Well stated sir!
For some reason an image of Bob Harris refusing to shake Nifong's hand came to mind. I was visualizing a similar encounter where Dakich wanted to shake hands with Jim, who rightly refuses...
Now back to my morning coffee.
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All this surprises me since it is coming from a proud, intellectually active college professor. I would assume, apparently incorrectly, that you would require a high degree of precision and clarity in writing in order assure accurate understanding by the reader. Using initials and acronyms has always been a lazy way to attempt to communicate - permitting confusion and misunderstanding to flourish.
I teach sociolinguistics, which is a descriptive field that explains the natural system language based on how people actually use language, reasoned inductively from real-world data. The field rejects shoving prescriptivism down people's throats in every form that takes, because to do so is both unscientific and unethical. And believe it or not, we still manage to use language precisely in academic journals.
I've been fighting language prescriptivism and language prejudice my whole adult life. A bunch of you guys don't listen to me about it, and assume that my values are 180° from where they are and aligned with some prescriptivist English teacher we've all had in K12, no matter how many times I explain this. I've basically given up. It's easier to work with young people who aren't as prejudiced.
This is a message board, not an academic journal, and a snotty insistence on Redick being the only person who ever gets referred to by two very common initials, in shorthand, has nothing to do with style standards for how college professors communicate in academic journals.
This "JJ" theater isn't about precision. It's about putting down Jalen Johnson for the sake of doing that, using Redick as an excuse to do it.
I'd wager that zero people in a discussion about a guy who left Duke three weeks ago are actually confusing that shorthand with a 16y veteran in the NBA. Not one person in this thread is suddenly confused, given the context, that Dan Dakich is talking about college professors on Twitter taking issue with his hot take on... JJ Redick leaving school last month. I'm sure you yourself are not actually confused, even if seeing someone with probably one of the ten most commonly initial sets among anglophone names happens referred to by their initials is somehow jarring. It's false precision.
Typing on telephones is cumbersome, and I guarantee that when the subject is national politics in 2015-present America, say, people are not suddenly hopelessly confused as to whether someone meant Donald Trump or delirium tremens or Deutsche Telekom or the postal code for Dorchester, when they keystroke "DT." It's obviously the first one.
There are actual issues to discuss with Johnson and Dakich. Instead, people decided to pick a fight over shorthand in a way that consistently communicates that JJ Redick is the only "real" JJ. Prescriptivist assertions about language are nearly always a proxy for something else.
I've prolonged discussion of this inane "JJ" thing by engaging with it, which I shouldn't have done, and I have actual work to do today. Smell ya later.
I'm as pedantic as anyone on this board, and I agree that anyone who is confused about who a poster here was referring to in this thread when saying "JJ" is trying as hard as possible to be offended.
I'm also sympathetic to folks who misspell "Reddick," "Sheldon," or "Thornton." But "JJ" seems even more cut and dry.
I have to ask whether preventing a player from wearing a preferred jersey number as it is "retired" is similarly dismissive of the new player. Many people treat nicknames (and all sorts of things, cheers, hand signs, other memes) in the same way as they treat jerseys...an association with a given player such that trying to use it with a different player may be a sign of disrespect to the original. When the player is someone much beloved and of the quality of Mr. Redick, I can see the aversion. JFC the sports world was up in arms when billy wagner moved to new york and used enter sandman as his entrance music because mariano used it for the yankees.
Where do I draw that line? I respect what throaty teaches, and think there is a lot of value in it (especially in an industry where I work with a lot of people whose english is a second language), but in this case, I really can't be compelled to care all that much. I didn't really care that people called him JJ, and think I even referred him as such upthread. I also don't mind that some people may want a nickname be reserved to a program-great player.
Agree... fervently!
Straw man. No one is confused. Original concern/argument posted above.
Personally, I don't like calling Jalen Johnson "JJ" out of respect for the man whose jersey hangs in the rafters.
It’s a general respect thing for me. If Jalen went by JJ, I would have zero issues with calling him that. I always try my hardest to use someone’s preferred name. Charles to Chuck, Bill to Billy, Jonathan Clay to JJ...really doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if your name is Bob but want called Martian Tom. Whatever you want, that’s what I’ll be calling you.
Actually, I am happy to see Throatybeard posting more frequently -- even if he is taking us to task for something. I learn a lot from his excursions into academic issues.
Frankly, I can't believe the amount of time and energy given on the boards to anything related to Jalen Johnson. He quit, he's gone, and he wasn't all that good when he was here. He's easily the most forgettable big time recruit we've had in a very long time, maybe ever. To me he's not worth any of this.
Throatybeard: I am not a dumb guy, but I do not know what language prescriptivism is, and I am honestly interested in its definition and maybe a short explanation. Maybe others would be too. Would you be interested in providing that here? Understand if you don't want to be bothered with us neanderthals but thought I'd ask. Seriously, interested in some basic knowledge here.
Here's my list of least liked color commentators:
1. Dan Dakich
2. Dan Dakich
3. Dan Dakich
4-98. Dan Dakich
99. Dan Dakich, Cory Alexander (tie)
101. Dan Dakich
Dakich parlayed one game guarding MJ in the '84 tourney into a career. He makes his living tearing people down whenever he has a chance, i.e. being an a-hole. I hope he gets what he deserves.
9F
Throaty, I think I disagree with you and if I only understood your discipline - I may not. Or I could disagree on a civil and slightly more learned manner.
Is there a language prescriptivism book or article that a fairly educated beginner could understand? In the alternative, could you do a DBR Webinar? Just kidding, I think.
Y'all might start by googling "language prescriptivism." A search taking 0.56 seconds easily returns a first page of easy to understand results.
Basically, throaty is referring to the notion that one set of language rules (say, for a particular regional dialect or rhetorical tradition) is better than another and should be academically favored over another. Example: "American English is superior to British English and should be prioritized in teaching, speaking, editing, etc., to the exclusion of any and all British conventions." Think "color" vs. "colour."
Such an approach likewise rejects the evolution of language to include new things like, say, internet acronyms or initialed abbreviations for basketball players.
If you've paid attention over the years, you would have seen that throaty quickly tires of DBR's grammatical pedantry (something of which I myself am roundly guilty), as an example of the above.