this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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I'm too dumb to get this one...why is this funny?
Merriam-Webster is literally the dictionary, and Brian is trying to correct them on what is and is not a word.
Yes that part I get, but I don't get the reply from the Merriam Webster account and why that is funny
Because they’re being like “bro please, come on“
Huh...what they actually write in the response in no way suggests that to me, it's just completely nonsensical like they started typing the response but accidentally hit send too soon and just didn't bother fixing it.
The punctuation is pretty clear tho.
Well, then you learned something new today. Be glad and enjoy your enlightenment 🤗
ExcessShiv.
Dude.
Outstanding
Mom: Ok, let's get in the car, time to go.
Child named Brian: But there is no car.
Mom: Brian!
You've excellently demonstrated how different contexts makes different things work...you scenario has no similarities to the image
I think you were correct in your top comment
It's a joke. You don't get it.
That's okay
😂💀🎯
Savage.
You can't act like a precise robot that is always right and also beep your red sirens when other people are seeing humor that you don't see. If you're being a robot then chances are you are wrong about the jokes.
In this case the juxtaposition of the natural in-person way of speaking and the unnatural asynchronous text chat if twitter is the source of the humor. When you say that the two scenarios are not similar, that is part of the engine that drives the joke and makes it funny. It's as if you see shutting everyone down for misunderstanding that it was not a sports bar but in fact a metal pipe that the two men walked into when the one man ducked.
@ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ExcessShiv.
I am merely intending to show how 'just saying someone's name' can be taken as a reprimand/mild reproach. Which is what is happening in the original image.
At this point so many people have explained this that I feel you might be willfully ignorant. Cut it out.
Needs context for it to work
Mate, I felt the same way. Made no sense to me. Give me an "..." or something.
Given the period, there is an unwritten sigh at the beginning. With maybe a presumed pointing at their name that Brian either missed, or doesn't know.
Their response is "Brian....". Like "let me hold your hand whole I say this"
It looks weird because they tagged him first
Ah, that was a tag. I'm too unfamiliar with Twitter lol.
Alternatively, he's saying that these are not in fact unprecedented times.
Although it is an American dictionary, so it’s only going to be correct some of the time.
Dude's arguing with the dictionary.
Like I already wrote in a different reply, that part I get, it's the Merriam Webster response that doesn't make sense to me.
So you've learned today that you can just say someone's name as an equivalent to an exasperated "bro.. "
I feel bad you're getting down voted, because I was thinking the same thing. If the reply was just "Brian." I suppose it would have made more sense to me. But since they tagged his full name first, it was throwing me off.
The difference is you’re acknowledging it now that you get it. Other person is just being deliberately obtuse. The downvotes are entirely appropriate.
It's a bit refreshing to see a red arrow, tho. Gotten bored of blue.
Because Merriam Webster creates and produces the dictionary of the English language. They're literally the one who decides if a word is official. Their retort is succinct.
Nope. They document what words are in common use. English is a "form follows usage" kind of language, where popularity of a word makes it correct. That's why "literally" can mean its own antonym and influencers get to make up new meanings for Fetch and Mid.
Less architectural, more suicide note.
This is true, they describe themselves as descriptive rather than prescriptive: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/descriptive-vs-prescriptive-defining-lexicography
They did say "official" though.
Partly right, but they don't decide if a word is "official" (whatever that's supposed to mean). For a word to be a so-called "real" word it only has to be in common use among some group, dictionaries simply document words that have been in common use. Merriam-Webster is an authoritative record of words in use specifically in US English (with some records for other English variants and dialects, I think? ) but they are not a prescriptivist organisation. A word which appears in their dictionary is almost certainly a word that is or was in use in US English but a word that doesn't appear might also be a real word, particularly if it's a relatively new word or meaning.
So with that in mind, arguing that a word is real when it doesn't appear in the dictionary can be valid in some cases, but arguing that a word isn't real when it does appear in a dictionary (like Brian did) is generally not smart.
tl;dr, a dictionary, not the dictionary; not all English; "official" doesn't make sense here; in some (but not this) cases disagreeing is valid.
How is just tagging him by name, and repeating his first name succinct? I don't get any sort of meaning from that response, it reads like a mistyped response.
Just imagine your mom saying your full name with an audible full stop, right after you said/did something a bit dumb
But it wasn't just saying his first name. It was "First Last First"
Oooh, I wonder if that's part of what's confusing the other guy. At this point I just completely filter out the tag when I'm reading a post like this, since very few people intend to incorporate it into the comment.
As someone who's managed to never use Twitter, it was very confusing. I guess it's one of those things you pick up subconsciously and never really think about once you've used the system enough.
the 'first last' is just how tagging a user works.