TIME and the new island

[Wilson Gray]

I thought that "dumbing-down" was the process of reducing the supposedly
"complex" to the supposedly "simple," my peevest example of this being the
shift of

"_least_ common denominator"

to

"_lowest_ common denominator"

as though this meaninglessly-trivial change somehow "simplified" this
concept, thereby  opening broad, new vistas of mathematical understanding
in the minds of the children of the lower orders.

But, using "about 250 ft. _long_" in place of "about 250 ft. _in diameter_"
is not a simple dumbing down.


On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> "The land-mass, seen here, is reportedly about 250 ft. _long_."
>
>
> The photo is of an object about as nearly perfectly circular as will ever
> be found in nature. How TF can a journal of the supposed "quality" of TIME
> describe a circle as "*long*"?
>
> Give me strength.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
>


--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org