Sunday, November 22, 2009

The attack of the Dilbert people.


One of the most mockable Dilbert characters is someone creator Scott Adams refers to as "Bizarre Absolute Guy," who insists on restating whatever you say in terms of "bizarre absolutes" simply for the sake of being able to refute a nonsensical and irrelevant position that you never took:


Dilbert: We should add this feature to our product to make it more useful.

"Bizarre Absolute" Guy: "Are you telling me that not one person on earth will use our product without that feature?!!"

Dilbert: "You just changed what I said into a bizarre absolute."

"BA" Guy: "Oh, I change everything you say?!"

Behold, the bizarre absoluteness:

WindAtMyBack said...

harebell, I certainly do doubt the content of Colvin's statements, if he is saying for a certainty that ALL detainees were tortured. How would he know?

It's the linguistic equivalent of listening to someone, then replying with, "So what you're saying is ...," followed by a complete and total mischaracterization of what was actually said.

I call it the "Twatsification" of modern discourse. Regular readers will understand why.

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