05 May 2011

My Facebook Status Today

Shameless Self-Promotion 8 Comments

Today:

Robert Murphy thinks “in the ballpark” is a nonsense phrase. If I had to drop a ball from an airplane, getting it “in the ballpark” would be really hard. Even if I were in the parking lot, getting it “in the ballpark” would be hard. But if I were already *in* the ballpark, doing so would be easy.

Want more off-kilter observations stripped of political and economic content? Then you too should Friend me on Facebook. All the cool kids are doing it.

8 Responses to “My Facebook Status Today”

  1. RS says:

    Notice that you had to qualify your assertion by listing a bunch of different precision contexts. “In the ballpark” is a relevant phrase, it eferrs to the precision of the yardstick relevant to whatever is being measured. So “in the ballpark” is ok if one is measuring the mile distance from the Earth to Saturn but would probably not be OK if one were trying to measure the distance from NY to LA using light years.

    • bobmurphy says:

      RS, what are you talking about? That’s exactly what I was doing in my post. I was saying that for any actual task I could think of, to literally get something “in the ballpark” would either be ridiculously precise or ridiculously imprecise. That was the whole point of the joke.

      • RS says:

        I guess it went over my head.

  2. Scott says:

    Bob,

    Kind of like “driving me up a wall” is a nonsense phrase. Nobody can really drive someone up a wall. Walls are too steep!

    • Just t says:

      Hmm, I don’t know. How have my kids driven me to drink?

  3. BS says:

    Finding a Robert Murphy on facebook is like finding a needle in the ballpark. How ’bout a link?

  4. Richard Lombard says:

    I sent you a friend request. Look for my name witha Bobba Fett profile picture.