LOL, sir.
I think you've made my point.
It has nothing to do with the size of the words, but their volume. The prose is practically purple. It's masturbatory. And the fact that your first reaction to my post is to declare your intellectual superiority to me, well, again: you've made my point. :fap:
I'm not sure how I made your point (but the LOL and masturbating GIF are HI-larious!) and really, that's not exactly what you argued in your first post. In case you forgot, here's what you wrote:
This kind of writing is exactly what I hate about Grantland. Could he lay that prose on any thicker? "Silly pretensions," "preposterous prayer circles," "weepy tinpot patriotism," "dime-store Americanism [did he mean Americana?]," "suffocating corporate miasma," "groaning buffet tables." Jesus H., man. We get it; you're better, smarter, and more enlightened than these proles. You don't have to whip it out and smack us in the face with it. And also football fans (and Americans!) are fat!
What you are implying here is that Pierce's main reason for writing this article is to prove that he's smarter than everyone else. Do you really believe that to be true? The guy is in his, what?, fifth decade of writing and the only reason why he's scribbling is because he's trying to prove that he's smarter than other people. That's ridiculous. There's only one reason why you would write that and that's because you don't understand what he's trying to say. The words are too highfalutin to regular folk. And that's bullshit.
Pierce is probably the best writer on the Grantland staff by a country mile, so asking him to dumb down a story, is not why he was hired. He was actually hired to do what he's doing now, bring Grantland's prose up a few notches. And this is an honest question, if this is what you hate most about Grantland, who else writes like him? Because I'd like to read more writers like him.
BTW:
Americana -- (often
used with a plural verb ) books, papers, maps, etc.,
relating to
America, especially to its history,
culture, and
geography.
Americanism -- 1. a custom, trait, or thing peculiar to the United States of
America or its citizens.
2. a
word,
phrase, or other
language feature that is especially
characteristic of the English language as spoken or written in the U.S.
3. devotion to or
preference for the U.S. and its institutions.
4. anything, as a custom or word, peculiar to
America.
In this case, Pierce is using the third definition of Americanism and is using it correctly.
I think a lot of these things are silly, too, but this piece only exists so he and his readers can revel in their wistful judgment of the football-viewing masses. Alas, that they have not reached our Olympian heights of intellect and masturbatory blogging...
Oh for Christ sakes, just stop it. Pierce's piece was showing the hypocrisy of the NFL and specifically the powers that run the league. He is not casting any judgment on the players and the fans. And he's 1000% correct. Roger Goodell talks about the safety of the players being paramount one minute and the next minute, he's talking about an 18-game schedule. One minute Goodell is wrapping himself in the ideals of the American way and the next minute he's fining players because their socks are an inch too low. NFL productions show their fans hours and hours of "big hits" and predicate their marketing on players being warriors who play a violent game and then they act aghast when the same players put bounties on other players.
And none of this is exactly stop-the-presses stuff. All sports are exercises in hypocrisy, but no one closes their eyes and react to it quite like the NFL.
