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David Knickerbocker's avatar

Are they not archived by the internet archive?

It sucks. I’m just wondering. Is anything actually deleted from the internet forever

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Darren McKay's avatar

I have to admit I thought that the UFC may have “encouraged” GRV Media to remove all those articles. But your explanation makes sense to me.

Does GRV Media have the rights to the articles after their purchase, or could all the information be pulled from other sources (Internet Archive, writer’s backups, etc.) and posted as free content? This would allow the information to live on and be found if people were searching online.

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Tim Bissell's avatar

Great piece Karim. It still hurts that so much of our work over on BE was taken away. I'm sure there's a way for all of us to get on the same page and release it all somewhere, but I don't know if I have the energy to work on something like that.

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Anthony Pearsall's avatar

Hello, I am very sorry about the deletion of your published articles and the destruction of Bloody Elbow. But there will always be new follies and crimes, and so you will always have the opportunity to rebuild your oeuvre, which we all look forward to, I feel sure.

Because my next message is on the pedantic side, please feel free to delete after reading, for I have no intention of demeaning your superb command of written English. I refer to the word 'hair-brained" in the 13th paragraph. The word should actually be "hare-brained," defined in the OED as “having or showing no more ‘brains’ or sense than a hare; heedless, reckless; rash, wild, mad. Of persons, their actions, etc.”

The first known usage in print was during the 16th century; in that era, "haire" and "hair" were both acceptable alternate spellings of what settled down to be hare, the large, wild rabbit. As our society increasingly has lost touch with its rural origins, and people have forgotten what a hare was or that there even is a creature called a hare, there has been a trend to write "hair-brained" as if to suggest a brain-case stuffed with hair instead of brains. But that is a mistake, a hare-brained mistake.

There is another word, "mondegreen," for a word or phrase in a song or poem that is written down wrongly because someone heard it without seeing the text. It was invented because the Scots ballad beginning: "Ye Hielands and ye Lowlands, o whaur hae ye been?/They hae slain the Earl o' [of] Moray, and laid him on the green," concerning a political assassination in the exciting Scottish year of 1592, was transcribed in some English broadsheets and books beginning in the 18th century as "the Earl o' Moray, and Lady Mondegreen." This happens a lot with rock music lyrics heard on the radio as we all probably know. For example, my own childish mis-hearing of "Indiana wants me" as "In the air she wants me," and "They're in a bad mood on the right" instead of "There is a bad moon on the rise"--or another example I've read, of someone who thought "Girl, it's hard to find nice things/On the poor side of town" was "Girl, it's hard to find nice things/On a four-sided cow." I do not know if there is a similar technical phrase for hair-brained instead of hare-brained and similar errors, other than "folk etymology," which is the same as if to say: "false etymology."

Thank you.

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