User:Ronarscorruption/Impossible

Impossible is a word that is used very often in todays world. People use it on all sorts of ridiculous things, from their ability to walk on water, to how many rocks they can throw at a mime before they get in trouble (The answer is four). Unfortunately, this word is nearly always used wrongly and if you can avoid doing so, you are making the world a better place.

Impossible has three common uses in today's world, referring to things that cannot happen, things that are unlikely, and things that nobody understands. Only the first one is correct, and the other two should be referred to as implausible and things that people can't agree on appropriately.

Things that cannot happen

When people use the term to refer to things that are, for lack of a better term, not classified as possible, they are actually right. This is the only correct usage of the term, and if you catch someone saying it about something implausible or stupid you should immediately kick them in the shins. No, seriously, the world would be a better place if they listened to Grammar Nazis. I mean, look at Grammar Germany right? It's a wonderful place.

A good example of this is if someone says say to you, "no, you can't walk through a brick wall, it's impossible." This is a correct usage of the term (unless they're talking to Superman or some such similar figure). If they were to say, say, "no, you can't walk over to that corner of the room, it's impossible" then they'd be wrong (unless the center of the room is targeted by some sort of orbital laser or mechanical bear or something).

The problem with the term, and the reason it's used correctly so infrequently is that there are a lot of impossible things. It's impossible to lick your elbow, it's impossible to be in two places at once, and it's impossible to survive being thrown off a skyscraper into a tiny pool of mustard. If people stated everything that was impossible, they would simply be talking nonstop, and that's even worse than using the term wrong, and should be punished accordingly (kick them in the shins too).

Things that are improbable

More commonly, people use the word refer to things that are wildly improbable, but just too lazy to figure out exactly how much so. There are a very large number of statements that fall under this category, such as "it's impossible to count the number of grains of sand on the beach", "you can't get heads on a coin toss a hundred times in a row, it's impossible" or "it's impossible to sever a raptors head with a single blow from a meat-cleaver". Some of these phrases are wrong, some are unlikely, and some are stupid. All of them use the word incorrectly.

In an effort to correct this travesty, somebody actually needs to go out and calculate the probability of things that people call impossible. For example, getting 100 heads in a row in a coin toss only happens about once every 79*10^29 times. While it may seem impossible while you're doing it, you shouldn't give up. You keep flipping that coin!

Things people don't understand

The last usage for the word impossible is for things that people can't agree on, because we nobody's figured them out yet. Statements like, "it's impossible to travel faster than light", "it's impossible to prove the existance of God", or "it's impossible to write a funny article about impossibility." fall under this category.

Addendum: Apparently it is possible to write a mildly funny article about impossibility.