Confirmation Bias/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


clappy humor: A style of humor in which actual humor content is irrelevant. Instead, the comedian makes cutting, witty remarks about a person, idea or movement to which both he and his audience are largely opposed, and the audience does not actually laugh, but instead applauds his wit. Clappy humor is only there to make a political point and to be clapped at; it is not supposed to be "funny" or joke-based, as mere jokes and laughter would be considered frivolous by both comedian and audience.

Whoever peruses this essay should know that it states only Runeberg's conclusions, not his dialectic or his proof. Someone may observe that no doubt the conclusion preceded the "proofs". For who gives himself up to looking for proofs of something he does not believe in or the predication of which he does not care about?

Jorge Luis Borges, Three Versions of Judas

The same phenomenon exists with respect to Celtic vs Latin words in English.
Most English scholars and linguists are wholly unaware of any Celtic language and ascribe all words that have a Latin cognate as derived from Latin, completely ignoring Celtic cognates. Then they claim that surprisingly Celtic has left only 3 or 4 words in English. Then make the statement that the Anglo-Saxons must have totally replaced the Native Britons in today’s England.

a comment on No, Lebanese is not a “dialect of” Arabic by Nassim Nicholas Taleb