a thought

[calimac]

My definition of a science-fiction fan as a person who would jump up at the line "Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world" and earnestly inform Lear, "The world isn't round, it's an oblate spheroid," has been amply confirmed over the past few days.

Comments

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

Now I wonder at the circumstances of the outburst.

And of course, in defense of the Bard, snipe back by saying "Cannot you let 'thick rotundity' suffice for 'oblate spheroid'? 'Twould serve the speach far better."

:D

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's the equivalent of exactly what I did say. You think it helped?

In the comments, here and here.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordie! My sympathies!

Yes, I had that calendar/decades discussion on Facebook on a friend's board. He's a stickler for the "end of decade" exactitude. I sided with him, but was fascinated by how locked in mindset people can be.

People don't seem to register that saying "the first decade of the century" can refer to a different set of objects than "the ten years that have a double 0 after the 2". If I'd been sharp at the time, I would have asked "What is the current century called?" But really, that would just be me indulging my nit-picking.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Well, my mindset - and those of most people who take my view - is that a decade can be any span of ten years you want it to be, but since we're using it to sum up things like popular culture and not to perform precise arithmetical calculations, it's obtuse not to notice that the odometer turning version (0-9) is the popular choice. Nor are they calling it "the first decade of the century" (in any case a century also can be 00-99), but nineties/oughties or naughties/teens.

It's the other side which, locked into an irrelevant rigid adherence to theoretical mathematics, insists that a decade can only be 1-0.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

Heh. My comeback is that an oblate spheroid might not be exactly the same as a sphere, but they're both round (as opposed to flat, cubical, etc.) :)