Yeah, but "the kind of parody that, without an obvious wink or nod, has the potential to be seen as a legitimate extreme viewpoint" dates to 1729 at least. I'm not unacquainted with Poe's Law but I've yet to see a noun derived from it. "Satire" or "Parody" still work just fine.
well, I'm not the first person to use the noun derived. I agree that satire and parody are just fine, it's just a more specific word to the situation. That being said, considering the point of language is to communicate and i wasn't immediately understood, obviously the word has failed in its purpose.
I've heard people invoke "Poe's Law" plenty of times. The correct usage is in calling out someone who responds seriously to parody because they did not correctly see it as such. Used correctly, Poe's Law is an identity: It holds that without obvious tags, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism that will not be seen as true extremism by someone. Therefore, all parodies without disclaimers would be "Poes." The Venn Diagram of "Poes" and "parodies" would be one big magenta circle. Sorry if this comes across as beating you up. That's not my intent. It just gets my hackles up when I see a perfectly precise, correct word replaced by a clumsy and imprecise newcomer whose syntax and usage are radically worse than that which it replaces. "Parody" and "Satire" have etymologies and syntaxes that date back to Sophocles; "Poe's Law" goes back to the 2nd GWB administration and "pulling a Poe" hearkens clear back to 4chan. Sophocles wins.
It seemed clear to me that by using Poe, coffeesp00ns was reminding the rest of us that this blog post was just the sort of thing that could prove Poe's Law right. Hardly an untoward invocation. If we all had to use the most ancient word of its kind, or even the most precise, language wouldn't be very much fun, no?
One should always use the word that conveys ones meaning in the cleanest, most concise way possible. The written word is a terrible substitute for face-to-face communication as it is; getting all "whatevs yo" about it only leads to confusion. We're now five comments deep on whether or not the word is appropriate. QED, it's not. But just to prove a point: - rationalwiki is the only site I can find on the Internet that refers to "a poe" which, paradoxically, uses the statement "'Poe' as a noun has become almost as ubiquitous as Poe's Law itself." - Urbandictionary has seven definitions of "poe", none of which match the usage here. In fact, Urbandictionary asserts that "a poe" is the author of said parody, not the parody itself. - Poe's Law is easy to invoke without confusion. There are times when inventing new words is beneficial to the language. Then there are times when attempting to shoehorn a definition just adds confusion. We all know what satire is. We all know what Poe's Law is. We don't, however, agree on what "a Poe" is so perhaps it's not the best word to use. That's all I'm saying. FFS.
It's blinkered to say language is solely for "convey[ing] ones [sic] meaning in the cleanest, most concise way possible." That sounds like language according to a mirthless bureaucrat (well, anyone who prescribes rules about language using the word "always" sounds like a bureaucrat). I think ambiguities should be welcome—the mot juste may sometimes be the word that is more fanciful than it is pragmatic. It's true: language is first and foremost for communication. But there's obviously a sensuous, frolicking side to it, a side that shouldn't be overlooked (watch master wordsmith Stephen Fry elaborate). It was fun to see this blog post dubbed "a poe"; quite a bit more fun than to read countless others who gabbed about it's legitimacy as "satire" (how dreary!). Most of the nonce words in Finnegans Wake don't exist because they are "beneficial to the language". To the contrary: Joyce invented words out of sheer playfulness. Quibbling with that impulse seems to me like dourness or, worse, pedantry. That's all I am saying.
It is. Good thing I didn't say that. I said: I didn't say "language." I said "the word." See, that was me being clean and concise and getting my point across. You, on the other hand, got all loosey-goosey with it and now we have a misunderstanding. And then he explained them. Or put them in context. Or otherwise used them in a way in which he improved the dialog between himself and his readers. He did not say "that was a Poe" only to have someone else say "What's a poe" only to respond "it's one of several meanings in this article here, I think, there weren't any better links." You know what's dreary? Pointing out that a word choice is imprecise and then, six layers deep, having someone slap you in the face with Stephen Fucking Fry. [sic] yourself. Have you ever seen [sic] used by anyone who wasn't trying to be a dick to the other person?It's blinkered to say language is solely for "convey[ing] ones [sic] meaning in the cleanest, most concise way possible."
One should always use the word that conveys ones meaning in the cleanest, most concise way possible.
Most of the nonce words in Finnegans Wake don't exist because they are "beneficial to the language". To the contrary: Joyce invented words out of sheer playfulness.
Au contraire, deploying [sic] was merely an attempt to live up to your standards of cleanness and concision (although that standard applies to words but, paradoxically, not to language? Puzzling.) I'm glad you qualified your "beneficial to the language" diktat. You see, regarding [sic], I feared that a less fortunate reader than myself might get snagged on the absence of the possessive apostrophe: " 'conveys ones meaning' — What the dickens does that mean?" So I took it upon myself to swoop in with [sic] and save those hypothetically befuddled readers...just like how you averted disaster by clarifying exactly what "a poe" was, right? We're both so very gallant, you and I. I'm a newcomer here, but I read through some of your comment history and apparently this isn't the first time the question of dickishness (in conjunction with you, specifically) has come up on hubski. I saw that you've written, "The problem here is that some people really want to be offended." In light of your utterly gratuitous "poe" clarification, we could revise that: some people here are really looking for ways to be confused.
Remember to differentiate between normative and positive statements in order to more directly declare your intent ("should" and "always" in the same sentence).One should always use the word that conveys ones meaning in the cleanest, most concise way possible.
I don't feel beat up, though I'm glad you clarified (clarification of intent is paramount on the internet). I don't think all parodies are poes, however. I can Parody the style of Cannonball Adderly on the Sax, or the Movements of Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids without being a poe. I see it as a Square/Quadrilateral thing. All Poes are Parody, but not all Parodies are poes, just like all squares are quadrilaterals, but not all quadrilaterals are squares. But again, that's just how I see it. I think, fundamentally, if you remove "Poe" from the lexicon you don't lose too much.