So while convalescing here in my study, I went on MTGO to play a couple games of cards, when this stupid discussion happened.

2:54 Tobleron: hmm I was 16 when that came out anyone want to take a gander at my age? hehe
2:54 pdragon616: a “gander”? Gander does not equal “guess”.
2:54 Dork: lol @ pdragon for not knowing what gander means
2:55 pdragon616: gander == “look” or “the mate of a goose”, but not “a guess”
2:56 pdragon616: Look it up before you laugh at me, Dork, and learn the language. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gander

At this point, I received a private message from the MTGO adept (basically, a room moderator, who's sad existence largely consists of telling people to stop talking.).  He told me I was not allowed to post links to anything other than Wizard's website, it's a violation of MTGO policy.  This policy was established to prevent people from posting links to competing sites, or inappropriate sites.  I informed the moderator of that fact and went on to say that the policy was never intended to be enforced in a knee-jerk fashion… a link to the dictionary should be pretty safe.  I'm just pissing off everyone today, I guess.  Anyway I figured the conversation was over, but Tobleron and Dork were not through with me:

2:56 Tobleron: you can take a gander however
2:56 Dork: 2.Slang. a look: Take a gander at his new shoes.
2:56 Dork: You look it up, moron

Are you as mystified as I? Tobleron clearly used it to mean “take a guess” and here Dork calling me a moron because it can be used to mean “take a look” which is, unless I'm mistaken, what I just said.  But you know me, I'll say it again:

2:56 pdragon616: No duh you can “take a gander”, but that means “TAKE A LOOK”, silly!
2:57 Boyardee: take a gander= take a look or have a look-see!
2:57 pdragon616: thank you
2:57 Tobleron: I was the one that used it lol. scroll up
2:57 pdragon616: yes, you are the one who used it WRONG
2:57 Dork: were in america, people use words in slang forms, we use words in other ways than they are meant

So a person chimes in to agree with me, Tobleron seems to think I'm confused about who said what, and Dork thinks the entire internet is in America, and that I don't know what “slang” is.  I expected that at this point, other people might start jumping on Dork.  I was right. It was also time for more chiming in of relevant and irrelevant commentary:

2:57 Tobleron: we're where?
2:58 Campton: Dork talk for yourself
2:58 OceanBreeze: a gander is a male goose
2:58 Boyardee: Dork you're an idiot, but when i say that i mean “idiot” as in “cool guy”
2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang “take a gander” does not mean “take a guess” no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo
2:58 Campton: take a gander means have a look
2:58 OceanBreeze: its means retrieve a male goose
2:59 pdragon616: 'take a gander at' – Look at, glance at, as in 'Will you take a gander at that woman's red hair!' This slangy idiom, dating from the early 1900s, presumably came from the verb gander, meaning “stretch one's neck to see,” possibly alluding to the long neck of the male goose. For a synonym, see 'take a look at'.
2:59 Tobleron: k I am glad I made you all debate and look in the dictionary I am off to the lake!!
2:59 Boyardee: whats good for the goose is good for the guess?
2:59 Durante: All right now, who's stealing geese?

Durante wants to know who's taking all the ganders.    Conversation over, right?  Nope.  First comes more PM's from the moderator.  I'm having a discussion again, and that's not permitted, and apparently I'm harassing Dork.  As you can tell, my patience for the MTGO moderators is pretty thin.  Let me describe for you the MTGO casual room window.  At the top of the screen is a list of all the active “tables” (games), you can sort this list in any manner you like, although the most sensible way to sort it is by “Status” as this puts games that are waiting to start at the top where you can easily see them and decide what game you'd like to play.  Beneath this is a list of completed games, and beneath that is the chat window, where all the players can post chat messages.  However from the moderator's perspective this is what that window should look like:

Joe: std
Barney: ext
Alice: std
Fred: classic
Dork: std
Peanuts: ext
Jank: prismatic
Bored: ext
Kablooie: singleton

This exciting conversation is players posting a note to say that they just opened up a new table (game) and the format of game they've started… std=standard, ext=extended, etc.  This is, however, inherently stupid, since all open games can be sorted in the game list window, so there really is no need to advertise games in the chat window.  And therefore players tend to ignore the moderator and have discussions until he threatens to ban someone, and it's a good thing too, because otherwise hanging out in the casual room would be pretty dull.  According to the moderators, discussing MTG is acceptable, but any discussion that lasts for more than a minute, even one about MTG, will result in the moderator telling people to be quiet or take it to another room.  Anyway while I'm getting harangued by the moderator, the conversation continues, Dork isn't going to give up, and he's got iron-clad proof:

2:59 Dork: 5. gander 4 up, 6 down a guess based on only assumptions, www.urbandictionary.com
2:59 Dork: look for your self Gander – a guess based on only assumptions
3:00 Durante: pdragon is right
3:00 OceanBreeze: best conversation ever
3:00 Dork: urbandictionary is a user submitted dictionary, word submitted on December 18th, proving that OTHER people use it as a form of “guess”
3:00 Dork: therefore, you're WRONG
3:00 Durante: other people are idiots…
3:01 Abrogate: nobody says gander anymore cause we are too urban to think about geese
3:01 LoinGirder: Newsflash: Just because you can find other idiots who use a phrase incorrectly does not make it correct
3:01 Durante: I would go with standard usage over one person
3:01 Dork: 2:58 pdragon616: Dork, in american slang “take a gander” does not mean “take a guess” no matter how bad you want it to mean that, foo —- you wanna say that again? make your self look like more of an idiot, you got really quiet really fast

Apparently during this two minutes while I was dealing with the moderator, I didn't post anything, and Dork took this as some sort of triumph.  In the meantime another couple people have chimed in to tell him he's wrong, and Abrogate's post still makes me laugh.  We are too urban to think about geese.  It's kind of hard to take 'urbandictionary' seriously since all the defnitions are user submitted, and there is even less oversight there than at wikipedia.  It certainly isn't like a real dictionary of slang.

3:02 pdragon616: urbandictionary is created by popular submission you twit, it isn't an authoritative source!!! YOU could submit your ignorant definition there. Big deal, proves nothing.
3:02 Abrogate: lol take a look and take a guess are obviously different in meaning
3:02 OneRingToRuleThemAll: of course
3:02 Orbital: probably did submit his own definition while you were all chatting, lol
3:02 Dork: exactly, you said no one uses it as guess, I proved you wrong, people do use it as a form of “guess”
3:03 OneRingToRuleThemAll: Dork,no one uses the words guess and look interchangably
3:03 pdragon616: urbandictionary also says that “Gander = Dander”, as in “gets my gander up”, obviously submitted by a halfwit who doesn't know what he's talking about and misheard the phrase… urbandictionary is the toilet-bug of dictionaries… Don't waste my time.
3:04 Orbital: urbandictionary = joke
3:04 Orbital: this argument is really getting my gander up
3:04 PutzModerator: Please stop this discussion now

At this point Dork finally went away.  Probably because he too was getting harangued by the moderator.  And I pondered this conversation for a bit and decided to share it here.  I hate trying to have discussions on the 'net anyway.  Nobody ever understands anyone and it usually devolves into pointless quibbling.  So anyone here think I was wrong to disparage UrbanDictionary.com?