Expensive prices, Driving quickly - what?

I was watching a documentary about how printer ink cartridges are a scam, and greed being the driving force for the prices being so high.

They interviewed some 'expert' on the issue, and he seemed credible, until he said "expensive prices".

That made me pause, stop and think. Wait, how can PRICES be expensive? That would mean the PRICES themselves cost money, besides the product itself. But prices are free, they don't cost anything. The only other explanation was that this expert is not right in the head; he can't even understand the difference between 'high' and 'expensive'.

A price can't be expensive, the product can. A price can be 'high' or 'low', but never 'expensive'.

The same kind of logical mistake is heard in many videos of another expert, that talks about city design, cars and bicycles, et cetera. Now, you'd think that an EXPERT on something would at least - AT LEAST - have good command of at least the simple english words, and understand what words actually mean.

They do not. I would never trust an expert on ANYTHING that can't calculate 4+1 correctly. If they give any other number than 5 and NOT EVEN NOTICE IT, there's no trusting them.

This 'city design expert' (sounds like he should be intelligent, right?) has said things like: "driving quickly".

I had to pause again. Why do people not understand what words mean, this is shocking to me. This should be kids' stuff, everyone should be able to understand that there's a vast difference between 'quickly' and 'fast'.

You can drive fast, but you can't drive quickly, unless we're talking about 'from one place to another', and even then, it's questionable whether the driving itself was 'quick', or whether it was your trip, your arrival, and so on.

'Quick' is a measure of TIME, not speed. Someone can be quick (he can reach fast speed), someone can move quickly (= in a short amount of time), someone can travel a certain distance quickly (= in a short amount of time), someone can arrive quickly, and so on.

It's always about time, not about the traveling speed itself, which MAY VARY. You can make a trip very quickly even if your speed is sometimes slow, or if the speed fluctuates between slow and fast.

I don't know if it's a logic mistake, or just proof that these people's brains just don't work correctly, or if there's something more sinister going on (in a supposed conspiracy site, it would be interesting to consider all kinds of possibilities), but it's a really shocking phenomenon, when someone that's proclaimed to be an EXPERT on something, someone very trustworthy and intelligent, makes these childishly stupid mistakes.

Don't even get me started on 'nauseated' being said as 'nauseous', 'nauseous' being said as 'nauseating', etc.

Nauseous = causing nausea in others
Nauseated = experiencing nausea
Nauseating - NO SUCH WORD EXISTS!

I don't get it, I don't understand. I was taught english, and from there, I self-learned, and I tried to do my best to learn it as well as I could, after all, communication is difficult as it is, I don't want to make it MORE difficult and complicated by using a language wrong, or using words, whose meaning I don't understand.

I thought this was the basic principle for everyone, when learning languages. I thought there were multitudes of smart people in the world, I thought everyone tries their best to learn things correctly. I thought most people are smarter than me, so they would always have better command of every language they speak than me, unless they're just at a learner stage - but even then, they wouldn't make CERTAIN type of mistakes, only the honest and understandable ones (like honest typos, for example, I would never scold anyone for ANY type of honest mistakes, but these are different).

It's so hard to understand why most people seem to have a really bad english skills, regardless of whether they're a native speaker (those usually can't spell, even if they know how to use articles correctly and pronounce perfectly - though I have noticed some people pronouncing some words in a weird way, like how AVGN says the word 'mountains') or a learner.

No one, who has learned english for more than two weeks, should EVER confuse 'your' with 'you're'. I don't understand how that mistake even happens; it's so obvious that the 're'-part comes from the word 'are'. Why would anyone think 'you are' is contracted to 'your' without including the 're'-part, and yet think that the possessive is 'you're', when there clearly IS a part of the word 'are' there? My brain can't fathom such deep level of stupidity, although I consider myself below average in intelligence and english expertise.

There are numerous similar 'logic mistakes' that people make way too often, but I can't remember more right now - maybe my psyche is trying to defend itself against all this ridiculous, dishonest stupidity, some of which, I am sure, comes from plain ol' stubbornness and unwillingness to take five seconds to learn how a word is supposed to be spelled.

Of course part of the blame goes to the really weird disconnect between written and spoken english - the written being the correct, actual english, of course, and the spoken one being just some almost-random animal sounds that are associated with the actual english, because these bipedal morons like to make sounds with their mouths.

I just wish there was some kind of processing or thinking associated with that desire to produce noise from the head hole, but there doesn't appear to be.

Then these noisy half-animals grab the stupidest device anyone could attempt to do any kind of writing with (hint: there's no proper keyboard), come to discussion forums and other chats to vomit their illiteracy, their 'pronunciation-based english', coupled with these intellectually self-stumped swamp orcs' massive egos, arrogance and stubbornness into innocent english-learners' faces and then wonder why people try to correct some of that vile toxic waste of the typing world.

In a good world, everything besides some quick and urgent, small messages that can't wait, would be typed on proper keyboards (and there wouldn't BE bad keyboards in that world), with proper grammar, good command of the language, and with words spelled correctly.

Now, as I mentioned, there's always going to be a honest mistake, a typo, a 'brain malfunction' and other very human errors. Those are fine, I would never deduct points for any of that, I make all of those myself, perhaps embarrasingly much.

But when the same (probably) bipedal, slimy, loud and arrogant swamp monster schlaps something on some touchscreen and lets the device do all the work for them, just because they can't be bothered to spend four to ten seconds researching how something is actually spelled, or the keep repeating the same 'logic mistake', clearly NOT KNOWING what english words actually mean, it's no longer honest.

I want to live in a good world, and I don't mind if someone is a beginner, or 'still learning' and makes mistakes because they learned the words from an american, as long as they see their mistakes and want to correct them, or they have the correct, THANKFUL attitude when someone offers them the truth, the right way to write something, or corrects their erroneous thinking about what the word actually means.

a reply to: Shoujikina

It's just these egotistical, arrogant swamp monsters that make me feel despair - there doesn't appear to be actually intelligent people anywhere. When a below-mediocre hack like me can appear to be some kind of shining beacon when it comes to the most simple things, like typing a couple of basic english words correctly, it's a very scary world and an environment to exist in.

I don't want to be the one-eyed king in the world of the blind. I want to be the one-eyed loser in the world of two-eyed people, all of which can see better than I can. I want people to be smarter than me, and have BETTER command of english than my very basic one. I want people to outwrite me, outclass me, and outsmart me at every turn.

I don't feel safe if a someone as stupid as me can appear to be smarter, more skilled, more thoughtful or understanding of a simple language than most people in the world.

On one hand, it feels like: "If I can do this, everyone can". But on the other hand it feels like, "If most people are this stupid, what hope is there for anything?"

Come on, at least learn to type BASIC english correctly - why is this like a torturous, ridiculously oppressive, high-class demand in today's world? Am I demanding too much if I expect adult people, even english learners, to type simple english correctly?

I mean, I don't expect beginner english learners to have a vast VOCABULARY, but I expect them to be able to write ALL the words they know correctly.

Is this really too much to expect? With my hand on my heart, I ask the reader, honestly - IS THIS TOO MUCH TO EXPECT?

By the way, I am aware of the stupidity, ignorance and illiteracy-praising, sarcastic 'clickbait'-post someone decided to write. Someone REALLY decided to write that. However, that only supports MY viewpoint, because it perfectly illustrates why I am concerned; THAT is what language will become, if we don't do something about it before it's too late. We can't just say 'who cares' about important things like language and communication, what words mean, and how they're spelled, and expect everything to be fine.

In fact, _I_ was about to write that kind of post, where I use as many of those 'american custom versions' of words, and not even one correct english word to write a whole, long post, and see if people can even read or understand it, JUST to illustrate how stomach-turning it is to watch people write these God-awful posts that don't have most words spelled correctly, and those that are, are the wrong word choices.. (spellcheck doesn't help, if you choose the wrong words that are spelled correctly, which is probably why these handheld-device-addicted morons mix 'your' with 'you're', 'here' with 'hear', and 'there' with 'their'.

When you come from an 'animalistic mouth noise'-perspective into the written world, you can't just trust spellcheck to do your thinking and understanding of written english for you - you HAVE to learn how these words are spelled, or you will reveal something embarrassing about yourself to everyone.

originally posted by: Shoujikina
Come on, at least learn to type BASIC english correctly - why is this like a torturous, ridiculously oppressive, high-class demand in today's world? Am I demanding too much if I expect adult people, even english learners, to type simple english correctly?

That should include people capitalizing the word 'English' since it's a proper noun.

But prices of printer cartridges are expensive. It should not cost that much to buy them, I bet a cartridge that sells for thirty bucks costs less than five bucks to make. Those manufacturers are probably owned by pharma companies.

a reply to: Shoujikina

originally posted by: Shoujikina

Don't even get me started on 'nauseated' being said as 'nauseous', 'nauseous' being said as 'nauseating', etc.

Nauseous = causing nausea in others
Nauseated = experiencing nausea
Nauseating - NO SUCH WORD EXISTS!

I agree with much of what you describe. However, the word Nauseating does exist.


nauseating
/ˈnɔːzɪeɪtɪŋ/

adjective
causing or liable to cause a feeling of nausea or disgust; disgusting.
"the stench was nauseating"


Another classic mistake is the use of are and our.

ETA: Please don't forget to make allowances for the differences in spelling between American and British English, like color and colour.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Dude, this AGAIN?

I’ll be the first to admit not everything that I write is 100% up to par in the world of literary essays.
Guess what, most people don’t give a flying squirrel.

If it bothers you, maybe you should stick to reading scientific journals or literary works of art. What you’ll find is even in those, even in some of the most beautifully written pieces, there are mistakes.

Guess what, mistakes are human. There are people on here with atrocious spelling, they can’t differentiate between, there, their, and they’re. That’s ok, because sometimes the message coming from those people can be a thousand times more enlightening than those with the most polished prose.

This is also an informal message board. Maybe you weren’t around in the early days. The whole purpose was to speak casually as if you were speaking in person. These are not papers that are up to be graded or studied for their perfect structure.

PS.

“nau·se·at·ing
/ˈnôzēˌādiNG/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
adjective: nauseating
causing or liable to cause a feeling of nausea or disgust; disgusting.
"the stench became nauseating"

If it’s good enough for the oxford dictionary, it’s good enough for me.

You can drive fast, but you can't drive quickly, unless we're talking about 'from one place to another', and even then, it's questionable whether the driving itself was 'quick', or whether it was your trip, your arrival, and so on.

HUGE difference.

Someone driving fast isn't the same as someone driving quick. Everybody can drive fast with the right vehicle but not everyone can drive quick. Fast is speed and quickness is the speed of reaction. A good analogy would be you and me on a race track, for sure you will drive fast, as fast as I will, but I will be quicker with the same car, because where reaction counts in curves is where I will be faster due to being quicker.

fast1
Pronunciation /fɑːst/
Moving or capable of moving at high speed.

quick
Pronunciation /kwɪk/
...
Reacting to stimuli with speed and keen sensitivity.

See? Fast != quick. Someone quick is fast, but someone fast is not necessary quick.

a reply to: Shoujikina

Can you summarize two long posts of a lot of text? I guess some will read it all. Most wont. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay toooooo much text.

a reply to: Shoujikina
I think you have too much time on your hands

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

This may be the best reply ever ! So cold, so harsh and yet so true ! If I had beer it would be spilt from laughter!