Doug

It began with the forging of the Great Rings.

Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings.

Seven to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls.

And nine...Nine rings were gifted to the Race of Men, who above all else desire power.

For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race.

But do you recall... The most famous one ring of all

Against my better judgement, why not.

If you're acting in good faith why did you not answer when I asked if you understood how our elections work?

If you're acting in good faith where did I state you were an elector?

If you're acting in good faith why are you badgering with a question that you already know the answer to?

No. You are not "literally just asking you to explain your own understanding of presidential elections" and you know it. You refuse to participate in the discussion in favor of your own, possibly with the intent of seeking some kind of so-called gotcha moment. It's not coming. They're are functionally two parties within our presidential elections.

Since 1900 a third party candidate has received more than 5% of the popular vote (that's you and me) roughly 6 times. That number drops to about 4 if you want more than 10%. In that same time a third party candidate has received any votes from electors (which are outdated but still very much the ones who are counted thus important to the process as it exists) in 6 elections. The last one was in 1972.

And just to further reinforce, that's any votes from electors. The highest in that time was in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt received 88. George Wallace later got 46 in 1968 and Strom Thurmond managed 39 in 1948. They continue downward from there.

So no, as you've been told by others, a third party candidate is generally not electable in the system we have. This is why the system is often called a two party system despite the existence of third parties. You'll notice in common parlance they're not counted, they're called third parties. This is not a controversial opinion I hold, it's how it is widely discussed by laymen and experts alike.

But you already knew all that and instead chose to badger to try and, I can only assume, have some kind of moment or way you were right. You were acting in bad faith and I have no more time or energy for your type of "discussion". Goodbye.

Because they're an instrumental part of how the election process works for quite a while now. If a candidate is receiving 0 electoral votes they are functionally as electable as you or I.

You've more than proven yourself to be in bad faith here though, so you'll have to pester someone else with future efforts.

I assumed you understood how a presidential election worked in the US. Was I mistaken?

How many presidential elections have you participated in where more than two parties received any electoral votes at all?

They are in a two party system

That's why he and everyone are hugging a strange brown man at the end

At least he's not Aryan Jesus here. That's a sort of progress I guess?

Still terrible

I've never had the problem of not being understood.

You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. It's not for me to say which. Regardless that's not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. That's something you need to contend with.

And regardless of how long the time period was

So no time requirement on archaic then?

there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it.

As is true of every word and yet I'm sure there are words you say differently than the first person. I'll bet you don't say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?

You can use the new pronunciation

I will as well many others.

as I have for 30+ years,

Me too! Still doesn't make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as "new" when it's barely newer than the format.

and I will continue to do so

I can't stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.

both are acceptable

Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.

I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesn't mean people wouldn't think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.

If you don't like it, that's a you problem.

Sure, but it won't stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.

people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.

As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. I've been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and I'm not the originator either.

English linguistics doesn't indicate anything at all.

They absolutely do. That's why you can sound out a word you've never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they don't define.

There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation.

There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I'm certain you can give me a word where it's not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.

if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly

In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.

If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there's more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.

You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic,

Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?

the word itself is like 35 years old

Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?

since there was only one acceptable pronunciation

Which isn't a time that existed, as we've established

who aren't likely to change.

Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.

Telling me not to is what makes English worse.

In your opinion. "Jiggawatt" is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. It's not always the case, sure, but I think you'll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. That's why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but you'll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.

Become popular? It's been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. It's hardly language's fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.

On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.

Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.