That is not what “unstop” means. You unstop a drain that is clogged, you don’t unstop something you want to restart.

  • rtxn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    Better than my English second language teacher claiming that a “ship in distress” is doing fine because “distressed” is the opposite of “stressed” (and calling me into her office because I had corrected her in front of the class).

    • kusivittula@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 hours ago

      when I was studying electronics in vocational school, our teacher insisted that humans cannot hear as low as 50hz. because then we would just be hearing constant buzzing from all the electrical outlets…

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 days ago

      Years ago I learned (the hard way) that people do not like to be corrected in front of other people; leadership especially. It’s better to speak with them privately, if at all.

      • rtxn@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        I was kind of past giving a shit. The teacher and I hated each other’s guts, but she couldn’t do a damn thing to me because I was top of my class (ESL at least) and represented my school multiple times in national competitions, and any attempt on her part to sabotage me would have been obvious. The worst thing she could do was mark one of my answers incorrect because I had used an American synonym instead of the British word (I think it was “trunk” instead of “boot”), and when I reminded her that she had marked it correct for two other students, she went back and crossed them out. My classmates knew and didn’t resent me for it.

        I took an option to graduate early from that class mostly out of spite, but partly because I knew I couldn’t keep biting my tongue.

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    They quoted the term and defined their meaning in context. They could have used any arbitrary codeword.

    Just because “unstop” is most commonly used with regard to plumbing does not mean that the term is exclusive to plumbing.

    • oyo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      3 days ago

      It’s totally appropriate. They’re conflating their spam with a stream of shit that’s backed up, which is entirely accurate.

      • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        I know, just toying with the metaphor of a clogged drain.

        I used to be a bit of a scold about grammar and spelling myself. A lack of style bothers me more nowadays. Everyone should feel welcome to play with our language. It doesn’t take a logodaedalus to construct an unglued apothegm, and we are all the richer for it; I am more disappointed by those who don’t try.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          3 days ago

          The problem is that language is meant to facilitate communication, not a toy to be played around with. This sort of thing does nothing to help people who speak English as a second language. It just confuses them more.

          In this case, the message came from the medical group my former doctor is a part of. Sure, this particular case is pretty harmless (just mildly infuriating), but just fucking around with language for fun in such settings sounds like a terrible idea to me.

          • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            You would have a point if they had said "to unstop texts from this number, reply with “start”.

            But they didn’t.

            They quoted the word and explicitly defined the meaning they assigned to it. There is no ambiguity.