Thread drift

[Paddy]

Thank God he put that one out of its misery.  It was the only humane thing to do with such a grotesquely contorted chain of.........whatever it was.  May it rest in peace.

[Tuco]

Mmmm..... pancakes!

With maple syrup on     ................    the table.

[Perd Hapley]

Engage the topic.  Don't just make unsubstantiated proclamations and expect everyone to accept them as fact.

You mean like when someone is losing an argument, but they think they can win by saying that the Iraq war is bad?  Where have we seen that before, Mr. Riley? 

[Paddy]

Engage the topic.  Don't just make unsubstantiated proclamations and expect everyone to accept them as fact.

You mean like when someone is losing an argument, but they think they can win by saying that the Iraq war is bad?  Where have we seen that before, Mr. Riley? 

Hypotheticals like that don't add much to the discussion either, Mr. fistful 

[Perd Hapley]

Oh no, it's very factual. 

[Paddy]

Oh no, it's very factual. 

Now that's the unsubstantiated proclamation I was talking about.  You should preface statements like that with 'in my opinion' or 'IMO', or (in your case 'IMHO').  Unless you can provide a cite of some kind, it's just an opinion, not fact.

[Perd Hapley]

Riley, if you can't separate fact from opinion without my identifying it for you, then you may need a new hobby.  I also note that you failed to identify your last post with IMO. 

[grislyatoms]

Isn't that the nature of conversation? To drift gently from one topic to another, particularly if the topics have a common factor? I can't imagine a written conversation being different.

Granted, some thread drift is extreme and it can get irritating.

[BrokenPaw]

Isn't that the nature of conversation? To drift gently from one topic to another, particularly if the topics have a common factor?

You haven't fully grokked "drift" until you've experienced BrokenKid's "stack-based" conversational style.  It follows a pattern, thus:

Kid:
"I was at school today, and my friend Kara..." <push>
"...who is in my geometry class..." <push>
"...and she hates my geometry teacher..." <push>
"...who is always talking about her chihuahua..." <push>
"...why do people even like dogs like that?  They're like rats..." <push>
"...but my friend Ann has a rat, and a lizard..." <push>
"...I want a lizard, but dad won't let me have one..." <push>
"...So when I buy a house I'm going to have a lizard and a snake and a guinea pig..." <push>
"...A friend of mine says that people in South America eat their ears."
[implicitly and silently, the stack is popped 8 times]
"...She said that [something or other]."

Me:  "Who said that?"

Kid:  "Kara said that."

The thread drift that happens here is nothing.  At least most of the posts here are, in and of themselves, on a single topic.

Oh, and, yes, that was an accurate description of BrokenKid's matter of speech.  Note the careful use of completely ambiguous pronouns, such as the "she" in a soliloquy that includes 4 potential "she"s.

-BP