G is for Goat

If I say, “I love goats. Goats be fun,” are these statements, opinions, or facts? Or are these statements a combination of both opinion and fact? Or are these the ravings of the madwoman of Kissimmee Park Road?

First, for our discussion, let’s examine the difference between opinion and fact. An opinion is a belief or judgment that is NOT based on measurable evidence, and a fact is provable on a color-coded graph.

Can it be proved that I, in fact, do love goats?

I own goats. I take care of goats. I talk of goats. I talk to goats. I preach of goats, and I post pictures of goats in public places, next to thousands of kitten and puppy pictures
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It is arguable that I do love goats by a measurable rubric.

Now, let's examine the statement, “Goats be fun.” This can be refuted and often is by my son-in-law. He finds farm animals a curiosity, at best, and, at worst, an abomination. Of course, he was born in Bountiful, Utah where all the children and goats are above average.

The statement “Goats be fun,” is an opinion. Many people find farm animals a smelly bother or a confusing chore or a strain on the delicate balance of an entire planet.

Farm animals poop and fart. This is a measurable fact.

My Muslim neighbor finds goats tasty, and I can prove it.

Buck goats smell rank when they’re in “love.” (If you need proof, come on over sometime during the mating season.) Girl goats find boy goat stink irresistible. Truth. An invitation. Also True.

Boy goats pee on their own faces. True.

It’s horrifying when boy goats drink their own pee. Opinion.

Goats have the cutest babies on earth. Opinion. If someone else refutes the ‘cutest baby goat claim’ by saying, “Hedgehogs have the cutest babies ever, and you’re a disgusting, offensive idiot for claiming otherwise,” then you’ve got yourself a debate. Opinions, which are not facts but feelings about facts, lend to debate. Debates are the mother’s milk of free speech and protected by law in our country.

When someone accuses you of being a disgusting, offensive idiot, then it’s opinion. It’s very difficult to demonstrate a level of idiocy on a flip chart. Or is it? Let me think about that.

Summation: Freedom is hard. Free speech is challenging. Feelings are not facts. Statistics can make fact-finding tricky because of the innate biases and prejudices of the fact-finding team coloring those pie pieces on those charts.

I love debate. Fact. And I can show you on a bar chart demonstrating why that’s absolutely true.

Linda (Hold Your Horses) Zern

F is For Four Letter Words

Dear Netflix,

When the f-word is, by percentage, the most oft repeated word in a sentence, then the sentence has no actual meaning.

This is my working theory. To test the theory, I suggest replacing the F-word with a replacement F-word and testing the hypotenuse of the angle for pointless fiddle twaddle.

So, the F-word becomes FORK in my experiment.

Fork you, you mother forking fork fest of forking forkery.

Nonsense.

Attention Netflix! Dialogue that relies on the use of the ever-popular F-word to the exclusion of actual . . . er . . .  um . . . DIALOGUE is boring, pointless, meaningless, and who the fork cares.

I know that the use of the forking F-word is supposed to indicate a character’s bad ass-ery, but honestly wouldn’t clear and concise writing do that with more effect and less tedium. Think beats of actual action and blocks of actual dialogue.

Answer: Fork yes.

The argument is that “real” people speak this way. Perhaps. But their conversations are as boring, pointless, and meaningless as a Netflix original content movie written by twelve-year-olds—with potty mouths.

Now, I’m no prude, and I think a well-placed, well timed expletive can add great comedic effect or dramatic tension, but an endless stream of a single word, any word, in various grammatical forms . . .

Fork. Forking. Forked. Fork. Fork. Fork. Have forked. Getting forked. Mother Forking, fork face.

Ugh.

Essentially, it’s the same reason I don’t “shoot birds.” 1) I am a Southern lady and do not care to invite the attentions of someone who might mistake the gesture for an invitation. 2) My middle finger is rather knobby and does NOT look attractive stabbing skyward. And 3) It’s been done. Overdone. And has lost all real punch or veracity.

And so, I ask with all sincerity, that we retire the ubiquitous use of the F-word. In college, I was required to read a book titled, Savages. Its entire first chapter consisted of two words. “Fuck you”.  Chapter One: Two words. I was unimpressed. Now if the author had written, You fuck . . . You know, mixed it up a bit. But no.

NOTE and FYI:  I paid one thousand, six hundred dollars for the class.

And so, we grow ever more desiccated in the great verbal desert of modern American word smithing.

Fork that.

Linda (Mumbles) Zern