Ogee Gutters for Dummies

Shape of an ogee curve

One of the common errors of the freelancing fool (the kind of writer who "researches" questions and "answers" them at content farms or a blog) is failure to comprehend the point of the question. Take, for instance, the question "What is ethanol?" A freelance fool would "inform" you that ethanol is a mixture of gasoline and alcohol, while failing to mention that the word is more specifically used for ethyl alcohol. eHow.com's Chasity Goddard, freelance "writer" by virtue of a BA in creative writing, demonstrates this class of error by completely missing the point when writing about an unfamiliar topic: "What Are Ogee Gutters?"¹

Anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the building trade (or of the classics, we suppose) will recognize the word "ogee" as the description of a shape. An ogee profile has a continuous double curve. The shape shows up everywhere, both in natural and man-made objects, from roofs to molding to plastic surgery ads (see above). 

Chasity didn't bother to look up "ogee," however: she just looked up gutters. In the process, she screwed up (quelle surprise), informing her readers that

"The term 'ogee' refers to the style of gutter, and is sometimes called "k-style." The rain gutter choices available to a homeowner are half-round and ogee. The ogee profile is flat on the bottom, flat on the back to rest on the fascia board against the home, and tapers out to be larger on the top." Ummm, yes, a K-style gutter is an ogee profile, but to simply say that this profile "tapers out to be larger on the top" is, at best, a misstatement. There are, after all, gutter profiles that are simply straight-sided yet "[taper] out to be larger on the top." Goddard wastes the remainder of her content describing materials and even -- sort of -- installation of gutters (gotta meet that minimum word count). We found it interesting that Chasity only described the installation of seamless gutters, even though most DIYers install their gutters in 10-foot sections.

Ahh, Chasity, Chasity: why can't you write about what little you know well and leave the rest to informed people? For yet one more  to the stupidification of the internet, here's another Dumbass of the Day award for the Goddard family trophy shelf...

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/facts_7514585_ogee-gutters.html

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