Comments

1

For fuck's sake, maybe do a Google Image search on "barge". And then apologize to everyone.

4

That's some Mudede-level equivocating Rich, bravo!

5

The only thing better than being actually correct is being technically correct. Those aren't barges, buddy. :)

6

Just don't use the word "clip" to refer to a "magazine" and everything will be fine.

7

Half the posts on Slog now are the resident bloggers whining that someone pointed out their constant errors and shitty "reporting."

8

Sounds a lot like the writings of someone who didn’t grow up near the ocean, let alone Seattle. Most toddlers around here could properly ID a “barge” vs. a “ship.”

9

@7 We are a society of dull pedants

10

The Stranger has become the perfect reflection of its comment section. Writers that petulantly troll trolls. It’s just Trolls all the way down now.

Once Eli quits I honestly can’t wait for this festering cesspool to finally go under.

11

Wait till the “barge truthers” find out that some of the so-called “container ships” they have been screaming about in Rich’s post are actually bulk carriers. Boy will their faces be red!

12

Still wrong. I think this copy editor* can't just admit he was wrong, and so is doing a horrible job justifying his writing.
*I know the right word is journalist, but I think copy editor just sounds so much better, so I'm going to use it even though it has a critically distinct meaning in the same domain that confusing anyone familiar with journalism.

13

"If the container ship could speak, it would probably say “Barge barge barge, although, barge.”

No it wouldn't. It would say, "I am a fuckin SHIP. I big-ass, blue-water sailing, self-propelled SHIP, that can take on any weather and any conditions and carry WAY more shit than any pissant, tug-needing barge."

And the "barges" of yore were "seagoing" only inasmuch as they were auxiliary craft toted around aboard larger SHIPS and used to carry people and goods between ship and shore when anchored in ports lacking sufficient depth at the quay to handle the ship's draft.

14

It's fine for language to evolve over time. It's fine when words become to mean different things through popular use. Rich decreeing that ships are now barges, and making some bullshit language evolution argument is just so much bullshit.

Words mean things. Those things sometimes change. Usually slowly. Never by some half-assed copy editor* decreeing it.

15

I agree with Rich. The last two sentences are the gold.

16

Going with the Humpty Dumpty* school of language now, Rich?

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

17

I'm just relieved there are enough Old Seattle readers left to slap down this idiocy.

18

The verb barge directly references the poor handling (because, you know, they have flat bottoms and need to be towed) of the noun barge.

19

Don't compound your original goof with a load of post-modern word blather.

20

Wow. I mean, I'm used to needlessly long drivel on SLOG (mostly from Mr. Mudede), but Rich, I think you've outdumbed even Mr. Mudede. Congrats, I guess?

22

LOL. I'm going to give Rich the benefit of the doubt and assume he's simply trolling at this point. :)

23

I thought a barge was something you put a house on so you can call it a boat.

24

To be fair, there is some slop in the usage. I seem to remember the floating vessel on the Love Boat being popularly referred to as the "Bait Barge." And for that matter, "Gopher" can become "Congressman" if you really want to confuse things.

25

Barges? We don't need no stinkin' barges.....
Growing up on Lake Superior, we called them Iron Ore Boats and we would always correct anyone who called them barges. The Edmund Fitzgerald was not a barge. The correct classification for this type of vessel is a Bulk Freighter.


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