I just had to ask.
I see it so often, usually by people who want to discredit atheism. And since there is a spellcheck... Is this supposed to mean something? Is there a play on words I'm missing here?
2007-12-28 06:39:34 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
It's like the cherry on top of the whole attack... It's the small gestures that count. They just can't resist it, if the question isn't offensive enough alone, it's easy to boost up by adding that little dig to it.
And yes, it's deliberate.
EDIT
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Anyone think it would be inappropriate to call the jebus people christ-stains ? Or is the hyphen too much?
2007-12-28 06:56:57 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
"I before E except after C"...spellcheck doesn't always work (at least not for me...most of the time it just sits there spinning and never returns a result!)...and when it doubt, people often fall back on the rules they learned as children. Atheist is an exception to the basic rule and even though I know how to spell it, I often type it wrong when my fingers are flying probably because "ie" is a more common sequence than "ei".
I'm not aware of any play on words, just a careless or ignorant typo as far as I know.
Edit for Vishal ... I know that, but that condition isn't in the rhyme...I was trying to suggest that the little rules (like this one) we learn as children often lead to spelling mistakes later when we don't apply them correctly...forgive my careless wording in saying atheist was an exception...I should have said it didn't apply!
2007-12-28 14:47:50 · answer #2 · answered by KAL 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It means 'having the most athieness'.
Athy is a town in County Kildare. Literary references include Patrick Kavanagh's description of Athy as a 'far-flung town' and the song "We're on the Road to Sweet Athy".
So it seems that the users of this word are actually calling us sweet and widespread.
Well, they got half of that right.
2007-12-28 14:44:03 · answer #3 · answered by The angels have the phone box. 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
The only thing I can think of is that it's the superlative form of the word "athy" which doesn't mean anything either.
KAL:
"Atheist" is not an exception to the "i before e" rule. That rule only applies when the "i" and "e" are part of the same syllable.
2007-12-28 14:42:27 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
No. It's sheer ignorance. They should realize that as an "ism", it should end in "ist"-- that should be their clue to spelling the word. But they're too lazy and dismissive of others to bother to get it right.
What-- it's like "you're anti, he's athier, I'm athiest"??
2007-12-28 14:48:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The prefix "a-" means opposite or against. And "-theist" means an individual who believes in a god or gods, or any sort of religion. Put the two to together and what do you get?
2007-12-28 14:50:43 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No. There are just a whole bunch of really poor spellers around here. And generally, the poorer the speller....the more self-rightous the writer.
2007-12-28 14:44:10 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
It means that many people are too lazy to actually use the Spell Check feature.
2007-12-28 14:43:53 · answer #8 · answered by ? 7 · 6⤊ 0⤋
Could be ignorance.
Could be laziness.
Could be a passive-aggressive attempt to be dismissive of them -- sorta like how they'll write "atheist" in the singular, like there's only one of us instead of tens of millions.
That's why I've taken to referring to Christians as "Christains" ("Christ-Stains", like Mary forgot to wash the sheets the morning after the Immaculate Conception)...
2007-12-28 14:43:20 · answer #9 · answered by The Reverend Soleil 5 · 9⤊ 0⤋
It's the quickest way to spot a fundamentalist Christian.
That and false "science."
2007-12-28 15:09:21 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋