The Meddling of English Article with Meaning

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

While working on my website today, i had to write: “This is called smotherbox.” — BDSM in Second Life 1

and also: “A maid with her entire body covered in rubber gear. The collar she's wearing, with its unusual height and rigidness, is called posture collar.” — BDSM in Second Life

Note the phrases “… is called smotherbox” and “… is called posture collar”. Normally, one would write it with a article like this: “… is called a smotherbox”. But as you can see, from a logic perspective, the “a” doesn't belong there. The item's NAME is simply “smotherbox”, not “a smotherbox”.

Most grammarians are dumb-asses when it comes to logic or mathematics. However, they are forgivable, since vast majority of human animals are dumb-asses in one way or another, actually, vast majority of human animals are dumb-asses in vast majority of aspects.

For example, a mathematician, doesn't necessarily even have a basic understanding of the world's histories, and this can be said to just about anyone, of any profession, except professional historians. (World History, as histories from Asia to Europe to Oceania, from individual nations and regions to continents, from the view of a decade to eras to eons, from the specialized aspect of human progress, diversity, to specialized subjects (history of economics, history of math …))

In the above, i've used two knowledge areas {math, history}, to illustrate the foolhardy ignorance of those generally considered educated. You can now suppose that _mathematics_ and _history_ are just two fill-in-the-blanks, and fill it with any academic subject, and realize for a fact the vast majority of human animals know shit, on the whole.

I've stated how grammarians are dumb-asses. But given the above, you now understand it is really not special, because after all just about everyone are dumb-asses. But, here's the catch: Those dumb-asses, who refuse to accept the fact, are the true, real dumb-ass.