A new competition - the Chomsky Prize

I don't know about you, but I find that in life it is useful to have a few rules. Rules save time and enhance existence.

Here are a few I have found invaluable:

• Never order the fish.
• There's always enough to make a mess. This is also known as Finkelstein's law of Empty Containers, after my mother who established it. Take an apparently empty can and turn it upside down. there, told you.
• Never read a book or watch a film that has been recommended by Noam Chomsky. Try this. I promise you it's a real winner.

Now I am looking for new rules for readers to live their life by. What's your suggestion?

There will be a fabulous Comment Central prize for the winner. Last time someone won a signed picture of the former British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. You don't want to let a prize like that elude your grasp. So get posting.

Comments

[dizzy]

The phrase, "it's my round" will always get you out of a tight spot in a pub.

[Terry Collmann]

Never enter a pub that has a sticker in the window saying "8-ball pool played here".

Never (never NEVER) tell a woman who asks how her new dress looks that it's "fine".

Never buy CDs after an alcoholic lunch

Never go out without a handkerchief

[Dr Syn]

Never insult anyone named Bubba.

Never shave your body during an earthquake.

Never mix alcohol and e-Bay. (This from doleful experience.)

[Pamela]

Never whistle the Hatikvah in Dearborn(istan)

[adam]

'How can it get any worse' is almost certainly the stupidest thing you ever said.

[David Boothroyd]

My favourite is not original but comes from the Radio 4 comedy from the 1980s, "Tales from the Mausoleum Club":

Never play poker with a man named after a city.

[adam]

'It didn't mean anything' doesn't mean anything.

Really, nobody likes you because you say what you think.

You can't depend on people not finding out what you've done.

It is often easier to make a bad thing good, than it is to make a good thing.

Of you and your bosses, you are the only one that thinks that you work too hard.

The rules that make sense to you look trite and contrived when written down.

Never spread your competition entries over more than one post.

[Francis]

Never plan on sun-bathing if anyone (especially Al Gore) is lecturing on global warming nearby.

[John]

Beware of Linguists moonlighting as Marxists.

[Amador]

When you vote in 2008, and Hillary Clinton is running for president, it will be the closest to choosing your own executioner you'll ever get.

[adam]

Never hide your liquor in an old aftershave bottle.

[Homer]

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

[David Gillies]

Don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry.

Never engage in a gunfight if the calibre of your pistol does not start with a '4'.

Men: do not buy your boon companion power tools for Christmas in the hope that you'll get to use them.

[Crow]

If it's in the news it comes with a bias.

if A politican says it, ask him who his expert is. when you find its another politician you know some one paid to have it said.

Political minorities always make more noise than the majority.

[bobbybeachbum]

In a boxing match never bet on the white guy.

[Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky]

Never go to watch a student or "fringe" production of The Seagull.

[sortapundit]

Ordering the 'large' anything in an American restaurant will result in stomach pain, humiliation and remorse.

[ThunderDragon]

Never say "I'm buying. What do you want?" to a bunch of students in a pub.

[snuh]

i read elizabeth fones-wolf's book "selling free enterprise", as recommended by noam chomsky, and thought it was quite interesting, actually.

[Marin]

Never trust with your money someone whose initials are P H.

[Chris]

Never accept financial advice from a man named Roger.

(Not mine, can't remember where I heard it.)

[Ross Parker]

Any person who asks you for money on the street is not trying to pay their way into a night shelter, collect for charity, get back home, or put their kids through school. They want alcohol or smack. People who ask you for non-monetary things (a phone call, a lift, etc) are mostly genuine. People who don't ask for anything and look distraught as they wander hopelessly are most in need of help.

[Nony Mouse]

In any set of overhead slides, no matter how often you have given the presentation, there will always be an error -- although not necessarily one as good as a famous company, boasting to an international audience of experts in addressing the under-representation of women in science and engineering, listing among its achievements "Execution of Girls Day".

[Tom Freeman]

William Rees-Mogg is wrong.

[Steve Nesich]

I don't know of any books recommended by Noam Chomsky. In fact, I would think that a person would have to make somewhat of an effort to find such books. Is that what you did, Mr. Finkelstein?

However, given Chomsky's genius, his seminal works in linguistics, his prolific and profound political writings and his overall brilliance and high ethics, I'd like to see what books he recommends. Do you know where I can find such information?

Does anyone scare and anger the corporate/imperial elite and their dutiful lackeys as much as Noam Chomsky?

I'm glad that they continue to essentially promote his work and help keep his name in the public arena.

[James]

Even worse than being recommended by Chomsky must be Chomsky's own fate of being recommended by that other hero of lower sixth Marxists, Hugo Chavez! Oh dear.

[adam]

Noam Chomsky's supporters can be humourless bastards.

[jesse]

I've found a good rule of thumb is to avoid writing books Dale Peck finds dull, 'modernist' or titled, "the black veil"... and for heavens' sake, never, ever, use the word magisterial in a book review (let alone elegiac)...

[jesse]

I've found a good rule of thumb is to avoid writing books Dale Peck finds dull, 'modernist' or titled, "the black veil"... and for heavens' sake, never, ever, use the word magisterial in a book review (let alone elegiac)...

[Michael Needleman]

Great post! Really edgy stuff. It's impossible to comprehend how the Tories can lose four straight elections with such trenchant and biting wit behind them.

[sackcloth and ashes]

'Never read a book or watch a film that has been recommended by Noam Chomsky'.

Or John Pilger. Unless you have a mental age of 5.

[Kevin]

Never give any credance to the thoughts of intellectual minnows like Daniel Finkelstein

[Marco]

>>Posted by: Crow | Monday, 12
February 2007 at 10:54 PM
In a boxing match never bet on
the white guy.

>>(unless he's Russian)

[sackcloth and ashes]

Pay no attention whatsoever to people who can't spell ('credence', not 'credance').

[Poldraw]

Never kill the fly on your friend's forehead with a spade.
Never.

[Edward Gee]

I never met a Marxist Noam Chomsky didn't like.

Hypocrisy is his middle name... I am not aware of any Marxist who makes more money from the very system Noam Chomsky devotes his life to decimate...

[Edward Gee]

Never would I EVER have thought I would wish for the controlled press ala China, or Russia, as I do today. The absolutely moronic idiots who get liberal biased media coverage has forced me to throw away the plasma....

[El Hopkins]

I'm assuming this means that it is ok to read something by Chomsky? What about his recommendations in the field of linguistics for which he is the most widely cited living academic?

Never order the fish? You're missing out - although I guess it depends on which restaurants you go to in which part of the world.

[London Jag]

Never bet on party that has Danny Finkelstein as a policy adviser. Look what happened to the SDP and Hague's Tories!

[Cleanthes]

When looking for somewhere to eat in an unfamiliar town and especially when you are with others, don't wander aimlessly hoping you'll find the best in town.

Sit down in the FIRST place that looks good, order a bottle of wine and spend the time you would have wasted in aimless wandering actually enjoying yourself.

Oh and to "build" on Don't tell your other half that new clothes are "fine", I have a better rule:

If you don't like something your other half is about to buy SAY SO THEN. If you don't, you will have to lie EVERY time she wants to wear it. Get the pain over with once.

EL Hopkins:
"... in the field of linguistics for which he is the most widely cited living academic?"

"Cited" implies articles by Chomsky that other people have recommended, not the other way round.

Considering this is coming from the guy that thinks there just isn't enough corruption in British politics, can someone give at least one reason (just one) for why i should ignore the most respected intellectual on the planet? A Prospect poll doesn't mean its the last word, but seriously - you think saying, 'try this. I promise you it's a real winner' is really going to convince me? that is seriously weak.

[Tanjil Rashid]

Dear Mr Finkelstein,

Hmmm, how about this:

Never criticise an intellectual whose stature outweighs one's own in every possible regard.

Why don't you elucidate on your reason for this stupid suggestion that one never read anything recommended by Noam Chomsky? Perhaps it's because you know you cannot intellectually challenge him and win because your arguments are flawed and his arguments are superior. Knowing this, that's why you ask that no-one else read anything recommended by Chomsky because you'd rather stifle intellectual debate and prefer that people not realise the folly of your silly right-wing neoconservative ideas. Poeple like you, who seek to discredit ideological opponents in this petty, puerile and immature way are what's ruining politics. Why don't you challenge his views, argue your own rationally and then allow people to come to their own rational conclusion. That's how political discourse should be, not this silly nonsense.

But then, what do I know...I'm just a romantic Marxist Hugo Chavez-worshipping Chomskyist Bennite buffoon.

That is of course doubtless how you would respond, rather than with a rational debate about things. Don't you see what you've reduced politics to?

And by the way, before you call me a "homourless Chavista" or some other personal attack, I happen to agree with a lot of your own ideas and not so many of Noam Chomsky's- it's just that I respect honest discourse, the likes of which takes place in books by Chomsky and those he recommends, and loathe pettiness like this.

Yours,

Tanjil Rashid

[Jeremiah Diddle Quack]

It's a foolish man that vaults over a Unicorn

[adam]

I fear that I am still right about Chomksy supporters.

[dizzy]

I think I have a winner here:

However unique you may think your sexual deviencies are, there will be a newsgroup and website that already exists to cater for you with a massive community of perversion.

[adam]

Dizzy hasn't been the same since he discovered the 'octupi dressed in schoolgirl outfits' newsgroup.

[adam]

Never trust Finkelstein to announce a winner. At least not where I can spot it.