After I lost all my friends because I spent so much time debating with them, I obviously needed a new forum, for debating. I can’t help getting into debates; it’s in my blood, and my soul. Sometimes I just take a contrary position, just so I can test my debating skills, which is probably a large part of the reason why no one wants to hang out with me any more. Not my fault that I live in a world where everyone wants their opinions validated, instead of them being challenged and made stronger.
Thank goodness I found ‘pointless quibble online’, where you can do basically all of that, all day. Today I spent four hours arguing with ignorant Americans over the pronunciation of ‘aluminium’, which is great, because aluminium under tray drawers and ALL those related things are very near and dear to my heart and the thought of there being an entire continent full of people pronouncing it wrong just got my debating fingers itching.
I’ve always been a strong advocate of aluminium. I’m part of the appreciation society, of course, and I myself have large collection of gas bottle holders. It’s a mid-size item, probably too big for my small house, but I recently moved into a place with a second bedroom just so I could have a place to display my gas bottle holders. Thing is, I could never argue with my friends about the pronunciation because all of them agreed with me. That’s boring. Usually I’d just argue against it, but in this case, I draw the line. Aluminium is just too important to pretend that I think it’s a good idea to say “al-OO-min-num”, like some kind of illiterate.
Good thing I found Pointless Quibble, then. Now I can spend all day becoming outraged about the insult to aluminium toolboxes that is wrought every time someone says their name in an American way. Do they even know how useful powder coated aluminium toolboxes are?
Not that I’m against America, of course. Their fries are very nice, and I like their sitcoms. But for the purposes of online debate, I have to pretend, for a little while, that they are the absolute worst.
-K