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

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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

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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