{"id":82328,"date":"2015-02-04T12:16:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T17:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=82328"},"modified":"2015-02-04T12:16:01","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T17:16:01","slug":"as-god-is-my-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/04\/as-god-is-my-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"As God Is My Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_82370\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/8222688268_2541b3869d_k.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82370\" class=\"wp-image-82370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/8222688268_2541b3869d_k.jpg\" alt=\"8222688268_2541b3869d_k\" width=\"600\" height=\"476\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/8222688268_2541b3869d_k.jpg 1355w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/8222688268_2541b3869d_k-300x237.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/8222688268_2541b3869d_k-1024x811.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-82370\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cAs God is my witness, I\u2019ll never be hungry again!\u201d \u2014<i>Gone with the Wind<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The clue for 2 Down on today\u2019s <em>New York Times<\/em> crossword is as follows: \u201c\u2009\u2018If you ask me,\u2019 in textspeak.\u201d Spoiler alert: the answer is IMHO. (Short for \u201cin my humble opinion\u201d or \u201cin my honest opinion,\u201d for those who didn\u2019t know.) This is true not merely because you need those letters to satisfy the needs of <em>mire<\/em> and <em>Amex<\/em> and <em>Sofia<\/em>\u00a0but because in the world of texts, and in online communication generally, people are constantly asserting their opinions with unnecessary vehemence.<\/p>\n<p>Leaving aside the fact that such opinions are rarely solicited, why is everyone always sharing his \u201chonest\u201d or \u201chumble\u201d opinion? As opposed to what\u2014the civility that normally characterizes anonymous online discussions? Because otherwise we might think you were prevaricating about, like, whether you thought some dumpling shop was overrated or one season of a show was better than another? IMHO asserts that someone is about to tell you the truth\u2014but your veracity otherwise would never have come into question. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of vehemence of this sort, I recently ran across a very impassioned post on Chowhound. Here is what the poster said:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The lamb was served magnificently, not just falling off the bone but fully fallen off it. Some bone, somewhere\u2014but, as God is my witness, that meat had not fallen off <em>that<\/em> bone. The meat was artfully arranged along the bone, and, naturally, I tried to reconstruct the shank. The cubes of meat did not fit the curvature of the bone. Plus, the meat was piping hot and the bone just warm.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Now, this is a case where such rhetoric (\u201cGod is my witness\u201d!) is appropriate, or necessary, even. It should electrify. It should stand for something. On dinner plates, in New York politics, and, especially, in textspeak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The clue for 2 Down on today\u2019s New York Times crossword is as follows: \u201c\u2009\u2018If you ask me,\u2019 in textspeak.\u201d Spoiler alert: the answer is IMHO. (Short for \u201cin my humble opinion\u201d or \u201cin my honest opinion,\u201d for those who didn\u2019t know.) This is true not merely because you need those letters to satisfy the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[16893,1983,12775,2624,16889,16887,16888,16892,14161,16891,12735,8247,16890],"class_list":["post-82328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-chowhound","tag-conversation","tag-crossword-puzzles","tag-gone-with-the-wind","tag-honesty","tag-imho","tag-in-my-humble-opinion","tag-sms","tag-texting","tag-textspeak","tag-the-internet","tag-truth","tag-veracity"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cIMHO\u201d: The Delicate Art of Expressing Opinions Online<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIn the world of texts, and in online communication generally, people are constantly asserting their opinions with unnecessary vehemence.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/04\/as-god-is-my-witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"As God Is My Witness by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 4, 2015 \u2013 The clue for 2 Down on today\u2019s New York Times crossword is as follows: \u201c\u2009\u2018If you ask me,\u2019 in textspeak.\u201d Spoiler alert: the answer is IMHO. 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