This is not a list

ry commented on the list lies--1

so this is mostly a list of acts & types of verbal or written deception.

see also:

Fubbery and Blaflum

Pants on fire

Not Quite The Real Thang

Misdirector's Cut

Loaded Dice

disinformation

May 13, 2013

ruzuzu commented on the list lies--1

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

March 4, 2014

ry commented on the list lies--1

hi ruzuzuzuzu so good to hear from you and i'm afraid my complete lack of a sense of humor is obturating my response. FYI "pipe" has a ribald slang meaning in French, but I'm sure you didn't mean that
anyway have a lovely day and thanks for the comment :D

March 4, 2014

ruzuzu commented on the list lies--1

I was just thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images (but I always welcome hearing about potential slang meanings--in the same way I appreciate having friends point out when I have spinach in my teeth). Merci!

March 4, 2014

ry commented on the list lies--1

agh i totally should have remembered that from art history...sometimes i think i feel my cultural literacy fleeing me. Or probably other minutiae more relevant to my current walk of life are usurping the neural pathways involved

thanks

March 5, 2014

ruzuzu commented on the list lies--1

I was just looking through Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities by John M. Carrera. The illustrations for sistrum and abacus were just as I remembered them from my childhood dictionaries. But then there was an illustration of a Presque Miro, (Harlequinus carnivalis).... What? And the page before had pipe--but everything there was a pipe. Even the camel! And what was "Bicycle Wheel" doing there?

Then I went back to the artist's introduction. There I started reading about Duchamp and his "Readymades," and finally I saw the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Lies! Lies! Suddenly everything made sense again--and I couldn't have been more pleased.

March 25, 2014

ry commented on the list lies--1

I like thinking about both Magritte and Duchamp questioning, in different ways, the power and role of representation. this sentence is false, paradox or nonsense? It reminds me that language is not only fun, but highly mysterious in its interplay of both constructing and being constructed by consciousness—with literature, art, and the sense of smell among the emergent phenomena (arguably) arising from that interplay.

Also i like Miro but his work always makes me think of Klee. i don't know what that means

March 25, 2014

ruzuzu commented on the list lies--1

I was starting in on A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers last weekend, but I got hung up before I could get through the acknowledgment section. I love creative nonfiction, but there's this part where he says that "if you are bothered by the idea of this being real, you are invited to do what the author should have done, and what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time: PRETEND IT'S FICTION." I'm not sure I agree that readers have always done this. Memory is tricky enough as it is. (I always love it when people say things like "It was back in 1998. No! I lied. It was 1999." Is that really lying?)

And I'm not sure what liking Miro and thinking of Klee means. But I could be lying.

March 25, 2014

yarb commented on the list lies--1

If you have to pretend that a work is fiction, doesn't that imply that you believe it to be real? I'm not sure that kind of self-deception is possible, or at least it must be very difficult (assuming by "real" Eggers means something like "describing events that actually happened"). For an author of course it's completely different.

March 25, 2014

BrokenEye commented on the list lies--1

Eskimos may not have 50 words for snow, but we English speakers apparently have nearly 200 words for bullshit. What does that tell you?

May 5, 2015

qms commented on the list lies--1

That those damned Eskimos have been lying about their words for snow!

May 5, 2015

TankHughes commented on the list lies--1

As explicked on QI Series D episode 7, Eskimos (Inuit?) have 32 words for demonstrative pronouns, whereas English has 4 (this that these those). They pack prepositions into their demonstrative pronouns, so you get words that mean "that one up there" and "those ones inside." HOWEVER, the fake fact is a convenient way to say that a lot of languages have synonyms, and that there's more than one right way to say something. The fact about sharks always having to move is also untrue, but is also a convenient shorthand. There are many others.

tl;dr: Some common knowledge is not true, but it's useful, so keep using it. Dance your heart out at the shark-in-motion surplus snow vocab party, but be prepared to be confronted by grumpy fact-focused people out in the harsh world.

May 5, 2015

bilby commented on the list lies--1

Let's say quaark means a black cockatoo and fnaark means a white cockatoo. This lanaguage has more cockatoo words than English, although one could argue that English is more 'economical' because it only needs the denominator cockatoo and is able to re-uise colour words. But hang on, what if culturally / environmentally / spiritually the distinction between white and black cockatoos is so imporant that, unless there were specific terms, the gravity might not be adequately embodied?
This example is from an Auatralian indigenous language.

May 6, 2015