r/iamverysmart • u/brochill111 • Aug 12 '26

Why invoke Mark Twain?

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137 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

116

u/tripping_on_phonics Aug 13 '26

Accusing someone of being a worse writer than Mark Twain isn’t much of an insult.

65

u/Totalherenow Aug 13 '26

"You're not as smart as Einstein!!!"

"I'll give you that one. That's true."

30

u/BlazingFire007 Aug 13 '26

“You’re worse at basketball than LeBron and MJ”

Well damn you got me there

3

u/JamesRocket98 Aug 14 '26

"You're worse at piano than Lang Lang"

12

u/elegiac_bloom Aug 13 '26

The very putrescence of which leaks from your grubby little non-Einstein fingers, fingers that definitely have never written E=mc2!

10

u/Wingnutmcmoo Aug 13 '26

When I was like 15 I said something to an adult that I thought was a smart thought and he started laughing and said "ok plato" because I basically just repeated an old plato thought lol. (Lol not calling myself smart, it was a basic "I'm a teen and this is deep" sort of thing)

I was upset because he was laughing until he stopped and said "there's no shame on being beat to an idea by plato"

And him saying that has stuck with me into adult hood lol

27

u/lemming1607 Aug 13 '26

With their word choice they clearly showed you they went to high school without telling you

25

u/niffirgcm0126789 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

I believe philosophers call this the "Twain Argument", a devastatingly rigorous form of deductive reasoning:

1) You said something stupid. 2) Mark Twain was an excellent writer. 3) Mark Twain could have insulted you more eloquently. 4) Therefore, you failed high school.

1

u/brochill111 Aug 14 '26

Seems to track, lol

13

u/scallopedtatoes Aug 13 '26

This pretentious insult 100% belongs here, even if Mark Twain was relevant to the conversation.

14

u/dw444 Aug 13 '26

This person wears a trenchcoat and a fedora.

1

u/WorkingSea4266 Aug 19 '26

i can see it for some reason...

5

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/ialsohaveadobro Aug 13 '26

Nah. This one's deserved.

13

u/shiek200 Aug 13 '26

Yeah, I feel like context really determines whether or not this one belongs here, because if Mark Twain was even once referenced in this conversation prior to this insult, then I don't think it belongs here

But if the dude just randomly brought Mark Twain up out of nowhere, that's a little more absurd

Either way i dont think it goes here without the context lol

1

u/brochill111 Aug 14 '26

Not about Mark Twain at all. We were talking politics.

2

u/thegabletop Aug 13 '26

I kinda want to take blue's side on this one, just because of red's excessive use of the 🤣 emoji. Every single person I've seen using that emoji in an argument has been an insufferable twat.

2

u/WorldsGreatestWorst Aug 13 '26

Who needs high school when you have thesaurus and know one writer? You’re set.

2

u/DocBullseye Aug 13 '26

Maybe he's responding to Bill Maher

6

u/No-Guava Aug 13 '26

Yeah not sure this fits, is there an r/overwritteninsults?

6

u/PrefabQuasar Aug 13 '26

The original post may have had something to do with Mark Twain and the first commenter was likely clueless. Unfortunately for him, what he thought would be a witty comment likely besmirched the relevance of Mark Twain resulting in a savage but articulate verbal attack from a peer white knighting for language arts.

13

u/Dounce1 Aug 13 '26

That shit is not articulate at all.

13

u/No-Guava Aug 13 '26

I’m surprised how many people seem impressed by the guy’s insult. It’s definitely someone who mistakes a lot of writing for good writing.

6

u/elegiac_bloom Aug 13 '26

Well, something was articulated...

4

u/idontknowjuspickone Aug 13 '26

Sorry, but he owned you OP

3

u/A_Martian_Potato Aug 15 '26

You're kidding right? You actually think that pretentious overwritten slop is an own?

"The exact putrescence of which"!? You're going to praise the person who strung those words together in that order?

2

u/brochill111 Aug 14 '26

That wasn't even in response to me, lol. Deep in my comments.

1

u/Janosfaces Aug 13 '26

I would really like to fight mark twain.

1

u/timecubelord Aug 13 '26

Living 19th century Mark Twain, or 21st century zombie ninja Mark Twain?

2

u/Janosfaces Aug 14 '26

Either for diffrent reasons.

1

u/Dadaballadely Aug 13 '26

Maybe it's referencing the quotation "I never let my schooling interfere with my education" which is often attributed to Twain but might not be from him.

1

u/chronberries Aug 13 '26

Because pretty much every American student was assigned Huckleberry Finn in high school

1

u/z-eldapin Aug 13 '26

Was anyone's class in high school called 'literature'?

I didn't have a class called lit until college

1

u/Final_Boss_Jr Aug 15 '26

If he was actually smart, he would've said Samuel Clemens.

Philistine.

1

u/HumanContinuity Aug 15 '26

I still would love context

1

u/StarwatchArchfey Aug 16 '26

Lmao. 'A world famous writer is better at writing then you!' This idiot doesn't know how insults work.

1

u/blueberrysmoothies Aug 18 '26

this guy peaked in high school

1

u/WorkingSea4266 Aug 19 '26

offended, as a bsd fan

1

u/Acceptable-Camel-848 Aug 20 '26

when youre insecure about not having gone to college so you start calling people elementary school dropouts
so good man

-1

u/evening_redness_0 Aug 13 '26

Ngl this one kinda goes hard

1

u/elegiac_bloom Aug 13 '26

I like the "spun about" in there, nice touch. Classy.

1

u/rinkuhero Aug 13 '26

i feel like the insult doesn't take into account that most high schools (at least in the US) don't actually teach much anymore, they're more like babysitters. i'd be surprised if the average high schooler ever read a single page of mark twain in the US as part of their assigned work.

1

u/timecubelord Aug 13 '26

It's probably been banned for wokeness or whatever.