A Boring Dystopia

9748 readers

1125 users here now

Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.

Rules (Subject to Change)

--Be a Decent Human Being

--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title

--Posts must have something to do with the topic

--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.

--No NSFW content

--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

givesomefucks@lemmy.world

683

Israel brands Palestinian detainees with numbers on their foreheads (www.middleeasteye.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

159 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When Israel re-arrested Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank town of Dura, the detainees faced familiar treatment.

They were blindfolded, handcuffed, insulted and kept in inhumane conditions. More unusual was that each man had a number written on his forehead.

Osama Shaheen, who was released in August after 10 months of administrative detention, told Middle East Eye that soldiers brutally stormed his house, smashing his furniture.

"The soldiers turned us from names into numbers, and every detainee had a number that they used to provoke him during his arrest and call him by number instead of name. To them, we are just numbers."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

None of what we are talking about has anything to do with linguistic description. I am not making any prescriptive claims about how the phrase burning ought to be used when describing the practice on humans. We are discussing the colloquial ambiguity in how the term is employed in the headline. We are not discussing grammar.

colloquialism

There is enough ambiguity that plenty of users have brought it up in this thread. You can be dismissive and handwave it away as "others falling for the same bullshit" but it's irrelevant. There are enough of us that grew up speaking English that when we refer to act of branding humans the implication is physical scarification and not product branding which is a marketing term. For those of us that grew up speaking English this is clear as day. It has nothing to do with prescriptive language or grammatic rules as discussed in your philology. Also, at no point did any of this justify your pathetic attack with "filthy little genocide denier". Do better.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I am not making any prescriptive claims about how the phrase burning ought to be used when describing the practice on humans

Oh, so you did go and spend a few minutes on Wiki, good, that's a start. See you are making prescriptive claims as to how you think people have interpreted it, even when faced with people saying "no, that's definitely not how I interpreted it", and afterwards you even argue to them that they can't have interpreted "branding" as a printed mark, since that's not in it's definition. Then someone shows you it is in the definition, and you still maintain your prescriptive claim.

You literally write it out right there.

“Everyone in the comments are assuming the literal and first dictionary definition of branding by physical mutilation.”

Now you've walked back that very prescriptive statement about how you pretend people have definitely interpreted this headline from explicitly stating that EVERYONE is doing something to "imply a good majority". But there is no "good majority". People upvoting a comment claiming something doesn't make that claim any more true, you understand that.

You linking "colloquialism" is peak irony as well. See if you actually understood the subject, you'd realise how silly the things you claim are. But you don't, so you don't realise it, so you keep doing it. :D What does colloquial language have to do with this? Please? Do make an argument, instead of your pseudointelligent babbling about "colloquial ambiguity". This is about you having EXPLICITLY stated that EVERYONE in this thread is using the "literal and first dictionary definition". Even being charitable to you... where is that "good majority assuming the literal and first dictionary definition"? And.. which dictionary? Wouldn't be the only one you checked when someone linked it to you, would it? Because dictionaries don't actually always put definitions in the same order, you see. :F

You're still pretending that everyone is applying the insane prescriptive standard you hold to this word, when native speakers most certainly don't. I've also linked you a million resources showing the actual usage of the term. From movies, shows, books and news articles. Most usages are either discussing a trademark or the act of being "branded" figuratively. As in all these examples that they use here https://www.playphrase.me/#/search?q=branded&language=en and once more, those examples are not cherry-picked, unlike you claimed so many times. They're literally randomly picked examples. That's the very opposite of cherry-picking, ie selecting. I won't argue that no-one uses "branding" to refer to hot irons (or cold ones, as it happens, as cryo-branding is a thing as well nowadays, better scars), but I am arguing that your bullshit statement about "Everyone in the comments are assuming the literal and first dictionary definition of branding by physical mutilation" being bullshit, because there's even a clear fucking illustration of someone having marker on their face. So please show these "everyones" using this definition which means permanent physical mutilation. Go ahead. I'll wait right here. You know, unless you want to just admit that you making a statement you knew to be bullshit?

You simply made a statement you can't back up so you're having to change it and move the goalposts of this debate. "Do better."