Inversion of scalar surprise
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From today's Doonesbury:
According to statistics compiled by Nielsen, the popular girls in Sam's cohort are beating the teen girl average of 4,050 (already high enough to provoke skepticism) by at least a factor of seven ("Times have changed", 10/30/2010).
30,000 texts a month would be one exchange every two minutes, 18 hours a day. Of course, this gets easier if a certain fraction of the messages are things like "OMG" and "hahaha".
Anyhow, internal evidence in the strip calls the 30K figure into questions:
Sam's fictionally-documented 17,000 exchanges per month would only be about one exchange every four minutes, on average. If you think about it, this is practically autistic.
I'm sure that there are many other jokes, or at least scripted exchanges, that hinge on inverting the direction of scalar surprise. But at the moment, I can't call any to mind.
Professor Anonymous said,
December 19, 2010 @ 9:02 am
When a student complaining about a grade asks "Why did I only get a B?" I reply, "Because I like you." Or at least I joke that I'll do this.
Eric Armstrong said,
December 19, 2010 @ 10:06 am
"this is practically autistic".
As a parent of two kids on the autism spectrum, I am particularly sensitive to the referencing of certain types of behavior as "autistic". My guess is that you're referencing the tendency for some on the spectrum to have a narrow field of interest, leading to somewhat compulsive behaviors. However, texting at this scale is an extremely social thing, and so it is the antithesis of autism.I imagine that it would be more accurate to say it is "practically OCD", if we insist on using something from the DSM-IV as a way of describing behaviour.
Of course you could be referencing some other aspect of autism, or of the Rain-Man-esque perception of autism that we frequently encounter in the mainstream press. I am curious what you
My knee-jerk reaction to the adjective autistic shows my hypersensitivity. I have trained myself to say "person with autism" rather than "autistic person" as many in various communities around disability have done. However, I don't avoid saying things like "I'm blinded by your beauty" or "it fell on deaf ears", metaphoric usages. Clearly there is a metaphoric use of "autistic" that may have been intended in a similar manner in your post, and maybe I just have to get over myself…
misterarthur said,
December 19, 2010 @ 10:36 am
I'm with Eric. I adore your blog, so this feels nit-picky, but someone as attuned to language as you shouldn't throw "autistic" around like that. I, too, am the parent of a young man somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and so am also perhaps overly sensitive to tossing that word out simply to make a point. Moby (the musician) made a horrific comment this year, claiming he wished he had Asperger's syndrome because it would make him "more interesting". It just drove me nuts. Eric's right. What you're describing is more OCD than "autism".
Lee said,
December 19, 2010 @ 10:49 am
Quite apart from the insensitivity issue, the joke, "that's practically autistic" works properly in Mark's post. See the "ONLY" in the preceding sentence — he's saying that ONLY 1 text every four minutes is amazingly UNsocial, so withdrawn as to be practically autistic, in comparison to the 1 text every two minutes that would be the 30,000 the character in the comic strip claimed the popular girls were achieving. It's a bit of fairly gentle sarcasm, I thought, and it made me smile a bit, but then I'm not closely related to anybody on the autism spectrum, so my sensitivities may not be as finely tuned.
[(myl) That's certainly how I intended the remark.
On the other hand, I don't have any evidence that people on the autism spectrum would actually do less texting than others, beyond the implications of dictionary definitions like "marked by severely limited responsiveness to other persons", or Wikipedia's "impaired social interaction and communication", or the DSM-IV-TR's various subheadings of "qualitative impairment in social interaction" and "qualitative impairments in communication".
And I agree that it can be insulting for people with (potentially) stigmatized conditions to have terms for their condition used to denote things in the normal range — so I apologize for any hurt feelings. It's not so clear where the boundaries are, however: if a woman complains about going from a size 4 to a size 6, is it insulting to overweight people to say ironically that she's "practically obese"?
For what it's worth, I'm quite close to some people who have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. In my opinion, some parts of that (large and diffuse) region should be classified as talents rather than disabilities, though of course other regions are heart-wrenching problems, and some cases are both at once.]
Nathan said,
December 19, 2010 @ 10:52 am
I interpreted myl's use of autistic in exactly the opposite way from the assumptions apparently made by Eric Armstrong and misterarthur. The word only in the previous sentence triggered my irony detector, preparing me to interpret "practically autistic" ironically as what the Wikipedia article on autism refers to as "impaired social interaction and communication". And as Eric said, "get over [yourselves]". It's just a word; he wasn't being insulting to anyone or insensitive to anyone's real difficulties.
Kapitano said,
December 19, 2010 @ 10:56 am
'm sure that there are many other jokes, or at least scripted exchanges, that hinge on inverting the direction of scalar surprise.
There's one I like to use: "Thank you, you've been as helpful as always. Exactly as helpful as always."
Breffni said,
December 19, 2010 @ 11:45 am
The East Germans had a joke about a Westerner visiting one of their factories to see how they achieved the miracle of full employment. When he asks why on earth there are two guys pushing a single wheelbarrow, he's told "because the third one called in sick."
MGT said,
December 19, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
I'm extremely disappointed in a blog about language usage using such ableist language. What is "that's practically autistic" even supposed to mean? You start to look at what you're trying to convey by it, and you come face to face with your ugly assumptions about what people with autism are like.
Nothing is just a word. There is no need to get over it. This is indeed a question of insensitivity, not oversensitivity.
Ellen K. said,
December 19, 2010 @ 12:30 pm
Well, MGT, since the two people who complained above also clearly misunderstood the remark, well, maybe it's not oversensitivity, but it's still improper sensitivity. Understand the comparison being made, and then, if you find it offensive, say something. Yes, the people who complained above do need to get over it — the "it" here being their incorrect, backwards interpretation of what was said. If they come to understand the comparison being made — sarcastically saying that so few messages is so antisocial as to be nearly autistic — and are still offended, well, then that will be valid, and no reason to get over it unless they choose to for their own benefit. But the complaints above that people responded to aren't even valid, since they are based on a misunderstanding of what was said.
Peter Taylor said,
December 19, 2010 @ 12:47 pm
If she's maintaining several parallel conversations with the other girls in her class on Twitter during 6 hours of lessons per day…
a George said,
December 19, 2010 @ 12:57 pm
– ah, what a lot of sensibilities we have: this A-word, the M-cartoons. It is as if some react in a Pavlovian way to certain words or expressions. Most of the problems arise because they are understood out of context. Political correctness is a very damaging shortcut to peace, though.
Eric P Smith said,
December 19, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
Another inversion of scalar surprise: my father used to quip, "Is that all the time it is already?"
kenny said,
December 19, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
Here's some data in handy chart form for those interested in texting frequency by state and age:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/african-americans-women-and-southerners-talk-and-text-the-most-in-the-u-s/
Uly said,
December 19, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
My knee-jerk reaction to the adjective autistic shows my hypersensitivity. I have trained myself to say "person with autism" rather than "autistic person" as many in various communities around disability have done.
While I agree that using the phrase "practically autistic" was, at best, in poor taste – please, as an autistic individual, I'm asking you not to go around telling people to use person-first language.
Person-first language is unnatural. It calls unnecessary attention to differences, and is stigmatizing, in a way that speaking normally isn't. Being smart isn't "normal", but nobody refers to Stephen Hawking as "a person with genius". Being gay isn't "normal" (that's not a value statement!), but I'm certain that going around referring to others as "people with homosexuality" would get you very few friends. I'm a left-handed atheist, but nobody would call me "a person with left-handed tendencies who also has atheism". Because we only use person-first language for things we consider bad it creates the impression that whatever-it-is is bad, damaging, sick, or wrong.
Person-first language is also insulting in its very premise (if you don't speak correctly, you'll forget I'm a person?) and also in its reasoning (autism isn't a tiny part of who I am, it's how my brain works. You can't take that away and still have *me*.)
You are free to speak however you like, and so long as you're speaking respectfully it really doesn't matter how you say it, but I, frankly, am tired of hearing people chastised for "not speaking correctly" when they've done nothing wrong. Person-first language isn't even widely preferred among adult autistics. (Nor among the Deaf, as I understand it, where Deaf refers to being a part of Deaf culture, but that's not a group I'm a part of.)
Fritinancy said,
December 19, 2010 @ 2:10 pm
As a person with Nancy first-nameism, I had a knee-jerk reaction to "Nancy Nobody." I'm familiar with similar epithets (Gloomy Gus, Debbie Downer), but had never seen or heard "Nancy Nobody." A cursory search revealed a song title (from the album "Planet Detox") and the title of a young-adult short story ("Nancy Nobody," by Sheila Ireland)–hardly enough to establish widespread usage.
linda seebach said,
December 19, 2010 @ 3:30 pm
Seconding Uly: My son Peter (Seebs), who is autistic, wrote recently on his blog that autism is about who-you-are, your identity, and not merely something-about-you. He said, "Because of this, I prefer 'autistic' to 'person with autism'. This is not some separate thing that we should disregard when talking about the 'real' me. Trying to get past the autism to see the 'real' me is like trying to get past all the layers of the onion to the 'real' onion."
I need a walker to get around, and I just say "disabled" unless there's some conversational reason why I need to explain in what way. The walker is just part of me (now), and I am irritated by scolds who presume to tell me how I should describe myself.
Liz said,
December 19, 2010 @ 3:37 pm
As the mother of a daughter with cerebral palsy, I react badly to "spastic" being used as an insult, wince a bit at "retarded", but don't see "practically autistic" as being derogatory in the same way. Is that because I am not personally affected by it, or is there a difference in intent?
Uly said,
December 19, 2010 @ 4:04 pm
Probably because you're not personally affected by it. Among other things, you don't see how profoundly inaccurate it is.
GeorgeW said,
December 19, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
FWIW, I am not fond of the term 'politically correct.' It often implies that the speaker is disingenuous and inwardly insensitive and that they are only avoiding their preferred (and private) description because it is not 'politically correct.'
If a particular term or description is hurtful, I really don't want to use it and I object to being accused of being politically correct when I do.
GeorgeW said,
December 19, 2010 @ 4:22 pm
Whoops, I miswrote (again). I intended to say above –
If a particular term or description is hurtful, I really don't want to use it and I object to being accused of being politically correct when I do avoid the term.
Ellen K. said,
December 19, 2010 @ 4:57 pm
Liz, I would say there is a difference in intent. The point is the person who sends 17,000 messages a month is not like someone with autism, and if that person is being insulted, the insult is that they aren't autistic enough.
swami said,
December 19, 2010 @ 5:34 pm
Autistic outrage aside, it is possible to send thousands of text messages in a month without constantly texting. Before WAP and 3/4G web access, older phone services used to run over SMS, sending data in text messages. One ill-fated attempt was AIM by text, which allowed cell phone users to chat with computer users. It was poorly designed and required about 3 text messages just to send one line of chat (lots of back-and-forth between the phone and service). Add to that computer user's tendency to send long, frequent updates and a 5-minute conversation could burn though a hundred texts or so. I found this out the hard way the end of the month.
In the comic the girl has an iPhone-type device, but considering her dad's concern over her phone bill, he probably isn't paying for unlimited wireless internet access. So the girl is likely using some kind of SMS-based service to chat with her friends (who probably have an unlimited plan) which is consuming inordinate amounts of text messages.
Or, it's just a comic strip and shouldn't be analyzed too much.
Sili said,
December 19, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
Well, one txt is only some 150 characters. I don't txt much, but when I do, I regularly use three or four times that amount. The system then automatically concatenates the messages so that the receiver only receives one connected message. Only for the sake of billing is it considered four messages.
G said,
December 19, 2010 @ 5:55 pm
I too found "practically autistic" puzzling (and derogatory-sounding) at first glance, when I was skimming. I think it's because usually, when I hear somebody jokingly using the word "autistic" in the context of technology, it's because they consider the technology isolating/antisocial. So I automatically read "texting = autistic." In this post, the joke is the opposite.
Of course, I know perfectly well that Language Log tends to speak out against hysterical headlines like "Texting permanently alters your brain!", so it might seem like I should have known better. But apparently my skim mode doesn't allow for that kind of reasoning.
Pflaumbaum said,
December 19, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
Uly said –
I'm a left-handed atheist, but nobody would call me "a person with left-handed tendencies who also has atheism". Because we only use person-first language for things we consider bad it creates the impression that whatever-it-is is bad, damaging, sick, or wrong.
There are positive examples though, 'like 'person of colour' and 'person of faith'.
Still wracking my brains for other inverted direction of scalar surprise jokes. The closest I can think of is one in Zoolander about a scale model… it was the only funny line in the film, and they put it in the trailer.
The Ridger said,
December 19, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
@Pflaumbaum: There are positive examples though, 'like 'person of colour' and 'person of faith'.
Seriously? You don't realize that those were coined to avoid negative terms – colored/[insults redacted] and Jew/Catholic/Mormon/something WRONG-because-different?
Uly said,
December 19, 2010 @ 7:01 pm
There are positive examples though, 'like 'person of colour' and 'person of faith'.
True, but they're unusual.
If a particular term or description is hurtful, I really don't want to use it and I object to being accused of being politically correct when I do avoid the term.
Yeah, my line is consistently "PC? You mean polite?" I don't know when it became "bad" to have good manners.
The point is the person who sends 17,000 messages a month is not like someone with autism
Funnily enough, that's not necessarily true. Many autistics prefer to use written communication to using the phone, for various reasons. For example, many autistics have some form of auditory processing disorder that can make using the phone difficult. Others find that texting or emailing instead of talking on the phone can give them time to think because it doesn't have to be instant back-and-forth like when you're talking. Still others find they're at less of a disadvantage when there are no "tone of voice" issues – everybody says things like "Oh, it's harder when you're online, there's no social cues" but when you're used to missing social cues that means you're finally on a level playing field. And of course there are those of us who, like me, have had enough problems due to miscommunication (or bullying, unfortunately, with people claiming things were or weren't said that really weren't or were) that we simply like to have a written record of what everybody has said.
WindowlessMonad said,
December 19, 2010 @ 7:21 pm
Dennis Muir had a joke about finding a 20-year-old British Rail sandwich, still as fresh as the day it was sold.
Pflaumbaum said,
December 19, 2010 @ 7:46 pm
@ Ridger – the terms may have been coined for that reason, but they themselves are hardly negative towards faith and blackness. They're often used by religious and African-American people to describe themselves.
I don't think there's much ground for describing 'person of X' constructions as necessarily implying a negatively valued X.
Richard said,
December 19, 2010 @ 8:10 pm
If one goes to mark's joke and replaces autistic with "anti-social," "quiet" , or "withdrawn," the joke is not offensive.
I think that the problem here is stereotypes. It is a problem on two levels. One is that you have to have access to the stereotype shorthand that Mark is using to understand what he means. The second and third commenters who have a good idea of what autism is like in their real lives, and an awareness of pop cultural misconceptions about autism, did not understand what Mark meant.
The second is that stereotypes are generally pretty offensive. They are fictions born of resentment, envy, guilt and the currents of history. A person with blond hair is not the blond of stereotype; a man from Ireland is not the Irishman of the jokes; ditto used car salesmen, lawyers, Jews, Catholics, and so on.
Professor Also Anonymous said,
December 19, 2010 @ 9:00 pm
To echo the first comment, every time I assign a particularly low grade, I recall a joke from a childhood jokebook:
"Teacher, I don't think I deserve this F."
"Neither do I, but it's the lowest grade I can give."
Margaret L said,
December 19, 2010 @ 9:44 pm
inverting the direction of scalar surprise
How about "all two of them"?
Cail said,
December 19, 2010 @ 9:58 pm
How's this?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145660/quotes?qt1312330
ella said,
December 20, 2010 @ 1:38 am
@myl
Yes.
Michael said,
December 20, 2010 @ 3:55 am
to Armstrong on autistic: "Person with X" has been the accepted practice in psychodiagnosis for quite some time; certainly this is how DSM iv is phrased.
richard said,
December 20, 2010 @ 5:21 am
ella said,
@myl
if a woman complains about going from a size 4 to a size 6, is it insulting to overweight people to say ironically that she's "practically obese"?
Yes.
No!
richard howland-bolton said,
December 20, 2010 @ 7:47 am
Uly (19, 2010 @ 1:48 pm)
is "a person with left-handed tendencies who also has atheism" as am I, though I prefer the less theocratical 'belief-challenged'.
But then, if you want disparaging terms, consider the opprobrium heaped upon those with left-handed tendencies—'sinister', 'gauche' or the truly dreadful 'cack-handed'; or again consider the leftism implied in 'ambidextrous'.
And so we are left without rights!
J.W. Brewer said,
December 20, 2010 @ 8:09 am
It strikes me that "person of X" constructions are quite different than "person with X" constructions. The point of the latter for those who advocate them is, I take it, a belief that e.g. "person with a disability" does not suggest that the disability defines or limits or constitutes the person in the way that "disabled person" might allegedly be taken to imply. But "person of disability" wouldn't seem to accomplish that goal. The difference between "person of color" and "colored person" seems non-compositional, and attributable solely to the fact that the latter NP has certain historical baggage. As for "person of faith," it certainly feels euphemistic but I actually can't figure out who it's trying to avoid giving offense to, or what perceived-as-problematic NP it's supposed to substitute for. My favorite recent coinage in the genre of "of X" euphemisms is probably "women of cover."
Eric Armstrong said,
December 20, 2010 @ 9:42 am
What a wonderful community. I rarely read the comments on Language Log, and if I do, it's frequently very early on. I'm glad I came back to see what other people had to say. And for the record, I didn't understand the "joke" to begin with; if I had, I suspect I wouldn't have posted, and we wouldn't have had this great discussion. thank you all.
eye5600 said,
December 20, 2010 @ 10:41 am
Words for difficult conditions wear out their welcome. Crippled gave way to handicapped, which gave way to challenged as each took on a negative connotation with time. "Special needs" will soon go by a different name.
On the original post:
Q: What do you call 100 dead lawyers?
A: A good start.
eye5600 said,
December 20, 2010 @ 10:43 am
Another old joke depending on numbers:
http://www.miljokes.com/theres-two-of-them/
KevinM said,
December 20, 2010 @ 12:50 pm
Or, Q: "Why did you shoot him six times?"
(A: "The gun was a revolver.")
Rodger C said,
December 20, 2010 @ 3:52 pm
From ca. 1979: "Do you think Carter will be a one-term president?" Gene McCarthy (?): "Yes, I think he'll make it." I expect to hear this one revived any time.
arthur said,
December 20, 2010 @ 4:46 pm
The Texas rancher on a cultural exchange visits the largest cattle ranch in all of Israel. The owner boasts that he has 40 head of cattle on a spread of over ten acres..
Texas rancher: This is the biggest ranch in all fo Israel? On my ranch, it would take half a day to drive from one to the other.
Israeli rancher: I had a car like that once . . .
Jonathan Mayhew said,
December 20, 2010 @ 8:29 pm
How do you make a million dollars in publishing?
Start with ten million.
J. Goard said,
December 21, 2010 @ 4:37 am
Jack Handey:
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? Probably, if they screamed all the time for no reason.
fred said,
December 21, 2010 @ 5:12 am
Inversion of scalar surprise:
I've heard another version of the comment above: How do you make a million dollars in the wine business? Start with ten million.
Also, from another field entirely… i may not remember all the details precisely, but the gist is:
World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand was a phenomenally fast player as a young man, who often played complete tournament games in a ridiculously short time of 20 minutes. When asked how he could use [only] 20 minutes in games with grandmasters he replied, "because I respect them."
arthur said,
December 21, 2010 @ 10:43 am
Daddy, did you have a computer in your room when you were my age?
No, son. When I was your age, a computer would have been too big to fit in my bedroom.
Wow daddy (holding the Ipad in his hands). You must have had a small bedroom!
Suzanne Kemmer said,
December 21, 2010 @ 6:59 pm
This phenomenon might already have a name: 'unexpected pragmatic scale reversal'. Maybe the term was in the original Fauconnier 1975 Linguistic Inquiry paper on pragmatic scales (can't remember). Actually I like these terms better:
'unexpected scalar inversion' or 'humorous scalar inversion'.
A real case of inversion of scale that wasn't intended to be humorous but got a big laugh due to the ambiguity of the direction of the scale:
A faculty member who'd had a bad accident was recovering, and someone asked, "How's he doing?" The reply was, 'oh, he's much better now–he does as much as he ever did!" A pause while people remembered that he never published any refereed articles anywhere, and then the room cracked up.
The Ridger said,
December 22, 2010 @ 5:00 pm
@eye5600: In the wonderful book by Mark Haddon, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”, the protagonist and narrator (who has Asperger's) attends a special needs school. At one point he observes that the kids in the regular school nearby use "special needs" as an insult.