Comments on: English as she is Wrote

By: goatchowder

goatchowder — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:29:48 +0000

How many angels can dance on the head of a fine and blurry line?

By: Jon H

Jon H — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 05:05:48 +0000

It looks sharp as long as you don’t look too closely.

By: a very public sociologist

a very public sociologist — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:41:03 +0000

Quantum mechanics?

By: engels

engels — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:54:01 +0000

Here is an informative discussion of how to use graphics tools to create fine, blurry lines (using Gaussian blur, motion blur, etc) to avoid problems that fine, sharp lines cause with interlacing. Some other uses on the 'net: State's Fine Line on Dipnetting Blurry to All Anchorage Daily News This score caught Howard Shore between “eXistenZ”(1999), a film that shared a few similarities – particularly the fine blurry line between dream and reality – and “Lord of the Rings”(2001) – an epic where he reused most of the unusual instruments chosen for The Cell (like the monochord and the Ghaita)." Miguel d'Oliveira, Composer There was a fine, blurry line between justifiable and unjustifiable rudeness, and it tended to move depending on the extent to which my pride had been wounded. "et-tu?" blog

By: Mike Otsuka

Mike Otsuka — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:43:35 +0000

I’m having a hard time visualizing a fine, blurry line.
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Kieran: I see from your ‘Simpsonize me’ post that you wear glasses. So try looking at the above fine line with your glasses off. With mine off, it still looks fine (slender). But it also looks blurry (indistinct).

By: Master Mahan

Master Mahan — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:57:39 +0000

It’s quite simple. The line is blurry for anything Guiliani does, and exceedingly fine for everyone else.

By: doug

doug — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:54:10 +0000

the line can be fine but the boundary can be blurry. so the boundary isn’t a line, but if it were, it would be fine. furthermore, we’ll drink no wine before it’s time.

By: Oskar Shapley

Oskar Shapley — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:40:11 +0000

width: 1px; transparent: 50%;

By: DB

DB — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:32:10 +0000

that line is also bright but sometimes hard to discern!

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:21:59 +0000

I want answers, dammit!

The answers are yes, either, yes, and no.

You’re welcome.

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:14:49 +0000

Felix Frankfurter used the same formulation, couched differently, in describing the secondary boycott provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, which require the drawing of “distinctions more nice than obvious.” The fineness/niceness of the distinction indicates that there is not much separating the two sides, but heavy consequences once you cross the line between them. The blurry/not obvious quality of the distinction only compounds the risk but does not change its fineness or niceness.

You can have fine/nice distinctions that are marked by non-blurry lines (it’s illegal for an employer to fire strikers, but not to permanently replace them), but I think the addition of a fuzzy criterion makes the fineness/niceness that much more obvious to us.

Frankfurter was no stylist, and this is the sort of formula that you can only pass off in quotation marks, given its musty 19th Century quality, but he was a fairly careful writer. Can’t say the same for our Newsweek writer, who may have been reciting from the catechism of cliche. But all the talk in the world can’t change the hard facts of the situation.

By: mollymooly

mollymooly — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:48:29 +0000

I’ve never liked the “fine line” cliché: I’ve never really understood it. If X is good and Y is bad and there’s a fine line between X and Y, does that mean X borders Y, à la comment#6? What’s the alternative to a fine line: a wide no-man’s land? A high fence? Should we just stay over on the far side of X rather than risk inadvertently straying into Y?

Or is it that X and Y are both bad, and we have to walk the (fine) line between them?

I want answers, dammit!

By: uppity kitty

uppity kitty — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:45:23 +0000

They are just throwing Rudy out there, knowing he can’t win, so that less attention is paid to some others Rethugs who might be recycled in 2012.

They know they can’t win in 2008 and are doing everything to control the outcome of the Dem who will.

By: mpowell

mpowell — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:16:46 +0000

If a line was very thin and your view of it also very blurry, then you wouldn’t actually see the line at all!

Maybe that’s the point here: Rudy Giuliani doesn’t see any difference between saint and sinner. The only difference that matters is between friend and not-friend.

By: Kieran Healy has some problems « Entertaining Research

Kieran Healy has some problems « Entertaining Research — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:14:27 +0000

[...] Healy has some problems In visualizing a fine, blurry [...]