What happens when you talk to an artificial intelligence language model about the value of something it can’t actually do? Thinking, I mean.
Language
We Just Need a Little More
What do you need to break out of your rut? You might have a business idea, or something you want to do with your life.
Shades of Gray
A Recent Story brought several questions from readers wanting to know why it referred to a Black guy and a white guy — with those specific capitalizations:
Class Clown
I was intrigued by this week’s Headline — each week’s stories end with one, usually with some sort of twist, from a real news source:
Language Arts
This is an absolutely true story: I was in the class.
Peckertrace: Little Boys Will Be Little Boys
Yet Another Case of a Certain Kind of Story (which I usually ignore, rather than feature in True) has led to a new This is True word:
peckertrace (pĕk′ər trās)
“Let the Public Decide”? Bad Idea….
Be careful what you ask for, since when an organization asks the public for input on what they should name something, they’re opening a Pandora’s box.
Masterfully Baited
Two Stories from Last Week brought complaints that True is politically partisan. The hilarious aspect to the two stories: neither had anything to do with politics, but the readers are so sensitive they thought they were political slams. There were a number of protest unsubscribes, including a Premium reader, which is very unusual.
Pho Keene Controversy
Update: The Restaurant Pho Keene Won!
Sometimes, I’ll Look at the Comments on a news site’s story that I use as a source for a True story. Not very often, since most news comments are a vast wasteland, but the comments on one of the Pho Keene stories I read caught my eye. The top comment was, “Who knew that Keene lacked a sense of humor?” And there was one response: “Anyone that lives here.” Let’s start with the story, from True’s first issue of 2019:
Dust Storms May Exist
While Driving Across southern New Mexico this morning, I rolled my eyes a bit at a warning sign: “Dust Storms May Exist”. Well yeah, so might space aliens bent on beaming someone up from the desert. Reminds me of the one I see farther north: “Icy Conditions May Exist”. Are lawyers writing road signs now? Maybe charging by the letter?
Sorry, Ma’am
Two readers (so far) don’t “get” a tagline from this week’s issue, so I thought I would explain the joke — even though I do understand “Explaining the joke makes it not funny.” Well, they don’t think it’s funny anyway, so let’s get to it. First, the story, from the 5 November 2017 issue:
Man Bites Weiner (or Vice Versa)
Very Often, Readers Submit Stories that are most definitely, without a doubt, weird. But sometimes I still can’t use them because despite being weird (one definition: unusual), they’re …well… not unusual.
A Pride of Obliviots
MSgt USAF (retired) Joe Ohio inquires, “As a multi-decade reader I find readers’ comments almost as entertaining as the stories. This brings me to my question. Being an English major I would like to know what the collective is for ‘obliviot’?”
The Euphemism Treadmill
I ran a story in this week’s issue in part to provoke. Before my editorializing here’s the story, from the 19 June 2011 issue:
There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block
A friend of mine asked me for some advice last week. He’s preparing to leave the military, and thought writing might be his next career. Did I have any pearls of wisdom?
I gave him two main pieces of advice. The second one: he must understand that there’s no such thing as “writer’s block.”
Family Feud
Sometimes there’s a story that I “have” to publish, even though I know it just won’t make it past the spam filters, so I “can’t” put it in the email newsletter. And see below for an update.
Noblesse Oblige
Or, Was I Offensive to Little Girls?
There was a phrase in the previous blog entry on the 6-year-old kid, where I imagined the school staff: “Run in circles! Pull out your hair! Scream like a little girl!”
Today Nancy in Illinois complained that was “sexist language.” She writes:
Herb Caen: Master of the Three Dots
This story is what got me started on remembering Herb Caen — it’s from True’s 17 May 2009 issue:
Tardwit
Important Update Below
—
Sundays are writing day around here: it’s the day I write This is True each week. This week, I had the usual line-up of stories about stupid people doing stupid things (or, as the case may be, smart people doing stupid things!) when I came across the story of Mark Rimkufski from the weirdest state in the union, which is of course Florida.
Weird News Video #28 — Christmas Traditions
Episode #28: “You Think Your State is Weird?”, from True’s 14 December 2008 issue.