ask, request, command

Though flawed in many ways, modern English has figured a few things out. After 500 years of usage, standard words now exist that allow its user to inquire, to entreat, and to issue orders. Using these standard words, the English speaker is able to express himself clearly, concisely, and efficiently. The following are examples of some simple words and standard usages that, if used correctly, allow for streamlined communications.

The English speaker seeking to ask a question about someone’s ability to do something ought use the word ‘can.’ “Can you put the toilet seat down?” is a question about someone’s ability to put the toilet seat down, not a request for him to do so.
The English speaker seeking to request something of someone else ought use the word ‘will,’ or a variant thereof. “Would you put the toilet seat down?” is a request for someone to perform that act in the immediate future.
The English speaker seeking to direct the actions of another ought use the accusative form of the appropriate verb. “Put the toilet seat down!” is a command directed at someone else, a way to tell someone else to do something - not tomorrow, not later, but now.
These standard words and usages developed for a reason; they are not interchangeable, and efforts to use them in place of one another leads quickly to confusion.

Asking someone if they ‘want’ to do something is not the same as asking them to do that thing - it’s an inquiry into their personal desires and aspirations. Trying to turn a question into a request by using the word ‘please’ in conjunction with ‘can’ as a substitute for an inquiry or command is a crutch. Physical crutches are something a person discards as soon as he is well enough to move around without them. Similarly, linguistic crutches ought be discarded as soon as a person is comfortable with the standard words and usages mentioned above.

For more information, please read a book named ‘The Elements of Style’ by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

on b.i.b.l.e – 2

A month ago, I wrote a piece ridiculing a bumper-sticker that read: B.I.B.L.E. – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Upon further consideration, the Christian bible does in fact contain a few passages in which the god of the Christian sect, a god called YHWH, spells out in fairly simple tones exactly how people are to comport themselves (if one actually believes that this god dictated to the members of a long-since-vanished desert tribe his outlines for living a good and a virtuous life, which I do not believe). The primary passage is found in a chapter called Leviticus, in what the Christians refers to as their old testament, under heading number 20.

In Leviticus 20, god YHWH (who is supposedly also his own son as well as a spirit known as holy) is said to demand of his followers that they murder homosexuals, people who engage sexually with animals, and those claiming to be mystics or spirit-mediums. The teachings of this bloodthirsty god furthermore demand that his followers slay in public young girls who are found not to be virgins on their wedding night, and that they put to death persons guilty of worshiping idols other than those of the Christian's own triumvirate. YHWH commands this in no uncertain language; this god makes these demands using clear and simple words; these are basic instructions by which the true Christian might prove to the member of his sect that he should survive the forthcoming progroms; they pose a way by which he might prove to his god that he is worthy of going to the sect's Happy Place In The Sky.

Please, believers in YHWH, carry out the clearly worded mandates of your god, and stop standing around bitching and moaning about abortion and the separation of church and state. If you do come at us, however, we rational, open-minded, freedom-loving people shall defend ourselves, our bodies, and our property with terrible purpose, with righteous fury, with passionate rage, and with any and all weapons at our disposal, including yours.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit