The Vine: July 24, 2003
“A ‘tautology’ is a redundancy, not a logical lapse.”
Could you explain that more? I’ve always gotten by with the mathematical definition that a tautology is a statement that is always true. For example, “Sars will update the vine tomorrow or Sars will not update the vine tomorrow.” It’s definitely not a logical lapse, but it’s not quite a redundancy. What would be an example of proper usage in English?
Signed,
p or not p
I can try. I don’t know how well I’ll do.
An example of a tautology, from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” It’s the repetition of an idea, generally phrased to highlight a slight difference — a rhetorical amplification. If it’s employed on purpose, as above, calling a statement a tautology isn’t pejorative. But if a word gets dropped — op. cit. “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” — then it’s an error. Armstrong (or Aldrin, whoever — don’t email me) meant to say, “It’s one small step for A man,” and history will forgive him for not exhibiting properly rigorous usage while, you know, walking on the moon and trying not to freak the fuck out on live TV. But “man” and “mankind” mean the same thing. Ergo, tautology. I mean, yeah, it’s still true. He just said the same thing twice.
But the term is often used incorrectly, which is the reason I brought it up yesterday. A lot of people seem to think it has something to do with syllogisms, which it doesn’t, or that it’s a synonym for “a priori,” which it isn’t. Usually they mean that a piece of logic is busted, which they should just say in the first place.
Now, what’s the essential difference between “tautology” and “pleonasm”? Go on. I dare you.
Hi Sars,
You wrote that no males responded to the issue of engagement ring recycling, so I thought I’d write. I personally would not decide to recycle an engagement ring (and anyway, I have older sisters who would quickly correct me), but I can easily imagine the the sort of mindset that would lead to such a decision. If a guy is not particularly sensitive to the nuances of whole business, and treats it more as a resource allocation problem than an expression of sentimental attachment, then he might not distinguish between “Engagement Ring” and “Engagement Ring Specifically for Ms. Wrong.” He would only become aware of his faux pas when he observes the expression on the face of his fiancée, or his ex-fiancée, or any female acquaintance really, when she realizes what he’s done.
Sincerely,
Hooray for older sisters
Dear Hooray,
You know, it’s sort of tangential to the point, but it’s still good advice. If it’s one of those situations where a woman could conceivably react differently from how you would, call up your mom or your sister or poll your female co-workers. Can’t hurt.
But I think the important lesson here is: caveat regiftor.
Hi Sars,
I am an introverted 22-year old gay man. I have a fairly busy schedule split between working a good job and commuting to school, I have friendly acquaintances at both work and school, and a few solid friends locally and sprinkled around a few neighboring states. My problem is that my dating life has gone from sparse to nonexistent, and I don’t know how to turn things around.
I had, over the course of 2000-2001, four relationships which can euphemistically be termed “learning experiences.” None of them were serious, and the longest one lasted only two months. Since December 2001, nothing. I had a handful of dates in the past year, all of which turned out to be with men who were either asses (one actually asked me to leave in the middle of the date so that he could join his friends for an orgy!) or, less often, there was just no spark. Most of these dates came about from internet personals ads, and clearly that has not exactly been a gold mine.
As I said, I’m pretty introverted, but I am quite friendly in class or work — both of which are probably the most common places for people my age to meet potential dates (my two longest relationships were both with people I met via the workplace in previous jobs). But, alas, the “gay” thing complicates matters, and there are no available gay men around me at work, nor, to my knowledge, in my classes. Of course, a lot of people meet dates at bars/clubs/et cetera, but — and I hate to stereotype here — all the men I’ve met in that environment have not exactly been relationship-oriented. Besides, I live in a small town and I know of only one gay bar/club, and it’s really not my scene anyway. I am also too old for gay youth groups. I’ve even followed that old adage “love comes when you least expect it,” and gone for a few several-month-long sretches of time comfortable in my singlehood with no expectations. Apparently for me, romantic accidents don’t happen, and now the single life is feeling increasingly empty.
About the only thing I can think of left to do is to more or less go up to strangers — not necessarily on the street, but waiters, people working retail, classmates I’ve never met before, maybe even someone sipping coffee at Borders — but is that really a reasonable thing to do? First, gaydar isn’t an exact science. And second, I don’t know of anyone (gay or straight) who has ever started dating someone by asking a total stranger in a non bar/club environment — I’m not even sure how to go about doing that. “Hey, do you have this shirt in red? Oh, and do you want to go out Friday night?” To compound things, I face the very real possibility of accidentally asking out a straight guy, whose reaction could be anything from mild flattery to borderline rage (unfortunately, I think that’s only a mild exaggeration).
So I guess I have two questions here: 1) Is there a way of meeting people that I haven’t thought of? 2) If I go the “ask out a random stranger” route, is there a way to do it that seems at least somewhat natural and minimizes the chance that I end up with an enraged hetero in my face? (Among my straight male friends, their responses have been all over the map when I asked how they would react to a gay man asking them out.)
Honestly, I think my life is going well, and I am happy with my current friends and my time at school and work — the dating life is the only big void and I have no idea how to change that. Any and all advice is appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Single and Stumped
Dear S&S,
Given what you’ve told me, yes, there’s a way. Move to a bigger town. That would solve a number of these problems. The bigger town, the better and more varied the resources — for everyone, not just gay folks. You probably can’t pull up stakes until you finish school, but once you do finish, consider a change of scenery.
In the meantime, don’t try so hard. Actively hunting for a boyfriend is one of the best ways I know to ensure you don’t get one, and you can march all grimly up to that guy in the express checkout aisle with the Tin-Tin haircut and blurt out an invitation to dinner, or you can just live your life and see what happens. Bowl with a league. Go to parties. Compliment people’s shoes. Live in the world.
It’s not the answer you wanted, probably, but there just isn’t a One True Way here. He’s going to come along. Until then, read a magazine.
Hi Sars.
Okay, here’s the situation: I’ve been married for the past four years to a wonderful man who I have no intention of leaving. He’s sweet and kind and thoughtful, and I love him to bits. However, he doesn’t like to dance or drink or, you know, have fun (at least my idea of fun). So what we do is, I go out and have my fun with my friends on Friday night, and he does…whatever he wants to, which usually consists of staying home and watching TV, and going to bed early. He says he doesn’t mind me going out, and he sometimes comes along, so all’s well on that front.
So. About eight months ago, I changed jobs. This new job is interesting, because people usually only leave dead or retired. I can’t be fired (unless I screw up majorly — something along the lines of murder, or stealing money from the government), and there have only been two cases in the past 30 years of people who chose to leave for another job. So, I’ll probably be working here for the next 30 years or so, which is fine by me. I like it here.
In my new workplace, I met this great guy (you saw this coming, didn’t you), who’s 12 years older than me, is married and has two adorable kids. And…I don’t want to say I fell in love, because I don’t think that’s true. I don’t want to drop everything and marry him, we’d never work out. But we have an incredible connection, we’ve become great friends, and we have an amazing sexual chemistry. We’ve talked about it, and we’ve made out a few times, but haven’t actually gone through with anything yet. We both want to, but we’re both scared of our involvement and how it would affect our respective marriages. Not to mention fear of hurting each other’s feelings and losing the friendship.
So, that’s problem number one. Things get a little more complicated…
There’s this other woman at work, same age as The Guy, single and has a kid. The three of us have become really good friends, and we hang out practically every Friday night (usually at her place, or we go out dancing). The thing is, she also has chemistry with The Guy. And when the three of us hang out together, this whole chemistry thing kind of sparks. Again, nothing’s happened, mainly because there are usually other people around (other co-workers). But I have this feeling that if the three of us are ever left alone, something will happen.
Now, while my feelings for The Guy scare me a bit, this scares me to no end. I have no idea how to handle threesomes (my experience is limited to watching the movie Threesome and to my own fantasies). I have no lesbian or bisexual inclination that I know of. I don’t know if the friendship I have with The Girl would resist something like this, or if we’d turn this into a contest and a power struggle. Not to mention that we all work together, currently in the same room. And like I said, we’ll probably be working together at least for another 20 years.
And to complicate things a little bit more, there’s this other guy, also a co-worker, who’s begun to hang out with us. For the past month, every Friday night ends with the four of us together, and lately the sexual innuendos have begun to lack in subtlety. However, this is where I draw the line (I had to draw it somewhere). Threesomes = okay (maybe), foursomes = no way.
So…yeah. That’s it. I feel kind of like Alice, going through the looking glass. Life has become seven kinds of weird. I have no idea what to do with all of this. I’ve sort of worked out my relationship with The Guy and my feelings about cheating on my husband. I’m also seeking therapy. But I’d really like to hear what you think and what you’d do…
Queen of Hearts
Dear Queen,
Hmm. Let’s see. What I’d do, what I’d do…well, I would be married, so I would do nothing. And I would consider it a really stupid idea to shit where I eat, so even if I weren’t married, I would do nothing.
You’ve already cheated on your husband. Apparently, you’ve found a way to justify that to yourself, so…cheat away. Tell yourself you have a right to do it because he’s not into your brand of fun; it’s not like you couldn’t have figured that out before taking a vow of fidelity, but hey, whatever works for you. And once you’ve talked yourself into that, you shouldn’t have too much trouble convincing yourself that it’s not that bad an idea to fuck a co-worker who is also married, and from there, it’s a hop, skip, and a jump to fucking more than one co-worker at a time. You have to work with them every day until one of you dies or gets transferred, which will get horribly awkward, but, you know — live in the now. Give in to impulse. Act as unprofessional as possible — in fact, have the threeway in the conference room!
Girl. Please. You are married, and you work with these people, and you can get unmarried and find another job and then live the Penthouse Letters life, or you can show a single ounce of restraint and common sense. You don’t sound stupid to me, so quit acting like it and get a goddamn grip on yourself.
Dear Sars,
My coworker, “Finn,” is in Central America for a week, and I am staying at his house, watching the dog, the plants, the koi pond, and the television.
A few days ago, the fish started dying. Unfortunately, I didn’t become aware of the casualty rate until it had gained momentum. One of the neighbors came over to tend the tomato plants, and we spent a grim evening staring at the pond, turning the pump off and on, and dumping food in the water. No more fish died during the time we were administering these aid techniques.
The next day, yesterday, I called the guy who put together the pond in the first place. He recommended I test the pond for ammonia; since there had been dead fish in the pond, he was pretty sure the ammonia levels would be up. If they were, I should administer this stuff that “locks up” the ammonia, rendering it harmless to fish.
I bought the test, I bought the lock stuff. The water came up completely clean for ammonia. That’s got to be wrong, I thought, so I put some of the ammo lock in anyway. One fish died right then, but the rest seemed okay. I watched one of them kind of riding the current on its side, around and around the pond; it didn’t look alive, exactly, but neither did it float to the top, and when I poked it gently with the net, it sort of moved a fin.
This morning, though, I hauled out more bodies, including those of two big dudes I felt certain would survive this. The population has now dwindled alarmingly.
Finn is a neat guy who really loves his plants and fish, and takes pleasure watching the processes of the ecosystems he has carefully developed. This will upset him, I know. Should I call and ruin the rest of his vacation? Are there other options, in your opinion? I know from sitcoms that replacing the fish and pretending like nothing happened will only end in disaster.
Koi-pable
Dear Koi Death Pondering,
I don’t think you should call him, or replace the fish and whistle Dixie. Let him enjoy his vacation free from grief.
In the meantime, keep asking the guy who started up the pond for advice. Look in the yellow pages for other experts who could help; try to get to the bottom of the problem, and try to prevent any more fish from dying.
When Finn gets back, you can explain what happened and offer to pony up for a koi or two, but you’ve done the best you can to figure out the problem, and it doesn’t sound like your fault. Keep looking for solutions, and let Finn have his holiday in peace.
[7/24/03]
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette grammar rando sex workplace
