[finder] (often disparaging)

[dot_fennel]

You know that idiot online who starts posting quotes from the dictionary when anyone questions their definition of an abstraction?

That idiot works for the US Patent and Trademark Office!

Attorneys find Dykes on Bikes patently offensive, reject name (San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2005)

Comments

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm all about referencing the dictionary.
It's the part where they referenced the dictionary to, essentially, tell someone she is disparaging herself (or a whole group of someones, really) that's idiotic.

[dot_fennel]

Sorry, I didn't mean the dictionary was bad. I meant the kind of person who says, "Look, Webster's defines 'literature' as "writings in prose or verse". Words on a computer screen aren't *written*, so there's no such thing as electronic "literature". I've proved it."

For a while it seemed like people did less of this, maybe because it doesn't really convince anyone. Then Wikipedia got big and it started happening again. "It says the defining event of the 80s was the stock market crash! That proves Iran-Contra wasn't a turning point for America!"

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

There's nothing like an outside authority to prove that my opinion is better than yours!