-1 * -1 = .... -1?

[madbaker]

"Dumb-ass" is a negative.
The opposite of "dumb-ass" is "smart-ass".

But "smart-ass" is a negative. Math /= Language.

Edited to add: Looking at it with a bit more mathematical rigor, perhaps the apparent contradiction is a result of applying a function incompletely, i.e. inverting only half the phrase ("dumb" -> "smart") when it should be applied to both halves of the phrase.

So, what's the opposite of "ass"? I nominate "elbow" (as utilized in the phrase "He doesn't know his ass from his elbow", which relatively clearly implies opposition).

Therefore, the opposite of "dumb-ass" would be "smart-elbow".
Since this phrase is nonsensical, the attempt to reconcile the contradiction by fuller application of the function is disproved.

Comments

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Which, in a nutshell, is why I suck at math and rule at language. The pen is indeed mightier than the abacus...

[maestrateresa.livejournal.com]

I dunno...I'd rather be a smart-ass than a dumb-ass any day of the week.... (could you tell? :)

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

Calling someone "Einstein" is an insult these days. Society has gotten sooo stooopid.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Saw a review of a book several years ago which posited that the mistrust of learning (and the learned) was a consequence of WW2 with the leaps in war technology -- got waaay too scary. Seems plausible, although I don't recall the title of the book.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

I dunno. A lot of smart people came out of that era, and the education system of America was a lot better (more funding, etc.).

I fear a lot of it has to do with the general "dumbing down" of America. When movies named "Dumb and Dumber" and its sequel "Dumber and Dumberer" are some of the most popular movies to come out, it is really scary. While these are sort of making fun of a lot of that, if you look at most of the popular movies, popular TV, and so on, you will see that Americans as a while, are spiraling downward intellectually ... at least based on popular culture. This is of course my humble opinion, but it's based on a lot of observation.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

The GI bill let lots of people get more educated after the wars than ever before. So that was good.

But why did the public stop listening to educated people, and instead listens to media figures, althletes, and so on? That's a big puzzle to me.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Adlai Stevenson, running for President, was assured that he "had the support of the nation's intellectuals."

"That's great," he replied, "but I need a majority."

And "egghead" was the epithet applied to him in that race...

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

A good quip, but one that would get him axed if it were about any other interest group. (Which of course would have proven his point.) Substitute "christians" "unions" etc...

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

There are (IMHO again) many factors in this. The media, who have fallen into the trap of believing their own hype, make it easy for folk to listen to them, instead of to educated people. Listening to educated people means work, and Americans seem to be, by and large, lazy. It's a real shame, but ... look at the American Work Ethic -- compare it to 100 years ago. Heck, compare it to 50 years ago ... this is one of those things that I think we can poke at for years and never get a single answer to.

The government takes funding away from the education system for whatever pet projects they feel are more important than educating kids.

Those kids turn to the media. The media caters to them, and brings the level down ...

It's another of those catch-22 situations.

tangent

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I remember being extremely surprised while watching TV in England; they asked an Anglican Bishop to come in and give opinion on something that wasn't religion-related.

Re: tangent

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

Well, no matter what else you can say, the schools there are pretty good, and folk are generally pretty well educated.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm not sure if elbow<->ass is the right polarity. I doubt few people would agree on chalk<->cheese or shit<->shinola, either.

[aimeric.livejournal.com]

It all depends on what algrebraic structure one wishes to place the phrase "dumb-ass" in.

While it's reasonable to assume ("ass out of you and me") that, as I believe we are, the words "ass" and "dumb" have negative connotations, multiplication is not the correct operation required here. Hyphenating serves as an addition mechanism here; therefore, a dumb-ass is dumber than a plain ass, whereas a smart-ass, while clearly still an ass, gets some positive points for being smart.

However, if one considers hyphen as a concatenation operator, then we have two orthogonal axes ["ass"/"elbow" and "dumb"/"smart"] here. Optionally, perhaps "ass" is a vector, with "dumb"/"smart" representing its magnitude.

Finally, one could consider "ass" as an non-invertible element of a Ring, in which case, while "dumb" and "smart" do, in fact, convey magnitudes, it may not make sense to speak of an element elbow such that ass * elbow = identity.

As an afterthough, considering that "smart-ass" and "smart-mouth" have similar connotations but that "mouth" and "ass" can be seen to have complementary purposes, it may be the case that we're dealing with idempotent values, i.e. where a * a = a, even though the concept of "dumb-mouth", at present, appears to be undiscovered at this time. Then again, the 6th quark was discovered a few years ago...