We use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. We do this to improve browsing experience and to show (non-) personalized ads. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Congratulations and well-deserved, Pete.
Team David on the quotes, though. Sorry! (Not sorry.) I think it fits the gravity of a more serious allegation better than a cartoon speech bubble.
If you want soft, though, you know what I’m gonna say: Puffalump.
Congratulations and well-deserved, Pete.
Team David on the quotes, though. Sorry! (Not sorry.)
A bubble is a real quote if comic characters are real.
They imply a two dimensional character is speaking in the mind of the author maybe.
On the other hand, I do think this site is a little “up tight”.
DT claims to have protected the site successfully from legal problems with that attitude. He is probably right, since he is in charge of the bear whistle, there have been no bear attacks in LA.
And then there is muddy situation of an i3 cult member undergoing Jeep therapy.
It’s youse guys comic, so your call. I’m mostly here for the annual tee shirt.
Peter is so good at his job and he helps the site function is so many crucial ways. He’s also super kind and a very talented artist!
(Congratulations, Peter!) – Johnathon.
I’m with David on this one. Never give an attorney anything with which to work if you can avoid it.
I’m proud of being Lexis/Nexus free to date.
I understand that surprise meeting getting fired feeling. Why did noone suggest a question mark after the comment? That leaves it up to the readers to decide.
If you’re quoting someone, it needs to be exact. Don’t add a question mark if it was a statement.
I guess you could’ve done a non-quote with the question mark, but yeah. The second you put quotation marks or even a speech bubble around the text, people assume that it’s verbatim what the dude said.
Or the headline with a question mark then whatever you want in the body? Or quote marks around the statement and question mark outside the marks. It is a beautiful world where you can fall back on actual real English and show how things are slipping.
My big thing I’ve always wondered is if quotation marks are intended to show the intent why aren’t they before the sentence? You read the sentence and then see a question mark now you have to rethink the sentence. However put a question mark before the sentence you know it is a question. Of course WEEWH people will say those presentence words show it’s a question, but then what good is the question mark after the sentence? I’m thinking millions of dollars wasted on keeping union teachers employed. After all they say think of the children when striking for raises. How does that help students? Just wondering.
I’d try to stay away from question headlines, though. There’s such a running joke about the answer usually being “no” that it’s been enshrined as Betteridge’s Law, and you want people to read the thing.
You can’t use quotation marks only for intent, though, unless it’s an actual, verbatim quote. Whatever’s between those marks needs to be said by the actual person, otherwise you’re opening yourself up to legal risk, not to mention that it’s just not cool to put words in other peoples’ mouths. Adding a question mark outside the quotation marks would look sus as hell (did the person being quoted ask a question or not? or did someone screw up?), not to mention be a visual mess.
As for teachers, that’s another issue altogether. Teachers deserve SUCH better treatment and pay that I can’t fault them for organizing and fighting for a living wage and better treatment. The bigger issue is that we shouldn’t be at this point in the first place. Our schools (at least in Texas) are comically underfunded to the point where the rural district in Mom’s town went to a four-day week, any my friend’s kid in one of the richer suburban districts over here is having to buy her own books in high school. High school! I’ve never, ever heard of that in my life, but here we are where even the nicer districts can’t afford to provide books for everyone, I guess. It’s not unheard of to hear teachers having to buy their own classroom supplies, which is rough when you’re not making enough in the first place. Then there’s the overemphasis on testing that annoyed the hell out of a family friend who said she had to spend so much time teaching kids how to pass one test instead of teaching the broader skills they should learn from her class.
They’re not striking down here — just underfunded and poorly managed. Many teachers can’t afford to live on what schools are paying, so they get frustrated and leave, which is something that’s factored into rural four-day schedules where they’re trying to offer any other perk they can afford (which isn’t pay) to try and woo people into teaching there. It’s frustrating when I see that underinvestment in education translate into the work world, where I’m sometimes having to go over things I learned in middle school with early-career writers. Schools are a public good and I don’t mind us (the public) spending a bit more on them to make sure the next generation is set up to kick ass in life. But I digress. (Pardon the long rant, but I’ve been in shock by how bad it’s gotten for a while.)
They say “think of the children” when striking for additional nurses, counselors, support staff, smaller class sizes, better lunch programs, reasonably effective janitorial services, etc. Teachers have limited options to bargain for anything, and striking is pretty much it so frequently teachers are bargaining for things that are, in fact, for the children. Its just very easy for city/district representatives looking for a good sound bite to say “teachers only want more money”. Instead of hiring necessary support staff, school districts are expecting teachers to perform a multitude of services to support students beyond, you know, educating them (and some people want to add “security guard” and “responsible wielder of firearms” to the list, sheesh). Let’s also consider the lack of new teachers entering the classroom and plenty of teachers leaving because the teaching salaries are not competitive with the rest of the job market.
IMO it shouldn’t be this way. Support services for students shouldn’t need to be part of bargaining a collective compensation package, but often teachers are the only advocates for their students, and as I said above, the best (only) bargaining tool they have is striking.
Source – Chicago resident married to a union teacher.
PS – your initial comment seems way off topic and I probably shouldn’t have responded, but… I’m dumb.
Congratulations Peter on your new roll! I’m not sure what is the difference between a Managing Editor verses the role you had before, but I’m sure it’s a good one!
Congratulations Peter! Word balloon was correct.
I also received a promotion in a meeting I initially assumed was heading the other direction. It’s a weird feeling.
Likewise- walked in fully expecting to be laid off, but instead was asked to set up a new office in another country (so technically still laid off by one company, but rehired by its sister entity across the sea)
I’ll never forget the day my boss’s boss walked into my office, shut the door, and sat down. I thought “well, I guess I’ll be looking for a job later today.” Instead, he told me that my boss had pointed out I was underpaid for my role and gave me a 7% raise on the spot. Nonetheless, I assume anyone in a position above me that shows up unannounced is there to can me.
I remember my last promotion no money but 2 words were added too my title.
Go, Peter!
So, do you have room for a cool but absolutely beat POS that’ll make your life miserable and give us the content we crave? That’s kinda obligatory, no?
I can’t believe that this is the second time in a week my usually mild-mannered self has had to say this: “Fuck Peter T….” but goddamn that guy is morally bankrupt and put multiple businesses I like/use out of business just because he can.
Oops, you are talking about another Peter… sorry
Arguably did a solid for the Hulkmeister though, leading to this website somehow.
I guess that is true, we would likely not have The Autopian if it were not for that asshole. And the Hulk was done wrong, but not that wrong…
Do you not recall Jalopnik was about cars anymore except for the heads of this site? The rest of the quality staff left. Why? Because the site became car hating America hating socialists. Let’s not go back there let’s erase this thread and hateful trolls.
You probably forgot that the courts actually told the previous owner to take down the video which he refused to do and was fined by the courts so much money the site went bankrupt and that allowed the aggrieved party to buy it and put it out of business? The original owner used the site for personal reasons and that is the reason for the bankruptcy. Don’t blame the victims.
Oh that Peter.
The default option in the comment box for quoting someone is a blockquote which, despite being selected via a quotation mark, doesn’t actually put the quoted material itself within quotation marks. Are you trying to get us sued?
Also, congratulations on the promotion!
Go git’em, Pete!
Congratulations Pete! Finally someone in charge who knows what the fuck they’re doing!
😉
Congrats, Peter. This would imply that there is now an open position you once occupied. This is a great sign of growth for the Autopian! What will the new employee do???
This comment has been redacted not to violate David’s Code of the Autopian (allegedly).
On a serious note, congrats Peter! And I think David has a point on this one, although I personally wouldn’t mind quotation marks within a bubble.
I thought the speech bubble was more clear because it showed the attribution to the Canadian guy. Just putting the statement in quotations didn’t attribute it to anyone.
And this is why life has taught me to hire attorneys instead of going with common sense.
(“Congratulations Peter”) – Brandon
Your work is solid Pete. Have some confidence in yourself, you deserve it.
(“(Congratulations Peter!) – VanGuy” -VanGuy) – VanGuy
checking syntax… ok
Please Excuse Meddlesome Dithering Autopian Staffers
This is much better than the one I made when I was younger, Please Eviscerate My Deranged, Annoying Sasquatch.
Peter’s Editing Made David All Sad
PEMDAS???
Parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction
‘Please Excuse My Dear Sally’ was how I learned order of operations last century -unless it’s something completely different in publishing.
LOL, that’s it. I always said Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally too. Never PEMDAS.
It’s been decades: had to google—followed by forehead smack 😉
Huh! In Australia we were taught BOMDAS (or BODMAS) being “brackets of …” MDAS, or DMAS.
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally is so much easier to remember.
Also: congrats Pete! Well deserved.
Hi – part-time magazine editor here: no, it isn’t; perhaps; and no, they won’t. 🙂 At least not to any measure that would bear legal scrutiny. I see three reasons for this.
One, it would be trivial to find any number of similar images with people and cartoon-like speech bubbles that do not represent actual quotes.
Two, the “visualization” statement uses a logical fallacy: “everyone knows that”. How would one go about demonstrating even that most people know [something]?
Three, the lack of actual quotes creates significant ambiguity. One should not rely on the reader to assume they are there.
tl;dr – DT had the right approach here.
PS Congratulations, Peter! Well done!
“Which magazine, and where can I subscribe?”
– Bleeder
Thanks! 🙂
Former blogger and current lawyer (with the obligatory ’not your lawyer’) who was about to make a very similar comment regarding the bubble before you beat me to it.
At best, the idea of the bubble as a quotation mark substitute relies on context which is far from universal. If it came down to BMW raising a fuss, regardless of outcome, nobody would end up happy or come out ahead except for whichever law firm Galpin has on retainer.
Also, congrats to Peter!
Folks, I’m not full of shit here. The number of lawsuits I’ve probably kept us out of is significant. (But that’s basically half my job as EIC).
Perhaps I should have pointed my question here then instead of toward the op since you know more about the law:
Ok but how do people know that quotation marks means that you are attributing this to someone else saying the phrase plastered on the top of the page like that?
If you can’t prove they know one way how does this mean the other way is acceptable?
I get this might be the legally accepted method but saying another way doesn’t work because people won’t know does not hold water if you can’t prove that everyone knows the other way. You’re just saying we have to stick with what the legal profession uses, which I guess that’s fine. But like everything else in life it really sucks the fun out of things.
Yeah, people put jokey stuff in speech bubbles all the time.
I agree, even as a Mechanical Engineer. Lawyers are good at finding those loopholes.
Fellow engineer – I think I comprehend legalese ’till I don’t
Ok but how do people know that quotation marks means that you are attributing this to someone else saying the phrase plastered on the top of the page like that?
If you can’t prove they know one way how does this mean the other way is acceptable?
I get this might be the legally accepted method but saying another way doesn’t work because people won’t know does not hold water if you can’t prove that everyone knows the other way. You’re just saying we have to stick with what the legal profession uses, which I guess that’s fine. But like everything else in life it really sucks the fun out of things.
what you said
(Congratulations, Peter!)> Mechjaz
Congrats, Pete!
-buzz*
*Actual quote
As a reader, we clearly do not always comprehend the internal (and legal) dynamic of headlines, etc… Thank you for this glimpse into how this sausage is made (as unpalatable as it may be at times). I do not envy your responsibilities but do envy your opportunities. Godspeed to David and ‘Elise’.
“Congratulations Peter!” – 3WiperB
Credit where it’s due, you’ve kicked off some solid orthography gags
-Mechjaz
Just in case
“I appreciate that people caught it and continued it” – 3WiperB