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Bai! You’ve been pwnd by chirdlike reasoning

October 2, 2009 by Douglas Bonneville

Halfway through the comments on this post over at Just Creative Design, a common typo rears it’s head: Funny & Odd Emails Received The typo is “chirdlike” which seems to be, but I’m not 100% sure, a typo for “childlike”. I don’t understand why this happens so much since “r” is not near “l” on the keyboard. Either way, I didn’t know what it meant the first time I came across it, thinking it was an eighth-grade vocab word I missed, or it was another one of those fancy internet memes like “pwn” or its past-tence version, “pwnd”. I googled “chirdlike” only to find that the number one result for the word in Google was…the post I was commenting on! I still have no definition, since I end up in a recursive loop, since when I ask the question, I end up reading my own comment on the site from which the comment originated. How interesting. Therefore… I now suggest that we define “chirdlike” as follwing: chirdlike: a debate tactic which uses circular logic as a diversionary tactic: a recursive red herring. What do you think it should mean? Before you suggest anything though, you must Google the word “recursion” and include a reference to it in your post. You must also Google “chirdlike” too.
http://justcreativedesign.com/2009/09/21/funny-odd-emails-recieved/

About Douglas Bonneville

Douglas has been a graphic designer since 1992, in addition to software developer and author. He is a member of Smashing Magazine's "Panel of Experts" and has contributed to over 100 articles. He is the author of "The Big Book of Font Combinations", loves cats, and plays guitar.

Comments

  1. brian watkins says

    October 3, 2009 at 2:24 am

    i believe the “ch” is prounounced like “k” as in “choir” and the word “chird” is an old english variation of the word “curd” -that thickened sour milk substance. I think it was often used by George Washington when referring to the minds of England’s occupying leadership when discussing their need to bring percussion instruments into battle. Anyway, i believe an evolved version of the term is what the poster was using to explain their lack of mature ideas in general.

  2. Jacob Cass says

    October 3, 2009 at 11:06 am

    Droste like indeed! Seems like the first three results now point to this article. Recursive you might say.

  3. Douglas Bonneville says

    October 3, 2009 at 11:30 am

    Your definition was my second choice, I just didn’t have time to explain it as well as you 🙂

  4. Douglas Bonneville says

    October 3, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Wow. Pwnd by myself. Is that possible?

  5. Douglas Bonneville says

    October 3, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    So I had to look up “droste” which I had never heard of:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect

    I used to try to see infinity or the future or something interesting when I was a kid using 2 mirrors :).

  6. brian watkins says

    October 3, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    as i am more awake now and have reread my post i’m thinking to myself, how the heck did i come up with that nonesense? then i discovered the phenomenon that you were referring to. it seems that if you stay up too late while contemplating these kinds of droste things something strange happens. you are vulnerable to being pwnd by recursive chirdlike self-propagating thoughts.

    you should design a logo that uses this droste idea. you know you’ll need it again. haha

  7. Jacob Cass says

    October 6, 2009 at 10:22 pm

    Now we’re even on who had to look up words.

  8. Douglas Bonneville says

    October 6, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    Maybe we should join this separately together:

    http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Look-Up-Words-I-Dont-Know/227246

The BonFX Letter

One good pairing.
Every Tuesday.

2-minute read · free

This week — no. 14

Quiet authority

Merriweather sets the tone in one line. Lato stays out of the way and lets it.

MERRIWEATHER 700  +  LATO 400

A font specimen, a pairing that works, and one line on why it works. That is the whole email.

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