritating in quite the same way, but has similarly proliferated:

Feral in English

Feral in English fiction

Noxious note: In terms of majorly maximal members of the Maverick Messiah community (such as myself), it goes without saying that when we deploy such items of Guardianese, we are being ironic dot dot dot

Previously pre-posted (please peruse):

• Septics vs Dirties
• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Reds Under the Thread
• Titus Graun…

Ass You Like It

Thursday, 15th Aug, 2013 by Krilling for Company in Über-Transgression..., English usage, Free Will, Guardianistas, Philosophy, Politics, Post-Transgressive Fiction and tagged assification, assify, bad English, bad writing, braying, Buridan’s ass, choice, dot dot dot, Free Will, Guardian, Guardianista, Guardianistas, literary dilemma, literary dilemmas, mediaeval philosophy, medieval philosophy, Norman Foreman B.A., philosophy, praying, Stewart Home, Will Self | 8 Comments

This is a guest post by Norman Foreman, B.A.

Mediaeval Catholic philosophers wrote about both praying and braying. The braying came from Buridan’s ass, a thought-experiment about choice and free will. Imagine a hungry ass set between two piles of hay that are identical in every way: size, shape, colour, tastiness and so on. Some philosophers argued that, if it had no reason to prefer one pile of hay to the other, the ass would be unable to choose and would therefore starve to death.

I don’t agree: inter alia, nervous systems don’t work symmetrically and we don’t experience objects as fully identical when they’re in different parts of our visual field. However, in a literary sense, I understand what it feels like to be Buridan’s ass. To assify myself, I start by imagining this:

• I’m offered £1000 to read a book by the transgressive author Will Self.

Would I accept? Yes. It would be distasteful, but I’d do it for £1000. Self’s writing is so bad that I might give the money back rather than finish the book, but I’d have a go. Now change the situation:

• I’m offered £1000 to read a book by the transgressive author Stewart Home.

Would I still accept? Yes. Again, it would be distasteful, but I’d do it for the money. Or I’d try, at least. The next step turns me into Buridan’s ass. I imagine this:

• I’m offered £1000 to read a book by either Will Self or Stewart Home (not both). And I have to make the choice for myself.

Now I’m on the horns of a dilemma. I would want the £1000, but I can’t decide which transgressive author I’d rather NOT read. Home is a downmarket version of Self, Self is an upmarket version of Home. It’s Self-as-chav vs Home-as-Oxbridge-grad. And/or vice versâ. They’re both keyly committed components of the Guardianista community, with all that that implies in terms of issues around bad English, mixed metaphors and “in terms of”. I’m happy to say I’ve never read a book by either of them. So if I were offered £1000 to do so and had to choose either Self or Home, I couldn’t do it. Not unassisted. I’d have to toss a coin. Best of three. Or best of five dot dot dot

Previously pre-posted (please peruse):

• Titus Graun
• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Reds under the Thread

The Term Turns dot dot dot

Tuesday, 2nd Jul, 2013 by Krilling for Company in Art, Über-Transgression..., English usage, Guardianistas, In Terms Of, Literature and tagged "'Pushing the Transgressive Envelope Too Far' Too Far" too far, æsthetician John Coulthart, black Savoy nihilinja-suit, dot dot dot, gay Guardian-reader, gay Guardian-readers, gay Guardianista, gay Guardianistas, Grauniness, Grauny, Guardian, Guardian-reader, Guardian-readers, Guardianista, Guardianistas, Guardianisticity, i.t.o., in terms of, John Coulthart, John Coulthart vs Stewart Home, Keyly Committed Core Components of the Counter-Cultural Community, Manchester's Most Maverick Messiahs, Savoy Books, semiotician Stewart Home, Stewart Home, Stewart Home vs John Coulthart, The Term Turns, Titus Graun, transgression, transgressive, transgressivity, usage-metrics for "in terms of", verbicide | 2 Comments

In Titus Graun, I interrogated issues around the Grauniness, or Guardianisticity, of two keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community: the semiotician Stewart Home and the æsthetician John Coulthart. Seeking to utilizate their usage-metrics for the core/epicentral Guardianista phrase “in terms of” (i.t.o.), I interrogated their personal websites like this in terms of January 2013:

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “in terms of”
About 2,180 results

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “the”
About 8,860 results

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “and”
About 8,150 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “in terms of”
About 123 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “the”
About 602 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “and”
About 599 results

Noting that Coulthart’s site used “the/and” approximately 14 times more often than Home’s, I adjusted Home’s raw i.t.o.-score accordingly: 123 x 14 = 1722. I concluded that Coulthart, with an i.t.o.-score of 2180, was approximately 26·59% Graunier than Home – exactly as one might have hoped, given that Coulthart is not merely a Guardianista (good), but a gay Guardianista (doubleplusgood). But that was in terms of January. When I re-interrogated their websites in terms of June 2013, I discovered that the semiotic situation had transitioned in a most disturbing and disquieting way:

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “in terms of”
About 1,080 results

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “the”
About 8,680 results

site:http://www.johncoulthart.com “and”
About 8,010 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “in terms of”
About 119 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “the”
About 541 results

site:http://www.stewarthomesociety.org “and”
About 536 results

I was aghast (literally) to see that Coulthart’s i.t.o.-metrics have spiked (in reverse). Other lexicostatistical metrics have transitioned relatively little: his site now seems to use “the/and” approximately 15·5 times more often than Home’s. Home’s raw i.t.o.-score is 119 and 119 x 15·5 = 1844·5. So it is now Home who is approximately 70·78% Graunier than Coulthart.

This can only be described as highly suspicious. What has Coulthart been up to? Has he been spraying his site with verbicide? Has he donned a black Savoy nihilinja-suit™, crept out under cover of darkness and clubbed innocent i.t.o.’s as they lay basking in the feral radiance of Manchester’s Most Maverick Messiahs? If so, this is “‘Pushing the Transgressive Envelope Too Far’ Too Far” too far. Even M.M.M.M. must look askance at behaviour like that. Surely.

Previously pre-posted (please peruse):

• Titus Graun
• Ex-term-in-ate!
• Reds under the Thread

Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral

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Tag Archives: dot dot dot

Are U Worthy?

Terminal Breach

Don’t Do Dot…

Get Your Tox Off

Ass You Like It

The Term Turns dot dot dot