A Few Remarks from Newman
Apostrophes Matter

Sharing Is Not Necessarily Caring

Like any reasonable person, I am annoyed by the tendency on the part of some people to use the word "share" in place of "said" or some equivalent. "Jane shared that she had pizza for lunch." I guess it's one of those infections that has spread from the world of psychotherapy. But I very much enjoyed this item from a news story about a fitness instructor who apparently went a little berserk and started sending death threats to people she viewed as competitors:

“All hell is gonna rain fire down on your world like never seen before,” Steffen allegedly shared in a message to one victim.

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Ha!

I am hijacking these comments to ask a question. What happens if the Dems manage to get Trump out of office about April, after the primaries have begun?

AMDG

That one's not widespread here (yet). I hope it doesn't catch on. Still, the example is very funny.

It keeps on being funny to me, every time I think about it. The woman was not joking, either. She made other threats that were much more plausible than specific than a rain of fire.

I doubt they will be able to, Janet, since they have to have a fair amount of Republican co-operation. But if they did...I don't have any idea. It feels like things are just disintegrating.

Very funny.

Hope the catholic francoists are happy with their choice of leader

[sigh]
[Yeats cliche]

If only she had reached out to her persecutors before sharing....

The people she shared with reached out to the police.

In case it's not obvious, by the way, the Yeats cliche I'm thinking of is "The center cannot hold."

Not that the line itself is a cliche, but its application to our politics has become so. For good reasons.

Thanks for clearing up the Yeat's mystery. I got stuck on the "francoists" and tried to fit Yeats specifically with that. :)

That "sharing" made me think of the old 1970s Bob Newhart show.

I think it was about 20 years ago that I started hearing that line used by politicians and journalists. Francoists would be one of the bits that are being flung off by centrifugal force.

I don't think I ever saw Bob Newhart. Didn't see much tv at all back then. I did see several episodes of The Gong Show which certainly seems to have been ahead of its time.

I watched the El Camino movie. People I Saw it with connected it to all kinds of influences. That was because they saw a podcast which I ‘shared’ with them With some professor who has done deep study on Breaking Bad and Vince cable. Thinking about that I realized that the word ‘shared’ In its present meaning indicates the act of sending information in an email message. We use it for sending a link. So Not being totally humorless I hope but are they using the word in the technical sense in which it is youth today for communicating information by email? Clearly she was communicating weird information like she was going to rain down fire on their heads but its still sharing’ In the modern sense maybe

Yeah, that’s plausible. Seems less likely, but could be.

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