PositiveMode

This Is Not a Pyramid Scheme

When someone is presenting you with the opportunity to become involved in a pyramid scheme, this is almost certainly a phrase you will hear quite early on in the pitch. Why is this? Why would someone tip their hand so carelessly by not only using the term "Pyramid Scheme", but also suspiciously informing you that the crap they are "dishing" you is, so to speak, not one? (SisterMode may question my placing of the question mark after the abovequoted (please comment on this word, akin to "aforementioned") key term, but I ask you, SisterMode, did I intend to call attention to a comma? almost certainly no! (consider, for instance, if I had put the parenthesis after "aforementioned" within the quoted term (such as "this)" - would that be appropriate? (what is, perhaps, inappropriate, is placing sentence fragments immediately after question marks as if they are part of the same sentence, but that, my obedient reader, is for another Blog Day))).

I apologize - the above paragraph was practically illegible. The worst part is that, although it may all seem quite effortless, I, as you, the reader (when you occasionally become suspicious of my punctuationalism), do need to go back and count the forward parentheses to make sure that the backward parentheses match in number. Even I, your fearless Blogger, am not above such humdrummery.

For one, I need to put a stop to these hopelessly complicated, albeit totally grammatically correct compound parentheses.

Secondly (though actually part of the same point) I need to return to the original purpose of this post, which was, of course, a discussion of pyramid schemers revealing themselves with protests about the non-pyramidness of their scheme.

I guess that's it, though. When someone says "this is not a pyramid scheme" you can be quite sure that it is.

Note: I am making no value judgments whatsoever on the merits of pyramid schemes in general, although I can say most will not make you money or benefit you in any way (except possibly socially, and less likely emotionally) if you find yourself in the lower rungs of said pyramid ("said" was totally incorrect there, but many people like using, and are pleased by reading, that phrase in its incorrect usage).

posted by PositiveMode @ 7:07 PM