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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Do You Really Want to Say That?
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
One of my Facebook friends linked to this the other day:
"You Can't Handle the Truth"
Now I could have easily started a thread in DH about the subject of the article. I could have started one in Hell about the misuse of the word "truth" as applied to what is essentially an assertion that someone else is "obviously" lying, based on nothing more than not liking what they have to say.
But... that's too easy a target.
What intrigues me is the use of the title. You'll recall it's a quote from the movie A Few Good Men. I've seen this quote used like this before, by people who think it sounds cool and makes them sound bold and forthright. But they always seem to have forgotten the context. "You can't handle the truth" was spoken by an institutional bully to justify an illegal act of back-room "justice" that ended in a man being killed. Is that really who you want to be quoting? Especially as a defence of Christian "truth"?
I blame Nicholson, he sells that speech too well. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Anyway what you rarely hear quoted is this exchange:
quote:
Galloway: Why do you hate them so much?
Lt. Weinberg: They beat up on a weakling; that's all they did. The rest is just smokefilled coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid. They didn't like him. So, they killed him. And why? Because he couldn't run very fast.
or this
quote:
Downey: What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong!
Dawson: Yeah we did. We were supposed to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willy.
which I personally feel are more in keeping with the overall message of the movie.
Anyway, it got me thinking about cases where people use cultural references out of context. Not just out of context but almost in direct contradiction to the spirit of the source material.
Anyone else got any good examples of this kind of thing?
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Sorry Paul, I guess the answer is 'no'. Would you have better luck at the Circus board? You may wish to ask a host or hostess...
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
Sir Kevin
You've been around long enough to know that we don't appreciate junior hosting around here. We're not too keen on sexist stuff either (as you were told recently in All Saints) so please don't use patronising comments like "hostess"
Spike
SoF Admin
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
I've often heard Dr Johnson's remark "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" used as though he were describing patriotism, whereas in fact he's just describing scoundrels. There's nothing to suggest he had anything against patriots.
Also, "the exception that proves the rule" is an item of outlying data that seems to disprove the hypothesis, but ends up causing the hypothesis to be revised and making it stronger. However the statement is now used to suggest that the hypothesis is just fine as it is and can safely ignore apparent contradictions.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
"Money is the root of all evil"....
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
First we state that girls require time and money.
Girls = Time x Money
As we all know, "time is money."
Time = Money
Therefore:
Girls = (Money)^2
And because "money is the root of all evil":
Money = sq. rt.(evil)
It follows:
Girls = sq. rt. ((evil)^2
And we can thus conclude that:
Girls = Evil
Who knew that math logic leads to misogyny?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
"Up to a point, Lord Copper" is often used that way.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
"First let's kill the lawyers..."
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Sorry for being surly on my first post and playing junior host, Paul.
I couldn't care less!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Lewis Carroll
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
The quote about our life being like the flight of a sparrow, which briefly flies from the dark outside through the lighted hall of life before leaving to go who knows where...
... whereas the context was "But this new Christianity thing will illuminate it all for us! So let's go for that instead!"
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Lewis Carroll
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
Can you expand on that? What's the context? How does it get used 'wrongly'?
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It sure is reassuring to we pedants to know that we have Weird Al Jankovic on our team.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
I wasn't so much thinking of bad grammar and neologisms - I believe there's already a thread for that ![[Smile]](smile.gif) - as things taken out of context. The Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" is another example - it's often seen as an uncomplicated patriotic song when in fact it's not that at all really. (I think the effect of the tune overrides the lyrics in that case)
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
There is an unwritten rule in western cultures that you don't explicitly contradict Jesus. Even anti-Christians will concede that they admire Jesus, but his followers messed everything up, rather than that Jesus himself was an idiot.
Yet, that custom never seems to stop anyone from delivering a table-banging sermon about "I believe in an eye for an eye", as if expressing this sentiment was the most Christian thing imaginable.
Bouns points if the table-banger prefaces his quote with "Like the Bible says..." (Which it does, but, see the current Marcion threads about that).
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It sure is reassuring to we pedants to know that we have Weird Al Jankovic on our team.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
I wasn't so much thinking of bad grammar and neologisms - I believe there's already a thread for that - as things taken out of context. The Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" is another example - it's often seen as an uncomplicated patriotic song when in fact it's not that at all really. (I think the effect of the tune overrides the lyrics in that case)
Jankovic deals with one to which Sir Kevin alludes: "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less".
Then there is, "This problem cannot be underestimated" when the context indicates that it should be, "This problem cannot be overestimated".
On other occasions it is, of course, appropriate to say, "This problem should not (or must not) be underestimated".
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Hugal
Shipmate
# 2734
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Posted
Not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing is a good thing not a bad thing.
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I have never done this trick in these trousers before.
Posts: 1887 | From: london | Registered: Apr 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
There was somebody I once knew, one of whose favourite phrases was "I'm a great believer in ..... ". Without any exception, with 100% consistency, all the time I knew them, this was followed by a really stupid statement.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
"To thine own self be true..." ["and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."]
Shakespeare put this sociopath's motto in the mouth of a pompous, amoral fool for a reason.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
'...a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance' (Hamlet).
In context it means "This is a custom which is done often, but I think it would be more honourable if they didn't do it at all".
Most people use it to mean "This is supposed to be a custom, but in fact it doesn't happen often".
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
I wasn't so much thinking of bad grammar and neologisms - I believe there's already a thread for that - as things taken out of context. The Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" is another example - it's often seen as an uncomplicated patriotic song when in fact it's not that at all really. (I think the effect of the tune overrides the lyrics in that case)
Rather reminding me of Alan Partridge explaining - to two Irishmen - that "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is about the feeling of waking up on Sunday morning and realising Monday is only 24 hours away.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
So much from the Bible gets taken out of context, and now that we're in a generation that doesn't know the Bible very well, a lot of those oft-quoted phrases don't always make sense. I had a friend ask on facebook a while back why you would call someone the "salt of the earth" as if it's a good thing, when if you actually put salt in the soil it would kill plants! Naturally, I explained the context to him, but perhaps it's a biblical allusion to retire.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arleigh
Shipmate
# 5332
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
So much from the Bible gets taken out of context
Like Genesis 31:49:
"May the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another."
I've had this said to me as a "blessing" on parting, when in context it's more a threat from Laban to his son-in-law Jacob.
♥Arleigh
Posts: 388 | From: Brisbane | Registered: Dec 2003
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I read a suggestion that in conversation the word "frankly" is usually followed by a lie. It's often true. If nothing else the person is warning you that be default they are not frank.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
So much from the Bible gets taken out of context, and now that we're in a generation that doesn't know the Bible very well, a lot of those oft-quoted phrases don't always make sense. I had a friend ask on facebook a while back why you would call someone the "salt of the earth" as if it's a good thing, when if you actually put salt in the soil it would kill plants! Naturally, I explained the context to him, but perhaps it's a biblical allusion to retire.
And it doesn't mean salt in the Greek.
Morfe like minerals in Dead Sea mud according to this article.
…or, at least, salt (in the sense of sodium chloride) is only one of its possible range of meanings.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I find it really hard to believe that farmers routinely fertilized their ground with stuff from the Dead Sea shores. AFAIK that's a pretty barren place in terms of vegetation as well as fish--I can't imagine it would be good for farm soil unless the soil had some serious deficiencies going on. And the linked material had no footnotes, so I can't tell on what authority the author says so.
Certainly the "halas" Jesus refers to is likely to be impure salt--salt mixed with other minerals--and I've seen people build a whole logical structure on the idea that the "halas" gets wet and the sodium chloride leaches away, leaving only tasteless impurities behind. But I think that's overthinking it. He postulates an impossible situation (that salt becomes unsalty) because it's outrageous. It's supposed to be outrageous--as outrageous (we wish) as the idea of Christians becoming ineffectual. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
As for "good neither for the soil nor the manure heap," that's a straightforward reference to salt's other properties--even miraculously un-salty salt would be a bad thing to use on your farm, either right away (applying it to the soil) or in the future (by adding it to the manure/compost heap). In other words, it has lost all use whatsoever, and is worse even than shit or banana peels. Nothing to do with it but toss it on the public paths, where at least it can do no harm.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
...why you would call someone the "salt of the earth" as if it's a good thing, when if you actually put salt in the soil it would kill plants...
And it doesn't mean salt in the Greek.
Morfe like minerals in Dead Sea mud according to this article.
…or, at least, salt (in the sense of sodium chloride) is only one of its possible range of meanings.
Saltpetre comes from the dead sea and is a fertiliser and also a food preservative.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Alex Cockell
Ship’s penguin
# 7487
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Posted
Agreed. Good ol' NaCl used before easy access to refrigeration..
Posts: 2146 | From: Reading, Berkshire UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Saltpetre is a potassium salt not a sodium salt
KNO3. (The 3 should be subscript). AKA potassium nitrate.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Alex
In case you did not know it, salt NaCl can be used to stop tree stumps from re-sprouting once chopped down.
So it is not something you use as a fertilizer.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Then there's the whole "it doesn't matter one iota" phrase, which hinges on the impression that "one iota" is not very significant-- yet it seems to harken to the Nicene debate when, in fact (at least for Trinitarians) one iota was quite significant.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
Does it? Or does it rather come from Matt 5:18, where we are told that not even one iota will pass from the law, ie. not even something as small as an iota. My Matthew professor argued that this was a translation into Greek of a Jesus saying about the Aramaic letter yudh, which can make the same sound as an iota in certain contexts and is indeed very small.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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guinness girl
Ship's Barmaid
# 4391
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Posted
I am always baffled by the custom in this country (UK) of singing 'Jerusalem' in a patriotic way, as if it glorifies our 'green and pleasant land'. Given that it's actually a poem about the evils of the Industrial Revolution, I'm not sure how appropriate it really is...
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supplying people with laughs at my expense since 1982!
Posts: 463 | From: Leeds, England | Registered: Apr 2003
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
A friend of mine, also from the Rhubarb Triangle, always gives me a nudge at the bit about 'Dark Satanic Mills' and says "that's us, that".
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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The Machine Elf
Irregular polytope
# 1622
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by guinness girl:
I am always baffled by the custom in this country (UK) of singing 'Jerusalem' in a patriotic way, as if it glorifies our 'green and pleasant land'. Given that it's actually a poem about the evils of the Industrial Revolution, I'm not sure how appropriate it really is...
Or Scotsmen who insist on pointing out that England isn't where Jesus walked, whereas the whole point of the song is the second verse is a response to the first verse - no, He didn't walk here, but we will be inspired anyway. You don't need to build Jerusalem in Palestine - they already have at least one there.
TME
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Elves of any kind are strange folk.
Posts: 1298 | From: the edge of the deep green sea | Registered: Oct 2001
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