Abraham Piper
@abrahampiper
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It’s a common trick in infotainment to include some small inaccuracy — just something a tiny bit…*off*. Because it gives your audience something to correct you about.
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Have you ever stared at a word and it starts to look like nonsense? You know it’s spelled correctly...but...is it?
Well, there’s a name for that.
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Have you ever been, like, corrected for, like, using “like” like this?
Well then, I have some good news for you:
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Why do some people say “aks” instead of “ask”?
It’s not “just their accent” and it sure as hell isn’t a mispronunciation.
There’s a linguistic reason and a cultural reason. Let’s quickly look at both:
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You’ve probably heard of “semantic satiation.” That’s when if you *hear* a word repeatedly, it turns to gibberish.
When that same thing happens but with words in writing rather than speech, it’s called *orthographic* satiation.
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In a poem from that year, William Dunbar wrote, “Yon man is lyke out of his mynd.”
Replace “yon” with, like, “the” or something, and it's perfectly modern.
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So…if anyone ever gets on your case for using “like” wrong, you can tell them you've got 500 years of linguistic history on your side.
(They probably won't be convinced, but whatever, they're like out of their mind.)
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The first documented instance of the kind of “like” that kids — and especially girls — are blamed and ridiculed for…is from 1513!
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Have you ever seen a bottle of Angostura bitters and wondered why the label looks too big? (1/...)
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“I was spanked and I turned out fine.”
First of all… Literally nobody turns out fine.
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This usage of “like” is sometimes used for emphasis, but more often it's used to, like, hedge what we're saying.
And when do you think people started doing this?
Can we blame teenagers? Or maybe 1980’s valley girls?
Nope, neither.
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Anyway, thanks for reading. If you like being told that the way you speak English is perfectly fine, come along, I've got more. 🤘🙏
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That usage of “like” did start gaining new popularity in the 50s and really took off in the 60s with jazz musicians, beatniks, and hippies (according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume II).
But — and this is the fun part...
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It’s not done. Still needs to be grouted. But our backsplash is a crossword now. 🤩 🤓
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First, “ask” and “aks” are the same word because of ✨metathesis✨, which is when two sounds in a word trade places.
For example, nobody corrects you when you swap the T and R sounds in “comfortable” and say “comfterble,” instead.
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Absolutely fucking WILD that people who believe they're depraved also think that they're right all the time.
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So instead of the sound of the word, it’s the word’s actual appearance that starts to seem unrelated to reality.
It may not lose meaning, but it starts to *look* really goofy and wrong.
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My wife has said thousands of nice things to me over the years, but one that’s really stuck with me is when she stood in the kitchen, looked in my eyes…and told me I’m good at picking the right size of tupperware when I’m putting away leftovers. God I love a practical compliment
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Anyway, thanks for reading another tiktok-as-twitter-thread. I appreciate it. Come along for more if you feel like it. 🤷♀️👋
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When enslaved Africans learned English, they learned it mainly from European indentured servants…who’s dialect included “aks.”
Thus it became a perfectly natural — and therefore correct — element of African American Vernacular English.
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So…when she’s most honest, a linguistic bias in *us* means she won’t be taken seriously.
But that doesn’t have to be true!
And a *very basic* way to begin changing that is to not call other people’s native language “bad grammar.”
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Sufferers (if they can be called that — I’m not sure whether this is harmful or just bizarre) report that it’s like the word comes apart on the page, which explains the German term for the phenomenon:
Gestaltzerfall.
“Shape decomposition.” Or, cooler, "shape ☠️decay☠️."
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So…
If you look at a page sometimes and something that’s supposed to be a word disintegrates into meaningless marks, you’re not alone.
Ya got that good ol’ orthographic satiation.
Du hast Gestaltzerfall.
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Judging by the search results for “orthographic satiation,” this has mainly been studied with respect to Chinese.
One abstract from a 2016 article on the topic begins, “Prolonged inspection of a Chinese character induces a feeling of uncertainty of the character…”
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You wanna hear a 3,000-year-old decision-making trick?
Here's how to know you have a good idea according to the ancient Persians as reported by Greek historian Herodotus:
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Anyway, thanks for reading another tiktok-video-as-a-way-too-long-twitter-thread.
Come along if you feel like it. 🤷♀️👋
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But then over time, for no reason having anything to do with “correct grammar,” “ask” became the pronunciation of those in power, and therefore became “standard,” whereas “aks” was the pronunciation of…the less powerful.
And here we arrive at the cultural explanation…
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I found several examples of English speakers reporting the effect. Interestingly, it happen more with particular words, rather than with just anything a person’s reading.
In the anecdotes I saw, the offending words were — for whatever reason — “weird,” “finger,” and “spider.”
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The “teen girl” or “ditzy” ✨like✨ is not stupid. And it’s not insecure. It’s a brilliant little linguistic multitool.
Let’s look at just one of its many uses — its most maligned, probably…
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Feeling sorry for everyone going to church against their will, whether you’re 7 or 70.
Don’t think of it as a service or mass or whatever. It’s ✨research✨. For your memoir. 🤘
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Gestaltzerfall, per Wikipedia:
“A psychological phenomenon where delays in recognition are observed when a complex shape is stared at for a while as the shape seems to decompose into its constituting parts.”
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I've been informed that “I'm saving myself for marriage” is not an acceptable catch-all excuse for not participating in anything.
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One of the most insidious lies I tell myself is, “I don’t need to write that down.“
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It’s the same with “aks” and “ask.” They’ve always been interchangeable.
Both “ascian” and “acsian” were used in Old English.
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There’s a new arts/culture paper here in the
#twincities
…and did I agree to purchase a full-page in it without any plan, two days before deadline? Yes, I’m afraid I did…
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And now a painful irony:
“When a black speaker gets the most comfortable…the most herself — that is exactly when she is likely to slide in an ‘ax’ for ‘ask.’ Immediately she sounds ignorant to any nonblack person who hears her, not to mention to quite a few black ones.”
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“‘Ax,’ then, is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. 'Ax' is a gospel chord in the form of a word….
Yet nothing can stop people from hearing 'ax' as illiterate.”
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But, still, languages change. So why hasn’t "aks" been standardized?
I’ll quote John McWhorter, a black linguist, to answer that.
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Being a part of a religion means owning what other people in that religion do. You can’t meaningfully say, “Oh, they’re not with us.” Because…because…they are.
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He writes:
“’Ax’ is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking…"
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Some christians just…love god. Their religion is a kind of celebration. A fandom.
Church for them is like getting to go to ChristCon every week.
I respect that.
But then…
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And it’s British, not American. We borrowed it, but its existence isn’t our fault. 😆
Anyway…thanks for reading. Come along for more word histories if you feel like it. 👋🙏
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Just realized that if I film my exfundie content doing this the whole time, whackadoodle christians won’t be able to use my footage in their youtube videos.
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Xians defending their various harmful -isms and -phobias will be like “But this is what the church has *always* taught.”
Yeah. We know.
Did you think you were being called out for being fresh and thoughtful and innovative? 😆
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I’m only here for fun. And what’s fun for me is mixing bourbon and rye, making refrigerator pickles, and saying things like, “Evangelical vs fundamentalist is a distinction w/o a difference that only people who swim in that little pond care about”…and then ignoring the responses
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I’m not against cops, I just think they should all have different jobs.
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I wrote a book in 2007 after my daughter was stillborn and as my religion began to blow up in slow motion without me even realizing it.
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Thus their millennia-old life hack: When you have an idea sober, sit on it…until you’ve reconsidered it drunk.
It’s the only mature and reasonable choice.
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I’m not an atheist. But I also don’t enjoy explaining myself.
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I’m getting the sense that “deconstruction” (of the religious variety) is like a technical term to some people. Complete with restrictions and shoulds. I don’t know anything about all that. I just mean blowing shit up
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And then, continuing its slangy bastardization and given the trend of appending “-er,” it became…soccer.
And there you have it. Soccer is short for Association Football.
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Anyway, I’ve cried 6 times today. Good book, though. Thanks 27yo me.
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Oh hey. That racist, sexist, homophobic church you left was racist, sexist, and homophobic when you joined, too.
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“Abraham Piper grew his TikTok following spouting atheism and bashing evangelicals.”
Sir, my post today is about whether the Wicked Witch of the West smells bad.
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What do brainwashing, belly dancing, and penis envy all have in common? (1/…)
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There aren’t any rules for how you leave evangelicalism… Who would even set them? Them? 😆
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Just like most of us, they mistrusted their drunk ideating.
✨But they also mistrusted themselves sober.✨
If they had an idea dry, they gave it no credence until they tried it on for size…while intoxicated.
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I wonder what it’s like to read the Bible without ever having seen it as an aggressively magical user manual.
I bet it’s a riot. Parts, anyway.
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It’s very possible that the word “neurodivergent” will become a slur in our lifetime.
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I hope you haven’t heard anyone called a hussy recently. But you know what it means, right?
✨A promiscuous woman✨ A quaint synonym for “slut.”
It started out short for “housewife,” though.
What happened? (1/…)
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One of the judges told them, ya gotta keep it that way, because nobody else is gonna be stupid enough to make that same mistake, which means this is gonna be unique. It’s gonna stand out.
It’ll be a ✨signature label✨.
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If you’ve ever been killed in cold blood because you pronounced a word wrong, you were the victim of a Shibboleth.
This won’t apply to you, because you’re already dead, but for the rest of us:
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I mean, “it’s a relationship, not a religion” just makes it creepier.
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If someone texts you disappointing news and you want to reply “well fuck,” make damn sure it’s not auto-corrected with an apostrophe.
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Isn’t it interesting how literally no parents really know what they’re doing?
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I’ve been informed quite a bit recently that I was never saved. And uhhh...no shit?
That’s like finding out someone doesn’t believe in fairies and then telling them that means they never really knew Tinker Bell.
It’s true.
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Should you ever tell anyone that saying “aks” instead of “ask” is a lazy way to talk?
⛔️ No… No is the answer.
But in case you’re unsure why:
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If a brainstorm makes sense and stays exciting in *both* mental states (regardless of which one happens first), you just might have a winning idea on your hands. 🤷♀️
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I have no idea why I blocked you, but I trust my past self.
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I’m being a bit of a hypocrite, though. I really should have reconsidered this thread after another couple gin tonics.
Oh well. Come along for more if you feel like it. 👋🍻
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Being pro-choice has nothing to do with your opinion of abortion and everything to do with your opinion of your opinion. (1/…)
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Being pro-cop and being pro-life are both unfortunate for a similar reason…
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The funny thing about thinking we’re totally depraved is that it calls god into question for wanting our admiration. I mean, do you respect someone who’s gunning for a bunch of shithead followers?
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not much point in leaving fundamentalism if you don’t also leave behind their absolute lack of chill
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Ask the barista their favorite bookstore. Ask the bookseller their favorite vintage shop. Ask the vintage dealer their favorite bar. Ask the bartender their favorite coffee shop.
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Discounting someone’s opinion because they’re bitter is like asking where people want to go out to eat and ignoring everyone who’s hungry.
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After my quit-your-church video, a few people (men) were like “OK so if I’m gonna leave my church all willy-nilly, should I leave my wife, too?” and uh
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Twitter is basically my TikTok preview channel now. Today we’ll be talking about how fuckin weird it is to make little kids read the Bible. Lot’s daughters anyone? Good times. 😋
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Normalize saying “I’m sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.”
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Ok, but it would only take like 15 min to get dressed and call everyone to come to the backyard. So, like, why not both?
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My costume didn’t arrive on time so I went to the Halloween party as “supply chain issues.”
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When people are labeled overly emotional, it’s almost always because of *crying*… But why? Why is crying the go-to indicator? That seems overly specific at best.
If we did have to pick just one behavior to define “overly emotional” (whatever that means), I’d vote for *sulking*.
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My hottest tiktok in weeks is about ... uh ... James Dobson??
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Fundamentalists don’t actually believe in their own god.
A simple scenario:
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If you’ve ever felt the deep need to explain how your belief system is *not fundamentalism*, your belief system is...fundamentalism.
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When people have a problem with their church, I know that it can be overly simplistic to say, “Why don’t you just leave?” But at the same time, like, why don’t you just leave?
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My kids, who have no knowledge of any Christian music, were making up song titles in the car that seemed legit to them, hoping I would break. It almost worked. 😆
“God Amends All Souls”
“Jesus’ Love Is Internal”
“God Punishes Us Some”
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