"Speaking or writing are your expertise"
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There's a Facebook app called "What Geek Are You?" If you let it digest the contents of your account, and perhaps answer some questions — I haven't tried it, and don't know the details — it decides what (kind of) geek you are. David C reports that one of his friends, who is fluent or literate in five languages, was classified as "Geek in English/Language", with this description thereby posted to his wall:
Speaking or writing are your expertise. There's nothing you can't say or write that gets your point across in an easy to understand way. You are the master of whatever extra languages you study, whether its a romantic like Spanish or French, or something completly different.
Is this pathetic incompetence, or hip irony, or perhaps both? I'm not sure.
jordan buckley said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:12 pm
Pathetic incompetence is par for the course when it comes to Facebook quizzes.
Twitter Trackbacks for Language Log » “Speaking or writing are your expertise” [upenn.edu] on Topsy.com said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:17 pm
[…] Language Log » “Speaking or writing are your expertise” languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2704 – view page – cached There's a Facebook app called "What Geek Are You?" If you let it digest the contents of your account, and perhaps answer some questions – I haven't tried it, and don't know the details — it decides what (kind of) geek you are. David C reports that one of his friends, who is fluent or literate in five languages, was classified as "Geek in English/Language", with this description thereby… Read moreThere's a Facebook app called "What Geek Are You?" If you let it digest the contents of your account, and perhaps answer some questions – I haven't tried it, and don't know the details — it decides what (kind of) geek you are. David C reports that one of his friends, who is fluent or literate in five languages, was classified as "Geek in English/Language", with this description thereby posted to his wall: View page Tweets about this link […]
Adam said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:19 pm
"Speaking or writing [or both] are your expertise"? Still pretty bad.
Rhacodactylus said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
Hey, they said it was his expertise, not theirs. Frankly, they were thrilled the sentence made sense at all.
~Rhaco
Brian said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:45 pm
"Never attribute to hip irony what can adequately explained by incompetence."
Dunx said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:48 pm
The questions on the quiz are pretty poorly worded, too, so the evidence for incompetence is quite convincing.
Dunx said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
Excellent paraphrase of Hanlon's Razor, Brian.
Aaron Toivo said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
There is method in that madness. It looks designed to flout someone's poorly-educated idea of what grammar is about. And it is too careful: there is one error each of a lot of types.
James said,
October 12, 2010 @ 7:56 pm
Surely it was composed by someone for whose first language is not English.
Mark Beadles said,
October 12, 2010 @ 8:37 pm
You should understand something about Facebook quizzes. They are not, generally speaking, highly professional endeavors nor are they created by Facebook. There are a few simple, point-click-and-type style tools that let anyone build a quiz. Neither programming ability nor an knowledge in the subject matter are required. In other words, nearly every Facebook quiz is an example of painful incompetence surrounded by a thin veneer of pseudo-respectability. The quizzes look vaguely definitive or at least professional, but they're actually a free-for-all. You're lucky if you get proper English (as you've seen), much less logic or research.
J.M.M. said,
October 12, 2010 @ 8:42 pm
I'm just here waiting for Liberman to be accused of prescriptivism. Shouldn't be long now.
But as I wait, I think it should be pointed out that, unfortunately, Facebook isn't incompetent at everything and has hits and revenue greater than google's. Can anyone explain why or how?
I admit I was a recluse even before social networking was a word (OK, two words/phrase/concept) but, damn, I don't want my life to be a commodity sold by someone else, and this shows how far service is removed from revue, doesn't it?
(Yes, this is probably too far off point; remove as necessary.)
Josh said,
October 12, 2010 @ 8:44 pm
Pathetic incompetence gave birth to that piece of text. Hip irony is the parental neglect that allowed it to see the light of day unedited.
tablogloid said,
October 12, 2010 @ 9:06 pm
Don't blame facebook. It is just a funnel.
Lyman said,
October 12, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
I suppose it is hip irony that allows me to chuckle that many of the comments also have glaring grammatical issues?
Ellie said,
October 12, 2010 @ 9:16 pm
Before I gloat that Canadians are not as bad, I should confess that I just read one of our own write about Facebook, the "social networking sight."
It's all that danged intronet's fawlt!
Sighhh.
Amy Stoller said,
October 12, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
Facebook quizzes are mostly laughable; that's when they aren't spam. or malware, or some other sort of Bad Thing.
Craig said,
October 12, 2010 @ 10:26 pm
From the people who brought you All your base are belong to us ?
Adrian Bailey said,
October 13, 2010 @ 2:52 am
tablogloid said, Don't blame facebook. It is just a funnel.
Yes, blame Facebook. They designed this awful quiz-making facility.
groki said,
October 13, 2010 @ 4:34 am
maybe pathetic irony, but my vote is for hip incompetence.
The Ridger said,
October 13, 2010 @ 6:08 am
The thing to bear in mind, of course, is that "a Facebook quiz" means "a quiz ON Facebook" not "by" or "from" Facebook. So, in a sense, blaming Facebook is like blaming the FCC when a tv show gets it wrong.
Bob Lieblich said,
October 13, 2010 @ 8:17 am
Mark Beadles: "Neither programming ability nor an[y] knowledge in the subject matter are required." I take this as neither incompetence nor hip irony. Rather, it is further evidence of the encroachment of the plural on the supposedly disjunctive territory of neither-nor and, to a lesser extent, either-or. I predict that in a quarter-century or so, sentences like that will pass without comment by anyone younger than, say, 75.
John F said,
October 13, 2010 @ 8:33 am
That's mild. I saw a friend of my liked 'remanising about the old days'. There are whole websites devoted to giving you things to 'like' and so many of the statements have horrible grammar and worse spelling. Such sites are probably just a way of gaining Google ad impressions and I won't visit them to complain for that reason.
You know what's even worse? There is no direct way to comment on the link the person 'liked'. So I would have to send a message; and I don't want to be that guy.
Rodger C said,
October 13, 2010 @ 8:58 am
"Don't blame facebook. It is just a funnel."
Like Dante's Hell.
"I saw a friend of my liked 'remanising about the old days'."
S/he must have meant "Riemannizing."
Faldone said,
October 13, 2010 @ 9:34 am
My point in drawing this to Prof. Liberman's attention was this line:
"There's nothing you can't say or write that gets your point across in an easy to understand way."
The more I read it the less I feel that I understand what the author of this thing meant.
marie-lucie said,
October 13, 2010 @ 10:02 am
"There's nothing you can't say or write that gets your point across in an easy to understand way."
Obviously that sentence does not apply to the writer of it. As usually happens, the double negative is confusing.
Let's try: "Everything you say or write gets your point across …" (but that rewrite omits "can").
Better a complete rewrite: "You are always able to explain yourself clearly orally or in writing."
gnaddrig said,
October 13, 2010 @ 10:24 am
@Ellie: Wow, instead of surfing the internet we can now go sight-seeing…
Ellen K. said,
October 13, 2010 @ 11:05 am
"There's nothing you can't say or write that gets your point across in an easy to understand way."
That sentence caught my attention as well.
First I got it's point. Then, I thought, wait, I don't think it says what it means to say. Then I worked it through logically, and at first thought it did indeed say what it means. But then I realized it doesn't. It literally says that, anything that can be said that gets his point accross, he can say. But what it means, I believe, is that any point he wants to get across, he can express.
It seems to be a version of "There's nothing you can't do". "say or write" instead of "do" is fine. Tacking on a "that" clause doesn't work so well, I think. It's a weird cross between hyperbole in the first part of the sentence, and straightforwardness in the second.
Craig said,
October 13, 2010 @ 11:38 am
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy…
There's nothing you can't say or write that gets your point across in an easy to understand way
It's easy…
Mark F. said,
October 13, 2010 @ 12:24 pm
J.M.M – Google's revenue last year was around $23 billion, while Facebook's revenue this year is projected to be about $1.5 billion.
Rod Johnson said,
October 13, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
These things are typically written by high school students or even younger (I have fathered the author of a couple) and usually reflect that level of life experience. This seems like kind of an easy target.
GAC said,
October 13, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
I got the same result. That quiz is definitely not able to capture me. I have only seen one of the movies it lists (El Cid — and I barely remember it). And language geek is only one facet of my geekiness. I am a Culture Geek, Chinese Culture Geek, Conlanger, Sci-fi Geek, Gamer, and probably a few others. Sadly, it probably doesn't have any of those categories. :P
To put it simply … it's just a stupid quiz.
Boris said,
October 13, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
This proves that and/or is useful and cannot just be replaced with or.
Olga said,
October 13, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
Someone's being incompetent on the internet…
groki said,
October 13, 2010 @ 4:20 pm
a( There's nothing ) b( you can't say or write ) c( that gets your point across ) d( in an easy to understand way. )
after the double-take head-scratch, I (over?)simplified it to the tautologesque:
a( none of ) b( what you cannot express ) c( communicates ) d( effectively. )
but eventually worked out a more "nothing you can't do" version:
a( the set is empty that consists of: any ) c( communication ) d( that is effective ) b( but which you are incapable of expressing. )
groki said,
October 13, 2010 @ 4:29 pm
@marie-lucie: As usually happens, the double negative is confusing. and triple negatives? even more uncommonly not unclear!
David Walker said,
October 13, 2010 @ 6:26 pm
Yes, there are several errors there, as someone pointed out. The double-negative sentence is confusing, but *maybe* not an error.
The phrase "its a romantic" obviously has an error. And the first sentence has an error.