[ExI] Captchas

[David Lubkin]

I'm not going to respond to Clark's apparent trolling, but there
are important points in our exchange that bear expansion
and discussion with the rest of you.

No two words are exactly synonymous. Each has a sound and a
shape and a meaning and a history. Each word was coined
because there wasn't an existing word that meant quite what the
neologist meant, and then it moved on from there.

For that matter, the same word doesn't mean exactly the same
thing in my brain as it does in yours, or in my brain at two different
times in my life.

Particularly for writers like Damien and me, or anyone who
paints or teaches or sells with her words, we need all the words
to choose from.

Since, as Bill Buckley noted, "[y]ou see, that word, and a
hundred or so others, are a part of my *working* vocabulary,
even as a C augmented eleventh chord with a raised ninth can
be said to be an operative resource of the performing jazz
pianist....."

"Because just as the discriminating ear greets gladly the C
augmented eleventh, when just the right harmonic moment
has come for it, so the fastidious eye encounters happily the
word that says exactly what the writer wished not only said but
conveyed, here defined as a performing writer sensitive to
cadence, variety, marksmanship, accent, nuance, and drama."

But there's another side to it. Where I said I probably wouldn't
hire someone "whose non-standard usage seems based on
ignorance."

Our young Perry Metzger made the point about 20 years ago
on the Libertarian Party mailing list that the farther out your
ideas are, the more conventional you need to be when you
sell them. He therefore advocated that all libertarians wear
a suit while preaching the gospel.

No one will think less of you because you (say) use 'affect'
and 'effect' correctly. But some will notice and will think
less of you if you don't.

I won't hire someone who doesn't because the conflation
of words is nails on a chalkboard to me, and suggests to
me that I couldn't trust him to get the words right when he
has to write something or speak on my behalf, and that
I couldn't trust that he'd get the details right in his regular
work.

Whether it's finding work in this lousy economy, keeping
the work you have, or persuading others on one of the
crazy ideas we here advocate, it's essential to exude
competence. And getting the details wrong is a good way
to convince people you don't have it.


-- David.