The other day, while doing some online research about the origins and meaning of the term "scare quotes," I noticed a group of British Twitter posts by two top reporters in the UK, Tom Chivers at the Telegraph and Martin Robbins
who writes for the Guardian -- both very respected journalists with well-known ethical standards and solid journalism backgrounds -- issuing "tweets" to their "followers" in the UK trying to mock and ridicule my current research. Chivers, in his many tweets to his followers, called me insane, a badger and an "extraordinarly angry" person, and yet not once did Tom shoot me an email to find out who I was or why I was emailing him about scare quotes.
The fact is I admire the bloke and know his Telegraph work and was writing to pick his brains about the early coinage and background of the term "scare quotes". The same goes for Martin Robbins, a top science reporter in the UK who has even argued in print there that the BBC goes overboard with its use scare quotes in the BBC website, and I was trying to contact Marty for several weeks to get his opinion on all this. He never once took the time to reply.
I was
looking for answers, in both case, from Chivers and Robbins, not a Twittter War, and yet that is all Tom and Marty offered in return. Tom did not once reply to my emails, until finally, after I got through to him via Twitter, he wrote to me and apoloized for his unprofessional and juvenile behavior, all in jest, of course, writing:
Robbins never replied to me, not by email, and not via Twitter. I just have to assume he is a very busy man
with a very busy schedule, and while he IS interested in the overuse of scare quotes, as I am, he just does not have time now to correspond, and prefers to attack me instead, and egging his "followers" on. Which he did, and which they did!
Some of the nicer tweets from the UK posse, even from respected science report Ed Yong, among others, who one would expect more from, him being a professional journalist and all that:
RM, 17 years old: ''Yeah, don’t worry. Dude just emailed me with his enormous rant.
It makes no difference whether someone coined it.
who writes for the Guardian -- both very respected journalists with well-known ethical standards and solid journalism backgrounds -- issuing "tweets" to their "followers" in the UK trying to mock and ridicule my current research. Chivers, in his many tweets to his followers, called me insane, a badger and an "extraordinarly angry" person, and yet not once did Tom shoot me an email to find out who I was or why I was emailing him about scare quotes.
The fact is I admire the bloke and know his Telegraph work and was writing to pick his brains about the early coinage and background of the term "scare quotes". The same goes for Martin Robbins, a top science reporter in the UK who has even argued in print there that the BBC goes overboard with its use scare quotes in the BBC website, and I was trying to contact Marty for several weeks to get his opinion on all this. He never once took the time to reply.
I was
looking for answers, in both case, from Chivers and Robbins, not a Twittter War, and yet that is all Tom and Marty offered in return. Tom did not once reply to my emails, until finally, after I got through to him via Twitter, he wrote to me and apoloized for his unprofessional and juvenile behavior, all in jest, of course, writing:
Dear Dan,
.....I just don't think your 'scare quotes' campaign is either worthwhile or particularly funny [he meant ''humorous''] , and you're sending me so many emails that it's filling up my inbox.
Apologies for calling you "angry" and "insane" and a ''badger".
Best
Tom Chivers
Robbins never replied to me, not by email, and not via Twitter. I just have to assume he is a very busy man
with a very busy schedule, and while he IS interested in the overuse of scare quotes, as I am, he just does not have time now to correspond, and prefers to attack me instead, and egging his "followers" on. Which he did, and which they did!
Some of the nicer tweets from the UK posse, even from respected science report Ed Yong, among others, who one would expect more from, him being a professional journalist and all that:
RM, 17 years old: ''Yeah, don’t worry. Dude just emailed me with his enormous rant.
It makes no difference whether someone coined it.
Just go away and stop emailing me.''
TOM CHIVERS: reporter, The Telegraph, UK
Used the term "scare quotes" in post yesterday. Today I've had five (5) green-ink-style emails from someone *extraordinarily* angry about it .............[Editor's note: Tom, I am NOT angry at all, just trying to make contact with some respected British reporters about the original meaning and coinage dates of the term itself, and also the use and overuse of scare quotes, as Martin Robbins has also written about.]
TOM CHIVERS TWEET TO HIS ''FOLLOWERS'': Well, readers get the picture now. A small army of British reporters, editors and Twitter followers get all worked up about some guy they start calling "the scare quotes guy" and lobbing tweets back and forth trying to mock the guy without knowing one thing about him or who he is and why he is doing some pioneering research about the origins and meanings of the scare quotes term. Not one person asked me what this was all about. They just attacked, with humor of course, I never took any of it seriously and it's all just water under the bridge, this is what happens in the internet age when people work in swarms and posses to attack people they do not even know. At least Mr Chivers had the gumption to finally write and say sorry. I am still waiting for the same from Mr Robbins. Even though I am on his side in the scare quotes debate, he most likely will not reply to me. I am not sure if this is his own personal problem or if it is a British cultural trait. I hope not, as I have many British friends in the news business there, from Roy Greenslade to Elizabeth Day, from Catherine Shoard to Tamlin Magee. But this Twitter Posse War against me was uncalled for and strange. Water under the bridge. Whenever one sticks one's neck out to do research that nobody has ever done before and comes up with startling revelations about the origins of a word everyone uses without know why they use it, these things happen. Nobody likes someone who upsets the apple cart of newsroom and grad school language, and apparently this goes for blokes in the UK, too. Even Tom Chivers and Marty Robbins. Sigh.
''I have to admit I can't really work out what his problem is, but since he's clearly insane I'm not going to try all that hard''.
BEN tweeted: ''The fact that he used green ink suggests he is unstable. It's his calling card.''
Martin Robbins tweeted, wrongly of course:
From what I could make out, he's trying to raise an army of supporters to get the term banned.
http://plogspot101.blogspot.tw/2012/07/rhys-morgan-tom-chivers-martin-robbins.html
http://plogspot101.blogspot.tw/2012/07/rhys-morgan-tom-chivers-martin-robbins.html


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