OT: Qualifying Absolutes

[Instar]

Suicide Junkie said:
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020120.html

An objective lesson in the difference between "mostly alive" and "mostly dead"

PS:
<3
To me, that looks more like a butt than a heart
You should use instead

Sure, but then it wouldn't be leet. Or something.

[Kamog]

A little bit dead is when someone, say, got shot and killed but the body is mostly intact.
Someone is more dead if he got blown to pieces.
Totally dead when turned completely to dust or vaporized.

[AgentZero]

Kamog said:
A little bit dead is when someone, say, got shot and killed but the body is mostly intact.
Someone is more dead if he got blown to pieces.
Totally dead when turned completely to dust or vaporized.

Dead: adj. Having lost life; no longer alive.

Dead is dead. It is a state of being. Either someone is dead or they are not. Someone who is shot is just as dead as someone who is vaporized. No definition of 'Dead' that I could find made any reference to there being different degrees of dead.
Many thanks to you guys, anyway. I think I can now go back and inform my friend that qualifying absolutes is simply bad English.

[AMF]

Yeah, absolutely bad english. It's fun to do but as strunk and white say:

"Avoid the use of qualifiers. Rather, very, little, pretty&#8212;these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then."

[TurinTurambar]

I rather pretty much love that quote a little bit.

'Turin
Sort of the Master of Doom