*screams*

[conuly]

If you make a factual error, and somebody corrects you, it's not necessarily because they don't have a sense of humor, or because they don't like you. It could very easily be simply because you. are. wrong.

And there doesn't have to be any other reason than that! No, I'm not taking things too seriously. I don't like to be wrong. If I spell something wrong, I want to be told so that I don't keep making the same stupid mistake. If I say, erroneously, that educated people used to believe that the world was flat, then I expect to be corrected so I'll stop saying things that are wrong. (Columbus not only failed to prove that the world was round, he wasn't expected to. That had been proven back in ancient Greece.)

And there doesn't have to be any other reason than that people shouldn't say things that are wrong. The next person to come up and randomly ask me "why do you care?" when they or somebody else makes some huge-ass mistake is going to get smacked, I swear. I care because I. Don't. Like. Things. Being. Wrong. Period, end of story, I don't need another reason, and if you had any self-respect you'd endeavor not to make stupid mistakes.

This, of course, only applies to matters of fact, not matters of opinion. For example, gaol isn't a stupid spelling mistake for jail, it's an actual spelling in many places. Okay, my opinion is that it's a stupid spelling, but so are many things in the English orthography. I try not to pay them much heed.

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

(Columbus not only failed to prove that the world was round, he wasn't expected to. That had been proven back in ancient Greece.)

That seems like a non sequitur to me, though. The Ancient Greeks knew a lot of stuff that got lost during the Middle Ages, from what I've heard.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Well, I do know that scientists in medieval Spain ca. 1200 knew the earth was round, so it's doubtful that by 1492 they had forgotten. How they arrived at the knowledge, I don't know. Just that Columbus's theory wasn't some crackpot thing that people would never have imagined; why would King Fernando and Queen Isabel have given him three big ships and a whole bunch of sailors, if they thought he was going to fall off the edge of the world?

It's an amusing story and useful for parables, but not true. And in case anyone cares, both the Chevy Nova and Ford Pinto sold very well in Latin America, thankyouverymuch.

[conuly]

Criminals. The sailors were criminals. Weren't they?