Comments on: Are you a Most-enator or an All-ifier?

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:30:42 +0000

Hah! this is interesting. I think food is also a different thing. When someone like my husband says “I don’t like X”… I used to think I couldn’t serve him X at all cause he wouldn’t eat it. However it’s not true. So now I need to say do you not like X like asparagus (kill me before you serve it to me cause I hate it) or not like X like chicken (not my favorite but I’ll eat it if you serve it to me if you serve it a way I like it).

Foods can even be removed from the I don’t like it list, which was unheard of in my experience.

For me, if I really really don’t like something it is rare for me to change it. Like olives. I’ve tried. I just can’t deal with them. I hate them.

By: Pace

Pace — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:08:21 +0000

@Kate: That’s interesting! I hadn’t thought that it might vary for positive vs. negative statements. It reminds me of a lyric from a song by Amy Steinberg: “…hate is so undeniable, so reliable. I say ‘I hate you’ and how easily you take that to be true. But I say ‘I love you’, you can’t believe me, you think I’m deceiving, being fake. That is the grand mistake.”

By: kate

kate — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:55:13 +0000

Is there a clarif-enater position available? or may that alone makes me a Most-enater because if someone just says ‘i don’t like fish’ then i will always follow-up with a clarifying statement of ‘all fish? or just some kinds of fish? what about canned tuna? does that count?’ (and this may be why i end up in long conversations on random topics… )

How does this work with positive statements? Do folks tend to be more all-enator for ‘i love tomatoes!’ and then just assume all kinds, raw, cooked, juice, etc. are enjoyed? Or do you mostinate with ‘i assume that means some, i am sure there are versions of tomatoes you don’t enjoy’ and just move on?

I ask because I realized that I would normally follow-up with a ‘what are the exceptions’ type of question when someone says they don’t like/want/enjoy/etc. something and yet accept a generalization when they say they like/want/enjoy/etc. something since I assume there are exceptions.

By: Green

Green — Sun, 17 May 2009 16:27:14 +0000

I’m definitely an all-ifier. Mostination seems a lot like not describing things clearly. If you say “I don’t like soda” I’m not going to offer you a soda- any kind of soda. The word you used was soda, not cola or pepsi or anything flavor or brand specific. I tend to assume that whatever people are telling me is as specific as they mean it.

BUT… if someone tells me “I don’t like vegetables” than my reaction is likely to be “You don’t like ANY vegetables?” “Well, I like some. But only cooked. I can’t stand raw vegetables.” And I don’t think my reaction would be violent or anything, as if they’d been deliberately misleading me. I’d just chalk it up to not understanding.

I also tend to do this number: “I don’t like green vegetables. Well, no, I like vegetables, but only when they’re cooked. Carrots are the only vegetable I can eat raw, except for spinach in salads. But mostly I prefer… Wha? Oh, yeah, I would like to try the potatoes. Thanks.”

So like I said, I’m an all-ifier, but it doesn’t often make a huge deal to me.

By: Pace

Pace — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:27:31 +0000

Oh, your intution’s not far off the mark, Victoria. I was definitely an all-ifier when I was a professional geek. When I started focusing more on writing and less on coding, I learned that writing prose in all-ifier mode creates stuff that sounds like a tech manual. So I learned to speak most-enator, too. (:

By: Victoria Brouhard

Victoria Brouhard — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:07:51 +0000

Wow...totally fascinating. I'm defninitely an all-ifier. Also, I'm completely guilty of the Usual Error, because it didn't really occur to me that others might be most-enators. And an even deeper Usual Error is that I'm surprised Pace is a most-enator. I could be totally wrong, but I figured part of my all-ifier-ness came from my IT background, which is something Pace and I have in common. (Therefore, she would be an all-ifier, too...) This post definitely bent my brain! Really good stuff! Victoria Brouhard’s last blog post..What’s Happening, Hot Stuff?

By: Pace

Pace — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:55:43 +0000

@Oliver: It goes to show how powerful the usual error can be, eh?

By: Oliver Danni

Oliver Danni — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:19:31 +0000

I’m definitely an All-ifier, and I frequently find myself very uncomfortable with Most-enation. Even reading what you just explained about how you Most-enate things, I don’t quite understand how it works, and believe me, I’m trying to understand! I run into it, for instance, when I’ll say “I don’t like raisins”…like, I really really really don’t like raisins, if I say “I don’t like raisins”, I really really mean it. If I mean “I sometimes like raisins” or “I’m willing to put up with raisins”, I’d say that. But a lot of times I’ll say “I don’t like raisins” and someone will go “oh, there aren’t that many raisins in this cookie” or “but this salad is so good, you won’t even notice the raisins!” (This is totally not hypothetical…this literally happens to me at least once a week, and has for years.) Maybe I’m making the usual error here, but I just can’t see how “I don’t like fish” could legitimately mean “except for the times when I do like fish”. “I generally don’t like fish” or “I don’t like most kinds of fish” are legitimately Most-enated statements, but if someone tells me “I don’t like fish”, I’m not going to offer them fish unless they tell me otherwise (and of course, insert something vegan in place of the fish, since I wouldn’t feed someone a fish anyway!), because if I did I would expect them to say “I told you I didn’t like fish”, not “Oh, it just so happens that I do actually like that one kind of fish, how did you guess?”

By: Clare K. R. Miller

Clare K. R. Miller — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:28:28 +0000

@Pace: Yeah, that makes sens about viewing sexuality as fluid. I guess it’s particularly easy for me since I’m bisexual–I do tend to think that everyone else is at least a little bit bisexual!

@Elly: That cracks me up. Fish and sexuality are fluid! Pizza is not! Maybe it would be more accurate to say preferences are fluid and allergies are not? ;)

By: Elly

Elly — Fri, 15 May 2009 23:25:41 +0000

@Clare: I think I tend to view fish and sexuality as both being fluid, whereas the pizza thing presumably isn’t, yeah. That’s a nice way of putting it :)