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what is north?
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this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2025
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Mark here either has poor reading comprehension, or is intentionally being a little shit by cherry picking part of the title and not reading the whole thing.
The location specified is not 'north of Antarctica'.
It is, 'the Weddell Sea, north of Antarctica.'
Giving 'the Weddell Sea' as the location is actually decently specific, and the 'north of Antarctica' that follows is modifying / adding to the description of 'the Weddell Sea'... not the entirety of the location description.
I would snarkily, rhetorically, ask if people are even taught how to diagram out a sentence structure anymore, but I already know the answer is 'not really, no', because the average adult American literacy level is that of a 6th grader.
Mark, and anyone else who also finds this to be a funny, poignant zinger, need to go back to middle school and relearn grammar.
Weddell sea is good, mentioning Antarctica is good, the word “North” is meaningless in this context which is what the OP is laughing about.
It should probably say, "off the Antarctic coast", or even "X kilometers off the Antarctic coast".
Or - bear with me here - it’s just a funny detail and people are laughing about it. Because any sea is obviously going to be north of it
It is still valid to point out that "north of Antartica" is a silly phrase in context, even though it's fine given the more specific Weddell Sea information. If you did want to help readers know the story based on a more well-known landmark, a less silly phrase would have been simply been "Weddell Sea, near Antarctica".
I'd go with "the Antarctic's Weddell Sea".
While you're not wrong, you're also massively over-analyzing and "WELL AKSHULLY"ing what appears to be a silly one-liner, not a serious attempted dunk on the article.
I am not going to apologize for having humor standards above that of a middle schooler.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Nope. You could as well say: Mediterranean Sea, north of Antarctica.
I have two dollars, less than infinity.
The temperature is pleasant, higher than absolute zero.
Doesn't add anything. There are no seas south of Antarctica.
It adds something, it specifies the nearest location, if we assume the basic sanity of the sentence. Mediterranean Sea, north of Antarctica would be insane thing to say. Mediterranean Sea, north of Africa however is a proper signifier.
Is there any Mediterranean Sea south of Africa?
If you don't know where Mediterranean Sea is, saying it's north of Africa is a useful thing. Regardless of how many Mediterranean Seas there are.
The Weddell Sea, north of Antarctica, brought to you by the department of redundancy department.
Could you enlighten me, then? How on earth does "north of Antarctica" modifiy or add to "the Weddell Sea" in any way, shape, or form?
See nonrestrictive modifiers
I'm wondering if you fail to realize that the entirety of the antarctic coast is "north of Antarctica" which makes the description a virtually useless modifier.
Nothing wrong with the grammar, just the logic.
It seems they forgot to mention it was on earth. They really should have indicated it was within the solar system too. No mention of being located in the Milky Way galaxy or the known universe either.
You're not wrong, you're just insufferable.
Nah, spectral IS wrong. The "complaint" isn't arguing grammar, it's explicitly pointing out that there's a very unhelpful couple of words in the sentence.
The sentence "I live north of Antarctica." gives you basically zero information but is perfectly grammatically correct.
The line may as well have been "The weddel sea, which is made of water,..."
I agree with your overall statement. Just wanted to point out that there are a lot more people than Americans out there.
You better believe I'm here for this squabbling
Yup, by naming Wedell, they located it quite well; there are 13 small named seas completely encircling Antarctica. By naming any of them, you can reasonably locate (to any point that matters to dear reader) the wreck
Sure, if you happen to already know where the Wedell Sea is or if you look it up it you can reasonably locate it, in which case adding the "north of Antarctica" part is superfluous. But if you don't already know where the Wedell Sea is, adding in the "north of Antarctica" part doesn't actually narrow it down any, which is why it's a funny thing to point out.
If they had wrote "just north of Antarctica" or "off the coast of Antarctica" or "near Antarctica", that would have narrowed it down significantly.
Now that I have thoroughly explained the joke, I imagine it's much funnier now.
I'm sure that "Mark "Three-Jabs" Newton" and the rest of us who found this funny were able to deduce from the context that is actually what the writer meant . That isn't what they actually wrote though so "sp3ctr4l" is not only incorrect in asserting that Mark has "poor reading comprehension", he is also wrong that 'reading the whole thing' would have clarified things and was extremely condescending about his incorrect statement at the same time, which makes him kind of an ass imo.
He was correct that Mark was "intentionally being a little shit" so 1 out of 3 wouldn't have been so bad if he weren't such a douche about it at the same time.
Nah, It was rather self-explanatory, I believe most of us read it is more of a pedantic thing than a joke. Sadly, explaining the pedantic thing at length reinforced that substantially. :)
Prime "AKSHUALLY" moment.
A 6th grader’s literacy level means they can write a book report.