Since, like I said, the AP is my favorite sportswriter (other than that sexy Michael Tunison!!!), I don't really have any criticisms of the writing. But this quote from a woman by the name of Jennie Moore struck me as downright bizarre. She's explaining why she stood in a four-hour line for cheap pizza:
"I did it for the principle of it."
That principle being...what, exactly? That the pizza was cheap? I mean, there's no shame in that being the principle. Hell, as a poor college student I'd sell my own lungs for a week's worth of half-price pizza. I figure we're going to re-evolve gills any minute now anyway.
Apparently, however, that wasn't quite the principle Jennie Moore was thinking of:
"The principle of it is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it."
Is that really a principle? My wordy sense says no. In case you don't know, wordy sense is my special ability to sense whether something is the correct usage of a word or not. I got it as a result of being bitten by a radioactive dictionary. Weirdly, I'm never able to be sure whether people are using the words "venom" and "carnage" correctly. Funny how that works out.
Fuck, better check the Wiktionary, just to be sure:
principle
1. A fundamental assumption.
We need some sort of principles to reason from.
I don't know if it's a fundamental assumption that "he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it." I mean, the Wizards would certainly argue those points, and they do have the full force of the dark arts on their side.
2. A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.
The principle of least privilege holds that a process should only receive the permissions it needs.
I guess you could argue that's the principle Jennie Moore used to justify buying cheap pizza. I guess. But that's not really the usage implied by the phrase "the principle of the thing", is it? I think that's this one:
3. (generally plural) Moral rule or aspect.
I don't doubt your principles; you are clearly a person of principle.
It's the principle of the thing; I won't do business with someone I can't trust.
There's that phrase she used! So it's got to be a moral rule, apparently. Sorry, but I don't think LeBron's suspect emotional state or Papa John's somewhat asinine business practices really count as moral issues. And if they do...well shit, fuck morality, I guess.
What? I'm just saying what you're all thinking. Well, I'm typing, I guess, but I did just say "fuck morality", so I've sort of got bigger issues on my mind. Dodging lightning bolts, for a start.
Anyway, I think the word Jennie Moore was really looking was "reason." So she should have said this:
"I did it for the
Or if Jennie Moore has a female hard-on (those don't exist, right?*) for the word principle, she at least should have had the common courtesy to be specific:
"I did it for the principle of it, and by that I mean 'principle' in the sense of Wiktionary's second definition of the word, not the third, which is the usage generally associated with 'the principle of it'. The principle of it - and again here I am using the second definition as opposed to the more customary third because the second definition better conveys the sense of a rule I use to determine the best course in action, and so now I will explain my logic - is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it."
See? Much clearer! Let that be a lesson to you, Jennie Moore.
Of course, I guess she could have said all that and the AP just edited her down. That dude is sort of a dick. Did you know he let his calculator girlfriend (she's totally a TI-92 Plus, fucking loaded elitist) take him to Made of Honor instead of Iron Man? That's one whipped computer, dude, and I think he deals with his angst by taking random Cleveland residents slightly out of context.
Fucking dick, man. Fucking computer dick.
*Don't correct me. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I don't want to know. I am a blogger, after all.
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