One admits, shamefacedly, to the occasional use of vintage lowlife cant; one has, in the past, spoken of circumstances having "let daylight into" (i.e., killed) a prospective transaction.
Don't judge one.
Fran Lebowitz once put it, CB slang is "on the one hand too colorful and on the other hand lacking a counterpart for the words pearl gray."
I used "hecka" in an IM conversation yesterday and confused the hell out of my friend.
Inspired by a villian from kiddie TV, I'm finding myself saying, "Curse you, xxx the yyyy" more and more often.
Having kids will remind you what slang you absentmindedly use . I have noticed that my youngest two (4 and 7) address me as "Dad" about 3/4 of the time, and "Dude" about another 1/4.
Scots, obviously. Although I do really like a lot of the jazz slang. But there's no way for me to talk like Slim Gaillard without sounding like a prat.
5: yep.
I got made fun of for using "by gum" recently, also.
8: Yeah. They pretty much just use it for emphasis.
"Time to turn off the Wii and go take a bath, guys."
"Dude! We're almost to the end of the level!"
I don't know how people controlled kids before they could threaten Wii-grounding.
I guess my dad used to threaten "no video games" but he got us an Odyssey. It might have worked with Atari.
Back in my day just turning off the machine was punishment enough, since mot games couldn't be saved.
I've successfully annoyed people on a number of occasions by using the term "weak sauce".
Does dropping way too many movie quotations into ordinary conversation count? God knows I'm about ready to slap myself next time I slip an "All About Eve" reference in while excusing myself to go to the restroom.
I just read a cheesy young adult book in which there was one character who had decided to be a time traveler by dressing/acting as if from a different era, in this case the Jazz Age. Now I'd have to picture her as Stanley in a wig if I were the sort of person who pictures characters.
I say 'man' a lot, as if I were a Californian about twenty years older than my actual age. I'm not sure why. Also, a lot of sort of 1950's church-lady exclamations: "Good heavens" "Heavens to betsy" and such. Again, no explanation, particularly given that I'm neither religious nor was I raised religious.
Mrs y is given to using cod Georgian phrases from Georgette Heyer - "Let us give this afflictive party the go by."
13: Dude, sitting on the stairs while the other kids got to keep playing was the worst. I guess this punishment was "timeout", although I don't think it was called as much back then.
Tying this comment vaguely back in with the post, I just learned from a friend who's a grade school principal that sitting "Indian-style" is nowadays "criss-cross applesauce". Boy howdy, we still said "Indian-style" in 1987? Ack.
6: We actually have a "no talking like a super villain" rule in our house. This mostly came about because I was tired of asking the kids to do something and having them say "You dare to defy me!"
21.2: That also shocked me the first time I heard it. It took a second for the "It's a culture, not something you do when you can't find a chair" to kick in.
22: You should make an exception for Doofenshmirtz.
I refuse to feel like a doof for artificially forcing words into my vocabulary until they feel natural. I know that a personal idiolect is inevitably a mishmash, unless you're truly isolated in a homogeneous environment.
Anyway, one of the things I've trained myself to say is "True indeed", inspired by how cool MC Serch sounded.
I've noticed myself saying "oh my goodness!" a lot lately. Why? I have no kids. I am unconcerned by cursing. Why won't I just fucking swear?
sitting "Indian-style" is nowadays "criss-cross applesauce"
"Cross-legged" isn't good enough?
"True fact". I'm not even sure if that has a source, or if it's even unusual, but I say it a lot. The children appear to believe that I'm saying "True dat", which is not actually part of my idiolect.
(Newt comes across with a whole lot of Spanglish -- oddly, more than Sally, whose actual Spanish is better. Anytime he wants to attract your attention to something, it's "Mira!")
I had a go at working "Zounds" into my set of exclamations (probably after the semester I spent working on a Sheridan play), but it didn't stick.
Just remember, he's saying "Hi mommy", not "Ay mami".
27: That's what I grew up saying: I understood "Indian-style", and was never told it was offensive, but it wasn't what we said. It is ambiguous between sitting on the floor and sitting in a chair, though.
I say "Good gravy" a lot. I've no clue where this comes from. Calvin and Hobbes?
27: The people with extreme valgus alignments of the knees complained.
"Golly Moses!" That one I only use to indicate sarcasm: it goes with feigned wide-eyed surprise.
||
You know what's hard? Peeling potatoes when you've cut your thumb and your blood clotting ratio is 3.5.
|>
Do they really need to be peeled? Most recipes can accommodate a little potato skin.
||
Hey LB, you should find and then buy my cousin's new YA book, and give it to Sally, and then tell the blog she thinks. Except I can't really talk about it here, because that would fuck with my pseudonymity, and also now you'll have to give Sally several other newish YA books too, and discuss her reactions to all of them, so people don't know which one is my cousin's. So let's do that.
|>
Is that like shepherd's pie, but with more blood?
Does she share a last name with you, or is there any other way I could figure out which of the several billion YA books on the market is your cousin's? Work with me here.
Yeah. Shepherd's pie has lamb, cottage pie has beef, gingerbread cottage pie has small German children.
She does share a last name. I could also email.
42: In the U.S., I think shepherd's pie is almost always beef.
44: Good thing no one you know uses a name that might be associated with YA books.
34: "Golly Moses"
I use a variety of these, also to indicate sarcasm. "Gracious sakes alive," or "My lands," or "Oh my stars and garters!"
I also grew up being told, completely unironically, to "hold your horses" or "possess your soul and patience," and now I'm not sure if those should sound funny the way the first ones do.
19: If something goes mildly wrong I will often mutter "man" or "oh dear" to myself, without, so far as I can tell, there ever having been any artificiality involved in the development of either disposition.
Heebie-geebie's real name is Heebie Tweety?
Every once in a while I try incorporating a new word like "man", it sounds incredibly stilted, and then I stop.
It's possible that I just sound incredibly stilted, as a rule.
I keep finding myself saying 'yunz' and it annoys me.
I've been doing much better about reining in the guttermouth when the little mimics are around, but I've recently become aware of just how intently my 4-year-old (who sings constantly) listens to and memorizes song lyrics and now I should probably start exercising some discretion there too. The other night she was sitting at the table coloring, and I heard the following chorus from an Arliss Nancy song come barreling out of her.
'Cause I don't mind giving up
And just getting drunk
And wasting All! My! God! Damned! Tiiiiiiiime!
44: If the third letter of her name has a trema over it, I found her.
(big dramatic crescendo on the last line there)
51: We were good for a while, but gave up a couple of years ago, and the kids swear like sailors. I am a bad mother.
"Possess your soul and patience" is great and makes me want to go read some Aubrey and Maturin.
19, 34: in my house we started saying "heavens to Betsy" in your "golly Moses" mode, and then it evolved to "heck to Betsy" for extra emphasis. "Gosh heck" is in there too. But then they became things we say in straightforward surprise, and that was a mistake, because while I am normally able to filter out our jargon when I interact with the rest of the world, that's difficult in moments of surprise. Too late now.
In the U.S., I think shepherd's pie is almost always beef.
I think of it as by definition being lamb, though I haven't actually eaten any such thing in 23 years.
Oh, I am also prone to busting out elderly Irish grandmotherisms, like "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" and "Mary, Mother of God!"
In the U.S., I think shepherd's pie is almost always beef.
This makes me feel like that German guy does about "shooting a fish in a barrel":
-You know, you are a shep-herd, yes? You have many sheep. Why are you then going all the way over there to get a cow, and kill it, and put it in a pie? It is illogical.
My parents never swore around me, then when I turned 13 or 14 or something they suddenly decided it was okay to swear around me. This made it seem like an unnecessary affectation, so to this day I barely swear.
46: I use "Golly Gee Williker!" to express mild surprise. Also "Holy Moly."
My Family were pretty strict about cussing when I was a kid, so "Land's Sakes!" was about as bad as it got.
57, 59: I looked at some recipes. Alton Brown was the only one that used lamb thought one of the others said "ground beef or lamb" and some other noted that lamb was traditional while calling for ground beef.
52L: oh, um. Nope. I did send you an email.
Well Heavens to Betsy! I plumb forgot to attach my pseud to 61.
Mrs y is given to using cod Georgian phrases from Georgette Heyer
I have read that despite her reputation for immaculate research, Heyer made up a lot of the words and phrases that appear repeatedly in her novels.
I'm not linking to anything because, though I have read it in more than one place, I don't know if any of them is reliable.
Upon conceding error in my household, one is required to say "You were right. I was wrong. How could I have ever doubted you?!?"
MY daughter is known as "Crazy Cat!"
I swear too much. I need to be better about it.
What's the difference between a trema and a dieresis?
I swear like nobody's business, but I've not heard my daughter swear even once. I'm planning to quit any day now, which if it happens will no doubt jinx the whole thing.
I say "Lord love a duck" sometimes. I'd like to incorporate espece de chameau but haven't succeeded.
I used to say "land o' Goshen!" occasionally, because my mother said it a lot. But then I realized that it was just the two of us and the characters in The Grapes of Wrath who ever used it.
I already explained "folx".
I use some Wodehouse-isms too: "Inflict my beastly society" etc.
When I worked at the stock brokerage I swore a lot, but I haven't been that sustainedly angry since.
There's a lot of anarchist/radical/punk slang you might hear me use in certain contexts: "Manarchist", bloc-up, kids (as in emo, indie, insurrectionary), oogles/crusties, twinkle, etc. I keep trying to reintroduce "bloodhounds" as a synonym for "pigs", but nobody wants to bite.
And there's some hip-hop slang that's just what I grew up speaking with my friends at my inner-city high school. I know you like the way that I'm freakin' it. It's just the way that I talk yo.
Does the top definition at Urban Dictionary correctly define "manarchist"?
What's the difference between a trema and a dieresis?
$20, same as in town.
After finding a recipe that calls for only Bob Evans sausage, Bob Evans mashed potatoes, frozen peas, frozen carrots, and a jar of gravy, I'm coming around to a strict construction of shepherd's pie.
Favorite curses:
"Jesus H. Christ on a goddamn popsicle stick!"
"Fuck a bunch of that"
"Oh for fuck's sake!"
"Goddamn it to Hell!"
Anytime he wants to attract your attention to something, it's "Mira!"
That's neat. I've spent way too much time puzzling over why Mexican/Central Americans seem to prefer "Oiga" or "Oye" (listen) for attention-getting purposes, while Puerto Ricans/Dominicans/Cubans seem to prefer "Mira" (look).
Sometimes I say "Scheißwasser!" but Blume doesn't like it.
72: Both the definitions are reasonable. One other aspect, the part that Hedges was responding to (incorrectly) is the idea that manarchists are always proposing the most violent, confrontational type of action, but don't actually ever wind up smashing any bank windows themselves.
I actually semi-held it together on the swearing for a while when the kids were young (helped by being involved in a a lot of youth-sports oriented activities), but ultimately let it all hang out. My wife holds her own as well, but with certain somewhat inexplicable (to me) reservations--"x sucks/sucked" bothers her for instance (although some of that was surely due to it for a time being my kids' nearly universal assessment of people, events and things). We would all gently remind each other of when to ramp it back, for instance "Don't go quoting your favorite parts of Dogma on the playground", and the kids letting us know when a friend might be unduly shocked by colorful language. My grown/nearly-grown kids now exhibit a range of potty-mouthedness, but all are on the blue side of the spectrum, with my daughter being the most profane.
I swear when I drive. I drive with my kid. Swearing at the other drivers in Czech seemed like a good idea at the time.
But now that he has a Czech-speaking friend, I've had to explain which words he absolutely cannot say at their place.
I keep finding myself saying 'yunz' and it annoys me.
I find "yunz" (isn't it "yinz"?) unbearably ugly, though I'd probably get over that if I lived in that neck of the woods.
I resisted "y'all" when I moved from NJ to VA (oh, the horror) in high school but very consciously adopted it as an adult. I find it very useful to soften "hey you!" situations. Saying, "Could y'all move back to let these people on?" proved more effective to get people to stop being selfish assholes than, "Could everyone move back...?"
"You guys" will of course always be in my DNA.
Oh! My grandfather always used to say "Man alive!" so I say that sometimes too.
81: When my father-in-laws says it, it sounds like "yunz." Or maybe "yenz." That's where I'm getting it from.
My parents were extremely circumspect about swearing around us when we were growing up. Even now, it's pretty rare for me to hear either one of them swear. I think a lot of it is that they both grew up in families that were trying to rise above their circumstances, and so swearing was not just offensive but also "low". But even with that, and remembering that it was exceedingly uncommon to hear people swear in public in the 70s and 80s around here, I still knew most of the popular swear words by the end of kindergarten, and almost all of them by the end of first grade. I think the only ones it took me longer to learn were various slang terms for the genitalia, but then there are so many of them.
Any restraint we had was undermined by one of my best fiends who, for instance, would not let his daughter's ballet activities be referred to as anything other than "fucking ballet"* and would correct if you left out the adjective.
*In the context of their family dynamic and vernacular it was not as assholish as it seems on the surface, although he could be pretty accurately characterized as OPINIONATED FRIEND.
I have read that despite her reputation for immaculate research, Heyer made up a lot of the words and phrases that appear repeatedly in her novels.
That's possible, but quite a lot of the phrasing is in fact authentic because you can see it in other sources. Also, she was born in 1902; her grandparents's generation was only twenty years removed from the Regency, and my guess is that she simply reproduced their (actually early Victorian) speech at lot.
Speaking of hanging out with bus drivers, I would have all of you know that my little brother (now 15) is... Los Angeles City BUS RIDER OF THE MONTH (some month soon). Not everyone can get this great honor, but he befriended his morning bus driver and nominated Jamal for Bus Driver of the Month. Jamal reciprocated, and soon my baby brother will have his portrait on every bus in Los Angeles for a month.
It could be a good long time before an honor like that comes his way again.
The phrase I have to watch myself with is not a curse word but "don't be ridiculous," because I tend to use it with people who think they just said something insightful.
my best fiends
Stormcrow is Werner Herzog!
"Modulo".
Oh god, I do this to everyone's confusion.
and soon my baby brother will have his portrait on every bus in Los Angeles for a month
Him and the cute girl taking Valtrex.
I say "dang" a lot, especially in the classroom where I'd otherwise swear.
83: Yes, we discussed that a bit at our lecture meetup, Westmoreland County (just east of Pittsburgh where I first encountered it via girlfriend's family*) has more of a "yunz" than the P'burgh "yinz" sound.
Her father had rules on swearing which were not necessarily understood or accepted by others in the household, which led to him once memorably saying, "What's with all this asshole shit I keep hearing around here?"
86: The impression I get from reading Heyer next to, say, Fanny Burney isn't so much that she was making up slang (she certainly could have been and I missed it, but I didn't catch anything) but that she had a limited Regency vernacular vocabulary, and hammered on the same words and phrases more than someone actually speaking or writing at that time would have.
1: Don't judge one.
Not to belabor it, but if I were to judge, all of my judgment would be concentrated on "One admits, shamefacedly, ...". Jesus Fuck.
(When I say 'limited', obviously, I mean much broader than any reasonable modern person's. Just not native-speaker broad.)
95. Agreed. She certainly seems to have used this heavily for her lower class characters; I'm not quite clear if she had a single favoured source for the gentry.
Occasionally her much vaunted research comes apart spectacularly. There's one where the hero takes a child to look over the Soho foundry, which she places in the London district of Soho. Trouble is, the Soho foundry was Matthew Boulton's headquarters in Birmingham, 150 mile away.
22: "no talking like a super villain"
I will cop to being overly fond of "Pathetic earthling(s) ... who can save you now?"
(Actually if it weren't for slang, lowlife cant, movie/book quotes, obscenities, grammatical errors and misused words I'd pretty much be rendered silent in casual conversation.}
One very particular piece of slang I've had to become more conscious of: using the verb "to high-grade" to refer to the act of picking out the most delicious parts of a mix (say, the M and Ms out of trail mix) and leaving the low-grade slag for the other miners to deal with.
I didn't realize that this wasn't the way normal people talked until I was nearly an adult.
99.last: eh, you and everybody else.
I use the word "jonx" in casual conversation. Its a very useful word: "Hey, pass me some of that jonx."
Apparently my usage is definition 2 in Urban Dictionary. I've never heard of definition 1.
Every once in a while I try incorporating a new word like "man", it sounds incredibly stilted, and then I stop.
So when I was a kid we called things we liked "neat" and it was still the 70s and this did not sound entirely dorky. And then in maybe middle school I realized everyone was saying "cool" instead, but it just didn't seem to fit in my vocabulary, and I never managed to incorporate it. Even my mother started calling things cool in her late 50s but it always sounds absurd to me when she says it, reinforcing my complete inability to use the word for anything but temperature.
(Likewise "dude." I mean I do sometimes say it, but with audible quotation marks.)
Also, semi on-topic and to the post title, having just lost a Scrabble game to a family member who used "za" on a triple-word* (plus got it the other direction, and which play barely beat out another play of 'za" getting double-word in two directions), my wife and I are attempting to institute a non "za" rule (or I guess we could just go back to the earlier edition of the official dictionary). "Qi" does not seem quite as objectionable.
*Yes, yes, I know, who opened it up?
I say "rad" all the time, and I am unashamed of it.
104: I've been playing Scrabble on Facebook, and I agree about 'za', and would put 'qi' in the same box. First, 'za' isn't a word -- it's not even common slang anywhere I've ever lived. Second, it really changes the game -- if you can slap a z on any free a, you can't possibly get stuck with it.
105: All the cool kids moved on to "rem" way back in the '80s.
106: When you say "Scrabble", do you mean "Words with Friends"? Or is there an actual Scrabble app. My utter lack of familiarity with Facebook, let me spell it out for you.
Something about this thread has triggered even more than my usual self-loathing. I bore myself unspeakably.
I heard my mother curse exactly once, during a rare argument with my father. He said, "Oh, come down off your high horse," she replied, "You get down off your shitty horse."
Oh, here's one I do: "Whoa!" a la Joey from Blossom. I sound really stupid.
108: There's actual Scrabble. All the cool people play Words With Friends, but I hate and fear novelty.
109: Sure. My response to that is to bore others (like in this thread). Now that the hoohole is not such a problem, I've come to view Unfogged as Evernote with a more entertaining user interface.
There's only about in the Scrabble list. A family could go through it and cross things out to make a house list.
hammered on the same words and phrases more than someone actually speaking or writing at that time would have
This does get tedious.
There's one where the hero takes a child to look over the Soho foundry, which she places in the London district of Soho.
As it happens, I am re-listening to that one on Audible.
Oooh, is that the one with the balloon?
On examination, my house list would delete at least 30 of them.
"Heavens to Betsy," hee. It would make me very happy to hear someone say that seriously. For my own amusement, I sometimes let loose with a full-on Snagglepussian "Heavens to Mergatroid," but since most of the people I say this around are 10 years younger, they don't get the reference and I just sound like a fruity old guy. Which is not so far from the truth.
The greatest oath I ever heard a parent utter is when my mother called my father "bastard butt," which still makes me giggle when I think about it. If you're going to say things like that, I think it's okay to swear around your kids.
112: There are also the Wordscraper and Lexulous versions that give you an extra tile in your rack, slightly different tile distribution, and more multiplier squares, leading to more wide-open, higher scoring games.
I have a few Heyer audiobooks. There are others I'd like to have, but some of them are abridged (I bought one. Big mistake.) and a couple of them aren't available in the U.S., on Audible at least, because they don't have the rights.
103 So when I was a kid we called things we liked "neat" and it was still the 70s and this did not sound entirely dorky.
And when I was a kid I picked this up from my parents and it was the 80s and it probably did sound entirely dorky.
'za' isn't a word -- it's not even common slang anywhere I've ever lived.
What? The only place I've ever heard "za" used unironically is NYC. Brooklyn, admittedly, but that's NYC.
Regardless, I harbor a irrational amount of hatred for that word.
120: leading to more wide-open, higher scoring games.
Yeah, we are not that good, but tend towards cramped, "I might get nothing, but you'll get less" games in our family. I'm not always sure our competitiveness has been channeled in a very healthy manner.
What is "za" supposed to mean, anyway, apart from being the tld for South Africa?
Short for pizza.
I'm not saying no one around here uses it -- I live under a rock, communicating only with my nuclear family, opposing counsel, and you guys, so people could be saying anything and I wouldn't know. But I haven't ever heard it in the wild.
'za' isn't a word
My sister and her college friends used 'za. I wanted to beat her into unconsciousness every time she said it. I don't think there's anything she's every said that has so enraged me. She's quite a nice person, actually.
I would like to play scrabble with the dictionary replaced by Will Shortz. No more ZA's, but if you want to play COLBERT that's ok and I can extend it to COLBERTNATION.
Who here says "zo" for "calzone"?
Does the person saying 'za put an audible glottal stop at the start?
132: Don't be ridiculous. And pass the zarella cks, would you?
The only place I've ever heard "za" used unironically is NYC. Brooklyn, admittedly
All words uttered in Brooklyn come with a presumption of irony.
I don't know how to generate an audible glottal stop other than one between two vowels. Some kind of choking noise?
A sort of audible slight pause and release of air. There are languages that use glottal plosives at the start of words.
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBokina
Someone might use it in English English when shortening swearwords, for example.
"He's a 'kin wanker"
Speech doesn't have gaps between words. Putting in a glottal plosive creates an audible change in the flow of speech. Paging Teofilo.
Funny, if there are initial glottal stops in other Polynesian languages, there should be in Samoan, but I can't think of any words. I was probably just mispronouncing them.
"Za" as I've heard it starts just like "zombie", so I *think* the answer is no, no glottal stop.
'za made its way into the national consciousness via The Preppie Handbook. It's not echt Brooklyn even a little.
My youngest tried to get me to stop saying 'cool' because I was too old to say that. I responded by substituting "Golly gee that would be swell," and using 'swell' in place of cool.
She relented.
I've been know to use the phrase "hubba hubba ding ding, baby you've got everything," but only ironically.
"Away we go" has started creeping in on me. I'm afraid it will transition to "23 skiddoo," and then I'll have to shoot myself.
My brother has started using "You guyses," as in "Where are you guyses going?" I hope that is just him.
Whoa, za is hated? We used that all the time in our frat in the 70's. Za, ski, chup, tard, and rents, to name a few.
Also "NP, baby." It wasn't all f bombs.
more than my usual self-loathing.
but I hate and fear novelty
I'm having a bit of a low self-image day as well. I'd contemplate calling for some kind of Jonestown/Heaven's Gate meetup, but I can't abide thinking about the columns David Brooks and his ilk would write in its aftermath.
I thought "'za", like "the 'rents", was one of those so-called slang teenager words that teenagers didn't actually use.
"You guyses!"
"What guyses?"
"Dis guyses!"
"I don't recognise what you're saying."
"Effective dis guyses, then."
I say 'rents. I suppose it started ironically, but now I just say it. I also say "grups" (and "Bonk! Bonk! on the head!" and "Tell 'em, Jim! Tell 'em, Jim!" -- Christ, I need help).
"Za" sounds like an evil monster or a death god, which is appropriate for pizza.
Growing up, like many of my friends I had a habit of sprinkling lots of French into my conversation when speaking English. This was part affect and part the result of being constantly surrounded by French. We would also play with French constructions 'I have no envy to go home'. It took a lot of work to (mostly) get rid of this.
I also got the habit of swearing in French regardless of what language I was using because my parents were far less sensitized to it than to English or of course Polish. Unfortunately this is no longer true, and my mom will issue a stern reprimand at any 'to jest naprawde chiant' type stuff. But I still use merde as my default swear word in all languages. Related, I didn't pick up swearing in Polish until the first time I lived there and am still careful not to use the stronger words around my parents.
On a much less excusable level, I throw a fair amount of Franglais into my conversation picked up from Dr. Oops' high school French. (I took Latin, which doesn't come up often). It's horribly mangled and probably incomprehensible to anyone who actually speaks French.
That's just how I speak Spanglish, LB. Dunno why.
I sometimes mutter "qu'est-ce que fuck!?" to myself but not when I want anyone else to understand what I'm saying.
Somebody please tell these guys about the silliness of "za" (although the General Tso pizza is actually good).
Yeah, we are not that good, but tend towards cramped, "I might get nothing, but you'll get less" games in our family.
That's been my experience with Scrabble as well (I would like to get a little bit better at Scrabble at some point -- I'd guess I'm a little worse than LB, and at a level where I can occasionally make 2 or 3 good plays in a row but mostly find the game just frustrating).
OTOH I have a higher opinion of Scrabble than either of my parents -- both of whom swore off the game after unpleasant experiences with family games growing up.
105: All the cool kids moved on to "rem" way back in the '80s.
I say "divmod".
Paging Teofilo.
Heh. Glad to see I'm still the go-to linguist around here.
I've never heard anyone say "za" and had never even heard of it until this thread, but it sounds like there are two potential ways it might be pronounced: one, which per 139 appears to be the way it's actually pronounced, would be based on the spelling, and the other, which ttaM seems to be imagining, would be as an actual shortening of the pronounciation of "pizza." The former would be IPA [za] with a voiced alveolar fricative, whereas the latter would use a voiceless alveolar affricate instead, phonemically /tsa/. Since the phonetic realization of /t/ in a context such as "pizza" is actually a glottal stop in most English dialects (phonemic /pitsa/, phonetic [pi'sa]), just cutting off the beginning would result in "za" being pronounced ['sa]. This is actually physically possible to prounounce, although it seems really counterintuitive to most English speakers because it doesn't generally occur in English.
I find that I have more fun if I prioritize long words over the highest possible score.
I have a higher opinion of Scrabble than either of my parents
Do you rank your parents above or below backgammon?
We would also play with French constructions 'I have no envy to go home'. It took a lot of work to (mostly) get rid of this.
You're way ahead of the rest of the English language, then.
Do you rank your parents above or below backgammon?
heh. I'd like to say that it's a close call but, honestly, I don't actually like backgammon.
I did have one year in college when I spent a bunch of time hanging out in the dorm playing Pinochle, and I'm kind of sorry that it isn't a game that anybody actually plays anymore (not as fun as bridge, obviously, but a much lower cognitive load which can be nice).
157: Fun? FUN? FUN!!? What are you even talking about?
The online game word sandwich is a 5-minute solitaire thingy that exercises many of the same thought patterns as scrabble.
ALso, this game can be played driving or walking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jotto
I use franglais unapologetically. "Je ne sais pas," obviously, and "qu'est-ce que," "bien sûr," "comment?", that sort of thing. We occasionally still use pidgin French to obfuscate with the kids.
(To the extent that anyone has any interest in keeping track of my domestic circumstances, M/tch & I have not acquired children behind everyone's back, à la(!) that sneaky oudemia. "The kids" means my nephew and 3 nieces and "we" usually means me and my SIL and/or siblings. As I have no doubt mentioned, I long for a collective word for "nieces and nephews.")
Sir Kraab and M/tch are actually the Duggars and just don't want us to know.
163. Dolly Parton solved a similar problem by setting up a "Kinfolks Show" at Dollywood. Of course, she's also produced a pretty surprising cover of Starway to Heaven, so not everyone's gonna pull that off.
81 I consciously picked up y'all after some number of years in Kentucky and then consciously left off with it (in favor of "you guys") after some number of years in New York. You sound funny using it in NYC, especially if you don't have a southern accent, which I don't.
||
Personal to subway panflautist: in all of the Andes, there simply MUST be some other tune. I mean really is that the ONLY fucking song your homeland has produced?
|>
81 I consciously picked up y'all after some number of years in Kentucky and then consciously left off with it (in favor of "you guys") after some number of years in New York. You sound funny using it in NYC, especially if you don't have a southern accent, which I don't.
||
Personal to subway panflautist: in all of the Andes, there simply MUST be some other tune. I mean really is that the ONLY fucking song your homeland has produced?
|>
I knew someone who would say "qu'est-ce que fuck?"
Personal to subway panflautist: in all of the Andes, there simply MUST be some other tune. I mean really is that the ONLY fucking song your homeland has produced?
I remember reading somewhere (I think in The Invisible Gorilla) that buskers make more money playing familiar songs over and over again than they would playing less familiar songs.
I remember reading somewhere (I think in The Invisible Gorilla) that buskers make more money playing familiar songs over and over again than they would playing less familiar songs.
I have been told this by an actual busker; he reckoned (circa 1990) that a steady half dozen Beatles standards played on permanent repeat was the best way to make money.
All the ecuadorian musicians everywhere make me sad for the valley that has lost all of its musicians.
Re 156
Yeah re general oddness of the initial glottal thing but it is definitely used in British English to deliberately signal elision, especialy swearing so perhaps less odd to me.
but it is definitely used in British English to deliberately signal elision
Mr Tulip will of course agree.
Re 174
Heh. Yeah. Didn't get the reference at first, but yeah. People saying 'king hell. Along the lines of Lesdawsonian mouthing.
156: I've never heard anyone say "za"
Whoa! For reals? (Argh, I say Whoa.(Carp, I say Argh!(Son of a, I say carp!!(Deuteronomy, kids ruin your vocabulary!!!)))) Sheesh. Oh for the love of!@!
In 1976, on the University of Illinois campus, in the fraternity of AKΛ, we teens pronounced za like the second syllable of the word Pete-Za. Same with rents, tard, chup. "Bro" came from the first syllable of brother and rhymed with Go.
Chump meant cheated, so you don't chumps the bros. And we had a Heinous Highness, which was me! I think that was the beginning of my Major Rick Talon persona, who is plunging this Saturday in the Polar bear plunge! (shameless plug).
166 and 167: I've held on to my "y'all," because dropping it would feel like an insult to the motherland, but it's true, it does sound weird in New York. I always just hope my friends will enjoy my biscuits and forgive me.
Also, I hate that pan flute guy. Once he added the rain stick to his act, no sympathy.
168: perhaps we are acquainted IRL
Wait, the weird thing that has just dawned on me is that the song the subway panflautists play is not in fact the Simon and Garfunkel song based on an actual Peruvian tune, but "The Sound of Silence" which is...not based on a Peruvian tune. This makes it even more puzzling that I have literally never had a subway panflautist play anything else, and this is not a small sample size thing.
Sounds like someone wrote down what Tripp and his friends said in 1976 Illinois, and used that as the basis for "Guides To Parents: What Your Teenagers Are Saying" up to and including the period when the original teenagers had become parents of teenagers.
174: I had a Kiwi friend who always said "... the hell?" in a way that I found indescribably funny. Now I realize it was the moment before the "the" that made it.
not in fact the Simon and Garfunkel song based on an actual Peruvian tune, but "The Sound of Silence"
Whaaa??? At least here they play the SAGSBOAAPT. That's weird.
We would also play with French constructions 'I have no envy to go home'.
In re: franglais, I take a ridiculous amount of satisfaction in remembering that it's "J'ai fini" -- unless you want to indicate that you're speaking from beyond the grave -- and "j'ai faim." Probably because my 10th grade French teacher beat it into us. That reminds me that I also say "J'ai besoin de [something of which I have need]" a fair amount. And, come to think of it, "vraiment," "je n'aime pas," and "très intéressant." Apparently I use more franglais than I realize.
Note to people who have perhaps thought that my pedantry extends to franglais pronounciation: It's not that I insist everyone say "qwa/sont"; it's just that my mouth cannot actually form the word "krə/sant." (Apologies to teo and ttaM for my phonetic approximations.)
I now join LB in increased self-loathing and ennui.
SAGSBOAAPT
Simon and Garfunkel... Sing Back... Other Ancient Andean Party Tunes?
You know, the one that starts out "I'd rather be a sparrow than a clam,..."?
"I'd rather be a this thing than a that..."
"...And I am,
(tweet) Oh damn,
I really am"
Damn you, Smearcase. "The Sound of Silence" is stuck in my head.
Standard Andean Goatherd's Bridge Over Angrily Alliterative Panther Throngs?
My theory on the Sound of Silence is that all the Peruvian musicians figure they'll make the NY audience comfortable by playing the one Peruvian song we know, that Paul Simon thing, and then ease us into more Peruvian music. But then no one gives them money for unfamiliar Peruvian music, so they turn to the copy of the Complete Simon And Garfunkel Songbook they bought to get that one song out of, and start playing the rest of them. This doesn't explain why it's always TSOS, and never, say, Cecilia or Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard, but it's a theory.
(Come to think, I posted on this once -- overheard some people talking about it.)
Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient, mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux que nous ennuyons.
189: now, if they starting busting out hits from Graceland...
... then the rain stick would really come in handy
Gonzo giving the sparrow song its just treatment. Unfortunately, Paul seems to be in on the joke.
189: Yup, I posted on it. Now that I remember, I didn't come up with that theory -- I really did overhear some guy say it on the subway, immediately before we walked past a panflautist playing TSOS.
189: and never, say, Cecilia or Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard
Well thank fucking God for small favors, anyway.
194: See, in line with 113, rather than actually talking to people about your life and opinions you can just give them appropriate search strings into Unfogged. Win-win.
I can clear up a mystery here, by noting that "Sound of Silence" (and "My Heart Will Go On", also a favourite) is a concert standard of Gheorghe Zamfir, the master of the Romanian pan-flute, and basically the only panflautist to have ever made more money than a busker. I suspect that it fucking kills the Peruvians inside to tacitly admit that the Romanians have them licked, panflautistically; rather like the feeling that the Welsh get when beaten at rugby by New Zealand again.
I try not to swear in conversation, though I do mutter the occasional oath when a shoelace breaks/toe is stubbed/etc. I think it comes from reading something about the early days of Hollywood and the conflicts between people who said "Fuck you" as a greeting and those who said it before the guns came out.
I can't get "El Cóndor Pasa" out of my head now.
What the hell kind of Romanian is named "Zamfir"?
I can't decide whether to believe that my annoying busker syrinxist is actually aware of Zamfir. I did once know a Barbadian guy who was hella into Zamfir, so I guess he does have market penetration.
I had a crazy Australian roommate who couldn't stop talking about Zamfir, and how he was terribly respected in Australia: "It's the breath control." She also believed that Americans had pretty teeth because of our Slavic heritage.
He is known as "The Master of the Pan Flute", though his standing as a leading figure within the history of Romanian folk music has not been without criticism.
This is from Wikipedia. I can't help but imagine it being read by George Sanders, with half-amused scorn.
In unrelated news, Romanians don't mind telling stories about the Ceaucescu years, but don't even try to get them to explain why every Romanian intellectual exile of the mid-twentieth century seems to have been on the Iron Guard soccer team before/during WWII.
199: that song gets stuck in my head all the time anyhow, and of course I can never remember the actual nouns, so of course it's always "I'd rather be a buttface than a cock, yes I would, I surely would. I'd rather be a fuckwit than a mook, yes I would..." etc.
[H]e was terribly respected in Australia: "It's the breath control."
Apropos, tT=he Australian novelist Tim Winton's book Breath is really great.
|| The"let them cry themselves out" principle is a perfectly fine principle in general, but if it's part of your parenting philosophy you should not take your toddlers to coffee shops. |>
What if your toddler likes coffee?
A quick bit of searching makes me think that pan flute stores probably need "The Sound of Silence" bans similar to guitar stores and "Smoke on the Water".
If you're going for the "crying themself out" endurance record, caffeine is essential. But NoDoz works fine.
My niece, daughter of the sociopath, would announce rest breaks and then start crying again when she got her strength back.
205: A friend of mine (oh, who you met actually) and his wife really loved Firefly and hated the stupid fucking theme song*, and we were bonding over this, and he said that they would sing along with it but make up substitute lyrics for the part that's all "kick my dog, verb my noun" and then just keep singing various other versions while the theme song went on to other twangy banalities. I deeply regret not having been around for this.
*edged out only by The L Word for the award for "Most Egregious Fucking Theme Song Ever." And in fact, a different friend had a version of that theme song, as performed by grating lesbian band Betty, that ended the string of irritating participials with "STABBING BETTY! STABBING BETTY!"
207 also applies to airplanes.
grating lesbian band Betty
In my high school days, Alyson Palmer bartended at the 9:30 Club (in its original, much smaller space on F St.), and she was seriously hot in an awesomely Amazon way.
Goddamn it, who's that guy like Zamfir, except not with panflute, but the same kind of late-night record commercial marketing? Yanni! You know he went to Minnesota for psychology? That never fails to amaze current U students.
Anyhow, I'm sure I've mentioned before that there was this busker on Hennepin Ave in the 1990s who played the recorder. Really, really badly. Like, you couldn't tell if he was trying to play a song or just blowing and poking at random. He almost got beat up by drunks once, to my certain knowledge. Younger Asian guy. Don't know what happened to him.
211: they would sing along with it but make up substitute lyrics for the part that's all "kick my dog, verb my noun" and then just keep singing various other versions
Doesn't everybody do this all the time with whatever song they have in their head at the moment?
Yankee Doodle bought a kitten,
'Cause he was so lonely,
Stuck a feather on the cat,
And called it 'Macaroni'
an awesomely Amazon way
Did I really just type that? Who am I? Anyway, she was tall and gorgeous.
Personally, my all-purpose swear is "Jesus Christ". I don't swear much otherwise. Apparently I'm a very boring person, except for when I'm getting ready to go to or have recently come back from a French-speaking place, in which case I swear or just speak in slang in French under my breath at the slightest provocation. C'est quoi ce putain de connard de merde de... I'd trail off when I'm faced with a slightly longer line than usual at the store or something.
Re: pronounciation, this is something that bugs me about my girlfriend. (We're sickeningly cute, including me being exasperated about everything she does.) D.C. has lots of places with French names. She pronounces them with an exagerrated American accent, as far as I know just out of habit. When talking about the metro stop named "L'Enfant Plaza", she pronounces a glottal stop after the l. This bugs me. One time I wrote down a list of common English words with apostrophes and no glottal stops and wrote "L'Enfant" at the end, but she still seemed stuck in the habit. Admittedly, this is a bit irrational of me, since I come from Vermont and I'd never try to use the French pronounciation of Vergennes or Montpelier. (But for the record, metro conductors don't pronounce a glottal stop in "L'Enfant" either, so it's not a that's-just-the-American-pronounciation thing.)
144
I thought "'za", like "the 'rents", was one of those so-called slang teenager words that teenagers didn't actually use.
My sister, four years younger than me, used "the 'rents" when she was a teen and maybe even later. I think it always bugged me. She may have been using it ironically, though.
216: You're fairly awesomely Amazon yourself, so I can see why that description might spring to mind.
I'm pretty sure my parents call themselves The Aged Ps. I can't think of any of my annoying verbal habits, though Lee's general response is, "Who says that, Fred Astaire or some bullshit?" when she thinks I'm being unnecessarily verbose or archaic. Whatevs to that!
Oh man, I have one of those panflutes, which I picked up while living in South America, so I just picked it up and stumbled through a barely recognizable version of "Sound of Silence". I would totes ponder posting a video of it if (a) I weren't sheepish and (b) I didn't have to leave in a second to go to an actual recording studio to record with a band. Oh well!
My mother swears like an Army nurse, and my father hardly ever at all -- I think I've heard him use vulgar language four times in my life, all of them with spirting blood or risk of that or drowning. I mostly don't swear, enough that my friends are startled when I do (which makes it a useful marker).
I am annoyed that several of them blue the air with grotesquerie and then are unhappy when I use the same words in the same conversation.
Oh and as far as cursing goes...I was quite uptight about it surprisingly late. My uncle once said, in a lovely turn of phrase, "you wouldn't say 'shit' if you had a mouthful of it." Then suddenly at 16 at Statewide Nerd Camp I was with a couple of friends at a showing of Breaking Away and for some reason we all really hated it and left halfway through, shrieking about how fucking stupid it was and the floodgates were open. I have cherished this valuable part of our language ever since.
I refused to swear from about age seven to about age twelve, maybe? Also, I refused to watch R-rated movies. Also, I was weird.
219: So Stanley, if there is one, what is the drummer's equivalent of "Sound of Silence"? Curious about other instruments as well.
Goddamn it, who's that guy like Zamfir, except not with panflute, but the same kind of late-night record commercial marketing? Yanni! You know he went to Minnesota for psychology? That never fails to amaze current U students.
Wow, Tay Zonday AND Yanni!
220: I think I've heard him use vulgar language four times in my life
Very much the same with my father (although I assume he was not the only person in the history of the Army to not swear profusely). Once was when he indicated in response to a youthful question of mine that something in his past (having to do with the Army) had "pissed him off", which made quite an impression on me.
My mother muttered "shit" and "goddamn it" under her breath in traffic, but later advanced to occasional mild profanity.
226: you're right about your father, because both my parents were in the Army.
... strictly we'd have to be sure that we don't have the same father.
It will surprise no-one that I swear a lot. Although much less now that I'm all gentrified and shit. I've certainly largely dropped the swearing as punctuation/universal-spacer. It's hard to convey quite how much people swear in some places. Films almost never actually do it properly as it sounds parodic.
"you wouldn't say 'shit' if you had a mouthful of it."
I think I probably would, actually.
Ifuckingusefuckingasfuckingafuckingspacerinfuckingmostfuckingconversation.FuckWithfuckanfuckinganfuckingoccasionalfuckwherefuckingappropriate.
Not around the dogs cause the fucking dogs get goddamn fucking scared motherfuckers when I say fucking fuck and keep a distance and I can't do a fucking thing with them. I cannot fucking understand this goddamn shit I am the gentlest goddamn motherfucker anywhere.
So I have to get all tranquil calm zen on the walks etc and that really fucking pisses me off. Fucking fuckers.
When talking about the metro stop named "L'Enfant Plaza", she pronounces a glottal stop after the l.
Wow, that's pretty remarkable. I'd never heard of anyone doing that.
231: Results in 233 based on a simulation.
I didn't start swearing until I was 23.
221: I also started using a lot more curse words at Statewide Nerd Camp.
229 Working class and peasant Polish men use 'kurwa' the way some very nervous people use 'um' e.g. So, kurwa, I went, kurwa, into town, kurwa, and, kurwa, saw Slawek, kurwa, he's, kurwa, doing good, kurwa. Some also use 'chuj' as a friendly form of address to friends 'Hej chuje, jak sie masz'. That is something that you shouldn't copy, the wrong intonation or with the wrong person will sound like you're trying to pick a fight.
||
Activating the Halford bat-signal:
Does anybody here know anything about this
It'll be very interesting to see the result of a lawsuit currently brewing in federal court that is trying to shut down ReDigi (a judge backed the service, but an appeal seems likely), a service that will let you resell music you purchased from iTunes after taking quite comprehensive efforts to keep owners from having access to the music they want to divest of: . . . To be a bit clearer, what's at issue is whether the doctrine of first sale, which gives content owners the right to sell their copy of content, but not copies of their copy, applies to digital content as well as to physical content.
|>
238 - Is "chuj" then like "dude" or "bro" or something? Or is it mocking lower-class speech patterns? (I've never been clear on whether Ernesto Guevara's nickname was affectionate or not.)
re: 238
Yeah, it's basically like that where I'm from. Not quite as repetitive but every verb or noun will have a swear word more or less.
'Ken that cunt Tam? Fuckin' big cunt? Works in the fuckin' Wheatsheaf? Drives a fuckin' shiteheap Fiesta? Well, according tae fuckin' Jimmy, his maw won the fuckin' lottery!'
I have friends who are a lot worse than that, although it varies. I was always at the less sweary end of the spectrum even then, but still at one time really fucking sweary compared to work colleagues and friends down here. Not so much now.
239: am I wrong that users could burn music to a CD before selling their digital files with that service? (And then, of course, they could copy the CD back onto their computer afterwards?)
(That's no different at all from what can be done today with a physical CD and a used CD store, of course, so an affirmative answer to the question in the preceding paragraph shouldn't necessarily mean the service is illegal. I'm just wanting to make sure I understand the process correctly.)
am I wrong that users could burn music to a CD before selling their digital files with that service?
I believe so. I haven't read anything more than that one article, but I can't see how you could prevent somebody from doing that.
Oh, I hadn't even read your link. FWIW, here's ReDigi's explanation of their process, and why it's legal. (You have to click on the "Read more" prompt to see most of it.)
It's hard to convey quite how much people swear in some places. Films almost never actually do it properly as it sounds parodic.
Bearing in mind that films set in Scotland already have ten to twenty times as much swearing as comparable films set elsewhere, I shudder to contemplate the reality.
239 -- I've heard of the case. The summary on the site you linked to isn't very good -- "whether the doctrine of first sale, which gives content owners the right to sell their copy of content, but not copies of their copy, applies to digital content as well as to physical content" isn't really what's precisely at issue. The linked summary on THR.Esq, which is generally the best general internet news resource for what I do, is very good, and I don't really have much to add beyond that. My prediction is that any ruling will hinge very closely on the specifics of how the allegedly infringing service works and won't have much of a broader effect, so it's probably not a very big deal either way. But, as always in litigation, who knows.
I remember reading an interview with, I think, Andrew Hodges, about the screenplay to Trainspotting. Specifically about the line:
'It was fuckin' obvious that that cunt was gonnae fuck some cunt.'
Spoken by Begbie (about the judge) after Spud gets jailed. And how perfect they all thought it was, as it (more than most lines in the film) got at the rhythm and tone of how people speak. Not specifically in the swearing, but in the multiple uses of the words.
A judge handed down a novel sentence to a husband who shoved his wife in a domestic dispute rather than making him post a bond. ... The judge spelled out what exactly Bray had to do to avoid jail time or posting bail. 'He's going to stop by somewhere and he's going to get some flowers,' Mr Hurley said during Bray's bond hearing at the Broward County courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. 'He's going to get a card, he's going to get flowers, and then he's going to go home, pick up his wife, get dressed and take her to Red Lobster, and after that Red Lobster they're going to go bowling.'
That is idiotic in so many different ways.
I note the judge gave him leeway to choose the kind of flowers.
I note the judge gave him leeway to choose the kind of flowers.
Also where to purchase them. He doesn't appear to have specified a particular bowling alley either.
It sounds like ReDigi must be set up so that it can scan the contents of your computer (or maybe it scans music files as they're played, or something like that) to see if you still have any copies of a file you sold. So you could probably burn the files to a CD and sell them, once, but then you'd have to never use ReDigi again if you wanted to pull those files back up onto your computer. At least, that seems to be what they'd need to do to be able to accomplish what they're claiming their service does.
32: I say "Good gravy" a lot. I've no clue where this comes from. Calvin and Hobbes?
I doubt it; my grandmother used to say it. She was also fond of "Oh, pudding" (used for resignation/disgust/exasperation, say when she'd spilled something and there was nothing to be done now). "Peaches!" was reserved for a downright stamping of the foot in moderate anger.
Not sure why so many of her epithets were food-related, now that I think about it. It certainly took the edge off.
119: "Heavens to Mergatroid," but since most of the people I say this around are 10 years younger, they don't get the reference
Heh. I didn't particularly consider when I was a kid that there might be a reference for that. I always thought it was "Mergatroy" anyway, as my father instituted a practice in the household according to which we'd say, "You know what Mergatroy would say about that!" I was pretty young, so for all I know he was actually saying "Mergatroid."
RedLobster's twitter feed says that time is running out for the $15 Four Course Seafood Feast.
251/252: Nor does he specify the contents of the required card.
You may be unsurprised to learn that Judge Hurley is elected.
He doesn't appear to have specified a particular bowling alley either.
No, but specifying 'bowling' is itself pretty weird, no? I mean, he doesn't specify a particular Red Lobster, either.
According to the arrest warrant filed by the Plantation Police Department, the argument started in the kitchen and ended with Bray pushing his wife on to a sofa, holding her neck and raising a fist without actually hitting her.
You may be unsurprised to learn that Judge Hurley is elected.
Which means, in turn, that the list of his campaign contributors is public and available on that website. I looked through the list, but Red Lobster wasn't on it. It was mostly law firms and bail bondsmen, which is telling in its own way.
No bowling alleys on the list either, as far as I could tell.
Nothing some jumbo shrimp can't fix.
254: I certainly did not know there is potentially a lot more to the story though.
260: Oxymorons always work for tough love.
261: I sort of wish I could tell my dad about that. Hell, we all just referred to Murgatroy (as I thought it), because he knew what was what, I tell you what.
No, but specifying 'bowling' is itself pretty weird, no?
Oh, absolutely. The whole thing is bizarre.
261: {sigh} I use the phrase. Ironically of course. I also over-use "apparently", apparently due to my distrust of what appears to be reality.
261: Dude! That was great. I never made the Snagglepuss/Cowardly Lion connection, even though now it seems totally obvious.
(Also, referring upthread, Apo's kids clearly grok the correct use of 'dude.' Fine work, Apostroparent.)
And from the "heavens to betsy" entry on the same site, I learn the term, "minced oath," which is awesome.
It was mostly law firms and bail bondsmen, which is telling in its own way.
So you're saying he bucked his own constituency? I want to vote for him now!
No Red Lobster on the expenditures list, so I guess the campaign didn't hold meetings there.
Apo's kids clearly grok the correct use of 'dude.'
People should be warned that not everyone groks the use of "dude". As I think I recounted here once before, I said to my housemate once, "Dude! You didn't refill the empty ice tray before you put it back in the freezer!" and he practically took my head off, such a look he gave me. Be careful out there.
I am a user of:
- Awesome Pawsome
- Whatevs
- Copacetic (which I recently found out is a slang term -- I hadn't even known that)
- 'Head' (primarily in the sense of "hip hop head" / a fan of "urban" music, not so much in the sense of "oral sex")
- Yeyo (the term for the substance, not the substance itself)
- 'I'm Audi' and 'I Heard That' (both apparently Seventies slang)
- 'Bruv' (this is slang for 'brother,' I picked it up from a Gautam Malkani novel and virtually nobody I know uses it, but everyone seems to understand it)
- 'Grok'
- 'Chillin' like a villain' (one of those phrases I actually hate but cannot seem to stop saying)
- 'I'd hit that' (best used in ironically inappropriate contexts)
- 'Take 'er easy' (obnoxious prairie-ism used with obnoxious prairie people, but it sometimes sneaks out at less opportune moments as well)
- 'I'm your Huckleberry' (yes, from Tombstone -- another one I'm not proud of)
I swear I'm not (quite) as annoying as all of that makes me sound.
- Yeyo (the term for the substance, not the substance itself)
What? Substance? What?
- 'I'd hit that' (best used in ironically inappropriate contexts)
That makes me see red, unfortunately. I had a major fight with a friend upon his utterance of the phrase.
"Whatevs", in actual spoken conversation, would just make me pause and stare briefly, then move on.
"I'm Audi" is 70s slang? Citation please. I'm pretty sure it's Clueless slang.
I thought it was "I'm outie", short for "I'm out of here".
272: What? Substance? What?
I think most people on the urban prairie first encounter the term when watching Scarface. It's the substance Tony Montana sells. (Hence large lines of it are allegedly known as "tonies" or "Montanas," owing to that character's notoriety for extreme abuse of said substance in large amounts.)
That makes me see red, unfortunately.
Yeah, understandable. That's why the "ironically inappropriate" is so important*. It should never be used about a member of the opposite sex that one would actually like to have sexual intercourse with.
(* Ideal Example: "Q. So, what do you think about that Newt Gingrich? Pretty crazy, huh? A. Oh, I'd definitely hit that. Q. ??? A. [give enigmatic stare and walk away, whistling tunelessly]")
"Whatevs" on the other hand, I use straight up.
275 I believe the etymology is clouded here by the movie Clueless, in which Alicia Silverstone says "I'm Audi 5000"--presumably punning on "I'm outtie."
274: Citation please.
Website, S. Random. " 'I'm Audi': The Automobile Industry and Deixis in American Counterculture, 1973 - 1978." The Totally Made-Up Cultural Studies Journal. Lethbridge: Nonexistent Press, 1992.
In other words I have no idea. Probably I'm just making it up.
(* Ideal Example: "Q. So, what do you think about that Newt Gingrich? Pretty crazy, huh? A. Oh, I'd definitely hit that. Q. ??? A. [give enigmatic stare and walk away, whistling tunelessly]")
Oh. Okay. I puzzled about the "ironically" but couldn't get past my seeing red there. Many people use it unironically; I've never heard it used any other way.
"Whatevs" is still making me laugh. I must hang around with a mostly older crowd or something. Nobody says that. Dude. (Seriously, though, even "Whatever" is pretty rude and dismissive, likely to start a fight, and I tend to try to avoid those. It's been a while since I've been in a situation that would call for it for such drastic measures.)
Assume appropriate editing was done on the end of 279.
I believe "goof" is still a leading fight-starter around here, oddly enough. It's funny, because even people in their forties use "motherfucker" quite freely without starting fights. But calling someone a "fucking goof" is some serious shizznit.
(Also: I am a user of "shizznit." But definitely not of "fo' shizzle, my nizzle." Because people who say that should die.)
What is wrong with "goof"? It's just short for "goofball", which just means "silly." It's affectionate.
"Shizznit" would take me aback. Huh?
What is wrong with "goof"?
Yeah, I just have no idea. Maybe it sounds more serious on a hockey rink, or something? It's just one of those things.
"5000", meaning "Audi 5000", meaning "out" definitely predates Clueless; I first experienced it on like an EPMD album or something in the late '80s/early '90s.
A Canadian thing, then? Maybe other Canadians here can shed light.
A goofball is a kind of drug cocktail that really fucks you up, no?
Hey, don't you guys have a Canadian version of Urban Dictionary?
Also, it's "Heavens to Murgatroyd", originally spoken by Bert Lahr, and later re-popularized by Snagglepuss.
Ruddigore is a pretty batshit piece of musical theater, should you ever get the chance to see it.
Sigh. Anyway, I shall ask Canadian friends whether they know about this "goof" problem.
290: Pwned². And Tweety does get credit for doing it closed book. Also for being associated with an awesome blog.
I thought that the WFMU blog had one of those awesome classic comedians posts about Bert Lahr, but I can't find it.
291: That'd be interesting. I'd be intrigued to know how widely a Canadian thing it really is. It's my impression that it spreads at least as far east as Toronto.
We used to say "I'm outie, nodge." I'm not sure what nodge means, or why you would call somebody that, but that's what we used to say.
The only currently Canadian people I know are in B.C., and I have no idea how representative their ideas would be. I don't have a very good sense of regional differences.
294: This thread has some relevant discussion. And references the urban dictionary notion (new to me) of it being a jailhouse insult based on "goof" being a term for child molester.
So, laydeez of unfogged, it would appear that U R doin' it wrong.
297: Aha! The jailhouse "lowest of the low" explanation does make sense, come to think of it. Fits the kind of people I've most frequently seen it from, too.
A friend of mine tried diligently for many years to implant the slang term "moses" (means: drunk) into popular culture. This having mostly occured in the pre-Mean Girls era, nobody thought to tell him to stop trying to make it happen. Also, it's kind of a good phrase to deploy when you're moses.
Oh, I am also prone to busting out elderly Irish grandmotherisms, like "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" and "Mary, Mother of God!"
I find myself saying "Mother of God!" a lot, but that's because I catch myself starting to say "Mother Fucker!" in front of an inappropriate audience.
298: She should write a companion piece for "Wall Street Man" about how to become a person that actual human beings would want to date. Nahhh, that's crazy talk...
I've been saying "Sweet Christmas!" lately, I think because of the ISB. I probably shouldn't.
302: That actually appears to be her day job (such as it is).
I thought the most interesting/hilarious part of the piece was her bio:
Samantha Daniels owns a bicoastal matchmaking service called Samantha's Table. She is ivy league educated and a former divorce attorney by trade. She is frequently relied upon dating, relationship and romance expert, and is seen regularly on television, in national newspapers and magazines and on radio. She has been a national spokesperson for a number of consumer brands including Crest, Oral B and Febreze. She was also the inspiration for and a producer on the NBC/Darren Star dramedy, Miss Match starring Alicia Silverstone, the show was based on her life story. She is the author of the book, Matchbook: The Diary of a Modern-Day Matchmaker (Simon & Schuster).
- Is "chuj" then like "dude" or "bro" or something?
'Chuj' means cock, but it's stronger, at least in the kind of milieu I tend to be in. Roughly the strength of 'cunt' as an insult among the Americans I tend to interact with. Except much less used sexually than cunt is, and when it is used that way between people it tends to be in its diminutive forms (chujek, chujeczek).
303: Great way to identify fellow "Middle Man" fans.
Oh hooray, a deixis joke!
Geek friends of mine in a linguistics department (is there a pleonasm in here?) long ago talked about making a t shirt that said
"It" is a deictic thing. _You_ wouldn't understand.
6. Don't get upset if he checks his BlackBerry or takes a call during a date; this is very common of a Wall Street man...
Indeed it is.
Never heard of 'goof' being offensive (Canadian, thank you for not saying Eastern Canada when you meant Southern Ontario (or as we* call it Upper Canada)).
I am very much a not swearing person. Like clew above, people get completely distracted when I swear and the conversation then turns to my general lack of swearing. I've never heard my parents swear but I grew up in a very verbal household. We hurt each other with non-swear words.
I also like to talk like a Newfoundlander sometimes - 'fill your boots' ('go for it' but with a slight edge of 'do what you want'), 'give'r' (excited 'go for it'), looking like a 'streel' (messed up, untidy person). Needless to say I love JesusMaryandJoseph. I also love when saleswomen in Newfoundland (or say your boyfriend's mom) calls you 'my lover'.
*Me and my bff. Such a handy phrase. Maybe it's used by others?
From the link in 298: Albeit the fact that this would be an easy thing to do, they won't always remember to do it, so don't get offended.
This use of "albeit" is totally ungrammatical, right? I have a collaborator who writes this kind of thing in just about every other sentence and I always go through and rewrite them all. Never saw it in writing anywhere else, that I can recall.
Wait, is 298's link supposed to be readable? It appears to me to be black text on dark grey-blue background.
shiv's a working class guy married to an overeducated woman, has a big vocabulary, and is good at codeswitching, but when he goes out of town for work, usually a couple months at a time, he comes back with his vocabulary contracted to classic fuck patois. This leads to some hilarious conversations while he readjusts to polite society, as he really does sound like that old fake PSA about how you can use "fuck" in all parts of speech.
E.g., give directions:
"So you're fucking along on the main road, and then it'll fuck off to the left.."
"Use your words...English has lots of verbs."
"Um, it turns to the left? And you're driving.. the... car?"
I swear like an Irish grandmother married to someone with a healthy fuck patois. Way too much for Pleasantville.
Wall Street women ain't no prizes either, in my experience.
I must have mentioned this before but I nearly fell out of my chair when the Flip-Pater looked up at the PBS News Hour and called Phil Gramm a "cocksucker." Usually the strongest he gets is an emphatic "God damn it!" when he barks his shins on a coffee table, walks into a light fixture, etc., etc.
We aren't a graceful family, is the takeaway here.
299: And an informal survey of "fucking goof" in Google book search turned up about half-a-dozen books set in or featuring Canadian prisons in the first dozen pages. Rather disproportionate I'd reckon.
My dad has a lot of education but is the son of an alcoholic shipbuilder. He swears a lot as do my brother and I.
OT: Confirmed for le cinéma the movies tomorrow. I appear to be thirteen again, insofar as I wonder whether I might get to touch her hand.
Seriously, though, I totally cannot read the link in 298. Somewhere along the line, someone mentioned a sort of fix-these-colors patch, or add-on, for browsers, and I can only assume you all are using that, or else I'm going blind. I do hate to kvetch.
I appear to be thirteen again, insofar as I wonder whether I might get to touch her hand.
See, you get a box of popcorn and then ... ah, you probably mean with your hand.
102 I use the word "jonx" in casual conversation. Its a very useful word: "Hey, pass me some of that jonx." Apparently my usage is definition 2 in Urban Dictionary. I've never heard of definition 1.
agreed on this DC slang. "hand me some of that jonx," i.e., one from a pile of meat pies from negril's. other DC slang that's great: "sice." my family has its own slang, such that I sometimes get confused about whether anyone else gets it. like we say "meagre" a lot, canonically "this asshole packs meagre," originally meaning he packs a meager bowl but generally meaning "is hella lame." I've been sick for two months. this packs meager for real. or we modify to "maigret." also heavy use of "taking the loss." "y'all" when called for, if I'm in SC. "all over that like white on rice" is a good one. there's a metric fuckton of drug-related slang, obviously (like the montanas noted above.)
I was perfect about not swearing in front of my children until my bro came to live with us for 4 months and it all went out the fucking window. however, my children know they are not allowed to swear. or to call their dad "pops," despite my calling my dad that.
This use of "albeit" is totally ungrammatical, right?
Right.
319: My pangs are wasted on you cynics.
311, 318: Works for me, on both Firefox and Chrome. There should be a white column in the middle that the black text is on, with the dark blue in the background of that. Sounds like it's that white part that's not working for you; what browser are you using?
(You're not actually missing much. The piece is eminently mockable but not all that interesting beyond that.)
Flip, it may be that she will make the first move anyway. Just go with it. Don't tense up, now!
Don't tense up, now!
Right, you want to save yourself for tensing up on the date.
323: Just trying to help. If while you're at the movie you find that you need to try very hard to not think about thinking about your dick in a popcorn box, you'll avoid any number of gaffes that you might otherwise make by over-thinking things. Because using my special powers of observation and empathy, I believe I have sussed out which side of the great think-too-much/don't-think-it-through divide you are on. And I like helping people, but that's not important right now.
324: Thanks, teo. Firefox; but with ad-block and flash-block and, erm, my Javascript doohickey may not be working quite right. (On the latter, I wouldn't mind figuring out why at some point.) This doesn't usually mess things up to the point of unreadability.
I figured I wasn't missing much. Just mystified about the formatting.
328: I would guess it's probably a Javascript issue, although the site has a bunch of ads and other crap, too, and blocking them may be somehow interfering with the formatting.
"I've never looked for women. When I was a teenager, perhaps. But they are looking for us, and we must learn that very quickly. They decide. We just turn up. Never mind the superficialities -- tall and handsome and all that. Just turn up. They will do the rest."
329: Probably the Javascript. I'll have to figure that out one of these days.
JP is funny. in 327.
'Chillin' like a villain' (one of those phrases I actually hate but cannot seem to stop saying)
Mine is "chillin' like Bob Dylan on penicillin".
I probably swear a lot. The only person I've met who definitely swears (in person) more than I do, is Stormcrow.
(Confidential to 'crow: But not in a bad way, bro.)
I don't know what the issue is - I have noscript installed and even though it's blocking most of the javascript on that page it reads fine to me - but Firefox allows you to set colors and fonts yourself.
If you go to Tools -- Options - Content -- Colors and then uncheck the box at the bottom of the window that says "Allow pages to choose their own colors, instead of my selections above" Firefox should start showing the pages as black text on a white background, which I think is the default "user" setting.
A Russian prof of mine had a heritage speaker come to class and talk to us about profanity in Russian, and he told us a sentence I can no longer entirely remember made mostly of forms of "хуй" (which makes an appearance above, in Polish, as "chuj". There's one derivative that means very good and one that means very bad, and we could never keep them straight.
335: Try it at this link here (a different place). You're going to be very disappointed.
I really like the Spanish replacement swear words, like in English when you're going to say "holy shit" and you say "holy sh---oot" or "holy sh---nikes" or whatever). They say "mier---coles" for "mierda" and "cara---coles" for "carajo".
317 Do we still get to call her Lunchy though you have made it to the movie phase?
Speaking of being thirteen, I once, no kidding, and in my thirties, used the yawn and stretch and put the arm around maneuver. I was mortified with myself and knew it was not fooling anyone (me or him or his cat or even Anja Silja, see next set of parentheses, not that it will help much) but I wanted to cut to the part where we made out and wasn't quite confident enough to just go in for it (plus we were watching a video of Jenufa, which is super extra not makeout-friendly) and didn't have a better idea.
I was once told by an old Argentinian man that I really shouldn't use "boludo" in polite company, after I used "boludo" to proudly display the fact that I had been hanging out recently with an Argentine ladyfriend.
"Boludeces" = bad, too. Oops.
I remember Miss Match. It wasn't on the air for long.
I realized this evening that among the things I say is "killing", as in, "that solo was totally killing".
What about gellin like Magellan.
There's a colorable argument that Magellan did not, in fact, gel, since he was killed by the natives of the place at which he dropped anchor.
One of the places. Sheesh, you lead a voyage around the world, you anchor lots of places. People never talk about all the ones where you didn't get killed.
He got a GPS company named after him. What more do you want?
The only thing worse than the places where you didn't get killed not being talked about is being Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse.
Sure, keep complaining about the unfairness of history, Ferdinand, because it makes me want to puke.
He got a GPS company named after him. What more do you want?
And a strait. Okay, I guess that's enough.
It turns out Magellan even has a penguin named after him, so, yeah, I guess he wins after all.
I suppose, "Gellin' like a felon named Magellan" has a more ignominious ring to it.
The Laperouse story is actually a lot more interesting than I remembered.
Overheard on the bus tonight:
Sittin' on a fence post,
Chewin' on some bubble-gum,
Along comes Sherman the Worm.
He was thiiiiiis big.
And I said:
"Sherman! Whaaaaat happened?!?"
Anyone familiar with this? The cadence suggested a jump-rope chant, but it doesn't rhyme like they often do. There's a motion associated with the "thiiiiis big" part, whereby on every repetition, Sherman the Worm grows a few inches. It also recalls, to some extent, the refrain of The Pharcyde's "Yo Mama" song.
I want to be clear, also, that this restored my faith in humanity.
345: Quit jerkin' my gherkin.
285: I like to say "I'm Audi A6", just to give it a more contemporary feel.
Illin' and chillin',
Maxin', relaxin',
Stylin' and buck-whylin'
268: So you're saying he bucked his own constituency?
Tim and I a-hunting went,
Spied three maidens in a tent,
As they were three,
And we were two,
I bucked one,
And Timbuktu!
355: I can't remember having heard it, but I definitely knew where you were going with it. Google, which also suggests this was Herman the Worm until recently, claims it's a campfire song. I should ask Mara if she knows it. She's come home with "Bringin' up a baby bumblebee..." and "We're going on a bear hunt!" in recent weeks, so someone at the daycare center likes that sort of thing.
317: your best move is to take her hand in yours on the way to the theater, before the movie. (This means you can't meet at the door of the multiplex.). This conveys self-confidence and breaks a tension you don't want hanging over the movie.
Not only did Juan de Fuca get a strait, he got a tectonic plate. Hard tO beat that.
361. As you go in: "Shall we sit in the back row?"
Also, grasp her hand palm-on-palm, no interdigitation, at least while walking (is ok side by side in the cinema). But you're Waspy Waspworth IV, so this all goes without saying.
[Taking notes.]
Speaking of cursing, shouldn't one of you reprobates have linked to The Maculate Muse by now?
If you take her hand to the theater make absolutely sure that the rest of her has also accompanied you.
You people really don't think much of me, do you?
There you go with the over-thinking again.
Anyhow, when you sit down for the movie, offer her a couple of gingko nuts. If she declines, offer her twice that many. If she declines those, offer her twice as many again. Continue until she accepts, and by the end of the movie you'll both have learned an important lesson about exponential growth, and also the theater will stink.
One of the worst parts of having kids is I had to give up the ironically inappropriate "I'd hit that."
Links like 298 make me reconsider the notion it would be bad for us, as a species, to go extinct.
On the other hand, no more Fred Wesley & the Horny Horns.
Here is the only dating advice you need, Flip. ABC. Always Be Closing.
It occurs to me that Opinionated Peter O'Toole may have more, ah, standing to give dating advice than most of you us.
373: Yes, especially when he's talking about how easy it is to hit it off with the ladies when one isn't tall and handsome. He had so much experience there.
Nothing can go wrong from taking dating advice from movie stars. Their experience is so typical.
We had the campers sing "Herman the Worm" while they waited for the tables to be set for meals at the 4-H camp I worked at in Northeastern CT. Other songs included classic drinking songs with slight changes to the words, Scottish children's songs (Green and Yellow) and sea shanteys.
Anyhow, when you sit down for the movie, offer her a couple of gingko nuts. If she declines, offer her twice that many. If she declines those, offer her twice as many again. Continue until she accepts, and by the end of the movie you'll both have learned an important lesson about exponential growth, and also the theater will stink.
The Martingale strategy didn't work when I tried it at my middle school's Monte Carlo Night, and it didn't work for dating either.
OT:
So I'm wary to talk about this with anyone except Chicken, because I don't want to get too excited, but I am moving down the path to a potential transportation planning job at a firm I really want to work for, so that's great. And thanks to y'all for keeping me somewhat positive about a professional career.
That being said, the hiring manager is stringing me along, not in a bad way, but just in a frustrating way. My hiring is contingent on the firm winning an ad-on project, and the hiring manager emailed me to say that they got informally greenlighted, but have to wait until next week to get approval from the town council.
So he wants to talk tomorrow to start "discussing things in more detail, even if I can't actually make you an offer."
So: excited/ cautious/ excited/ I've been burned before/ excited/ cautious. Advice for this discussion? I haven't gotten this far before. When he asks how much I want to make, do I say something along the lines of "well, I'm sure you have a standard that you offer to jr staff like me" and toss it back in his court? Do I say "something in the 50ish range"? Do I play it all Jack Donaghy and not talk until he does? I mean, I feel like I've already had two interviews, so there isn't much more I can learn without actually working there. What else happens at this kind of "details" conversation?
I also have been avoiding telling anyone, including friends and my parents (except again my wife) because if it doesn't go through, I don't want to have to deal with them asking how it went. So I'm still cautious to get advice from them. I guess this is maybe far enough along to tell them, though.
Plus, fuck a bunch of "tell us why you want to work here". I don't want to work here. I want to sit on a beach in Greece. No one wants to work here. You, who are asking this question, don't want to work here. I'm often so surprised by the audacity of this question that I stumble for a bit in my response. At this firm, I had a response prepared, and so didn't stumble, which might explain my progress.
I want to sit on a beach in Greece. No one wants to work here.
Plenty of people want to work there, these days. Maybe you can arrange a swap.
Failing that, good luck in closing the deal.
379: Yes, try to get responses like this out of your system or you'll be wanting to give them in the interview. I was editing my resume and thinking about the group-mindfuck-by-consensus involved in getting a job and wrote a funny-only-to-me document I saved as "honest resume"--right now I can't find it, which give me the amusing and piquant sensation that I may have just saved it under some more innocuous name and might accidentally send it out sometime.
Congrats. I've used "I don't want my standard of living to drop in order to take this job, which I'd love to do. So $x would make me happy."
Basically don't lowball yourself, and don't say "I need $(some number that's a guess)."
378: quick, do some market research. Find yer industry average, adjust for cost of living, and then increment or decrement based on your comfort, ability, experience and panache.
Yeah, I've done 383 before, using Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
I have some friends who moved to Costa Rica.
I keep trying to convince them to use the word "arape" as an exclamation.
It started when I kept saying it, thinking it was a spanish word for stop.
Now, I live with the hope to one day see people shouting ARAPE while some Eva Peron figure stands with open arms on a balcony.
385: Some friends are visiting some other friends' new house in CR for the first time. Infinity edge pool overlooking ocean -- does not suck.
What city?
Please encourage them to use the word ARAPE! as much as possible.
345 is brilliant. The blue version, I suppose, would be quit jerkin' my merkin.
Googling "gherkin," just cuz, yields this insanity. Brits, WTF?
Congrats, Alfrek. Not having worked in the private sector myself I don't have any insight into the hiring process there, but I know how hard it is to find a job in planning these days so I can understand what a relief it must be to be in that position (even though it's not yet a done deal).
389. Actually it's a giant transatlantic V2, aimed at Washington in case Santorum wins the election; but it was built by the private sector, so they're allowed to use the fuel tanks as offices until it's needed.
389: Speaking of buildings, I just recently became aware of the unique seven-story corporate headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in Newark, Ohio.
There's very little cost to aiming high with your suggested salary range as long as you leave them a way out. It's a starting point for negotiation. As long as you make clear that you're open, and that you want the job, it can be as high as you can ask for with a straight face. Worse that happens is they say "well, honestly that's quite a ways out of the range we were thinking" and you cheerily say "oh, I wondered, but it doesn't hurt to ask! So what were you thinking? I'm sure it'll be fine with me."
I mean, or you could do research, I guess. But asking too low is much worse than asking too high.
391: Thank god someone's made a contingency plan. I'll be in Toronto.
398: That's why I'm still thinking of the Knitting-themed cruise from Santiago to Buenos Aires which leaves the day after the election. Where better to be than on a boat in the Southern Hemisphere. (Or will they not launch until inauguration?--I think a prophylactic strike would be safest.)
Do I play it all Jack Donaghy and not talk until he does?
FWIW, this is what I do, and it's worked out well for me. Even when it's resulted in a lowball offer, I've been able to get the other side to come back up to a reasonable level pretty quickly. (And in a couple of cases has netted me substantially more money than I really expected.)
I love the building in 389. The world needs more architecture like that.
396 is correct, except leave off "I'm sure it'll be fine with me." Make him answer the question. It goes without saying, I assume, that you should go in with a very solid notion of what you'll accept and what you think is reasonable. Knowing the latter will help you from jumping at anything that meets the former.
And be prepared to ask for more vacation or other benefit improvements.
Congrats & good luck!
396 is correct, except leave off "I'm sure it'll be fine with me."
Yeah, that's probably right.
Am I alone in disliking handholding and walking arm-in-arm? I would much rather walk with a half-hug (although perhaps this is too intimate for a fifteenth date, or whatever).
Yes, especially when he's talking about how easy it is to hit it off with the ladies when one isn't tall and handsome. He had so much experience there.
Truly. Have you seen What's New, Pussycat? His plight is goddamned infuriating to the rest of us malformed troglodytes.
400: Ooh, that cruise sounds great -- knitting at sea! Thorn, LB, Smearcase, you're in, right? I'm forgetting who else knits -- Rhymes with Maria, maybe? -- but you should come!
376: The young woman who was reciting the piece was alternating between "Sherman" and "Herman", but I felt "Sherman" just sounded funnier.
Am I alone in disliking handholding and walking arm-in-arm? I would much rather walk with a half-hug
Half-hug? Wouldn't that lead to stumbling?
Handholding is great; arm-in-arm is far too formal, as though one is on a promenade.
409: I mean inside arm around the partner's waist. Stumbling can be avoided.
Handholding is restrictive and sweaty without being at all intimate.
The young Peter O'Toole is just so absurdly beautiful.
Outside arm around partner's waist is occasionally appropriate but often confusing. And stay away from leg holds until you're comfortable flinging each other to the ground with force.
Huh. Call me a seething mass of repressions, but handholding, under the right circumstances, can be plenty intimate. Arms-around-the-waist, you need to be very lucky with relative heights and so on for it not to be hopelessly awkward.
Handholding is restrictive and sweaty without being at all intimate.
It's like, how much more wrong could this be? And the answer is none. None more wrong.
It goes without saying that I prefer to travel rolling for leglocks, but you go through so many partners.
One nice, unexpected intimacy can be to gently drape a leg over your paramour's shoulder.
413: An arm-around-shoulder modification is allowed as needed.
handholding, under the right circumstances, can be plenty intimate
Under what circumstances would it *not* be intimate? Am I just odd in that I only hold hands with people I'm intimate with? (Well, and Saudi princes, but that's just being polite.)
Or if you're feeling high-spirited, grab them by the waist from behind and, holdly tight, leap repetitively into the air, shouting "baa! baa! baa!" along with your leaps.
If you're tall enough, you can wedge your partner's head into your armpit and give them a gentle shake by the cheeks with your opposite hand.
405: Oh give me that christian side hug...
I like hand-holding, and can't figure out what you mean by it being "restrictive." It's much less restrictive of your motions than any of the other things mentioned. It is true that sweatiness is a problem with handholding, depending on the weather and the sweatiness level of the people.
Under what circumstances would it *not* be intimate?
Crossing a perilous rope bridge.
400: Rhymeswithmaria really wants to do a knitting cruise, though I think she's been focused on Baltic sea cruises because there's lots of interesting fiber history and science in that area.
If you hold somebody's hand with one of those gripper things they sell to old people it's much less intimate, and not at all sweaty.
Do I play it all Jack Donaghy and not talk until he does?
Ding ding ding. Otherwise you're negotiating against yourself.
And Baltic knitting patterns are great.
I should really figure out some way to knit faster. I find patterns fascinating, but I knit so goddamn slowly, and have enough trouble finding knitting time, that I'm lucky if I can finish two or three things in a year.
Arms-around-the-waist, you need to be very lucky with relative heights and so on for it not to be hopelessly awkward.
Yeah, this is true, actually. And it's appropriate only for acknowledged coupledom, I'd say. And/or for those who are unbiased toward public displays of affection, a whole 'nother topic indeed.
Arms-around-the-waist, you need to be very lucky with relative heights and so on for it not to be hopelessly awkward.
This is very true. If you're significantly bigger than her, pick her up and swing her over your head so she can ride on your shoulders. If she's taller than you, you'll be just the right height to rest your hand on her butt quite naturally.
418: Well, if you're in a longstanding comfortably intimate or family relationship, handholding is intimate, but it's no particular thing. In a relationship that's in the, how to put this delicately, exploratory stage of intimacy, it can be interesting in itself.
418: It's true only intimates hold hands (in the US). It does not follow that holding hands is intimate.
421: It is less restrictive, but it is much less intimate.
A dancer friend showed me that if you are walking inside arm around the partner's waist, and can get a solid grip on the ridge of their farther-away pelvic bone, you can pretty well turn the partner however you like (in pitch, not yaw or roll). Lot of leverage from that grip.
431: Useful to know if things suddenly turn ugly.
Or you want to steer your partner around potholes.
We can probably assume at this point that Eggplant just suffers from sweaty hands and needs to be freeee. Got it. And that's okay!
In a relationship that's in the, how to put this delicately, exploratory stage of intimacy, it can be interesting in itself.
I agree that if you're still saying goodbye with a jovial wave, the side-hug might be a little much.
434: I don't suffer from them. I wipe them discreetly on my partner's hip.
Wait, don't you mean you can controll their Yaw (left or right) but not their pitch (up or down)?
Rebecca Solnit has quite a bit to say about walking with other people. She even has a book about it. She thinks a lot of the intimacy comes from sync-ing up strides and breath. Handholding gives tactile cues to make that synchronizing faster (and feels nice of itself (to me, but evidently not Eggplant, although I'm not sure why we're taking the opinions of handless vegetables on this matter. Do I opine on how photosynthesizing feels? I do not.)).
Yes, what Helpy-chalk said. Got those reversed. I do not have a technique for suddenly moving a partner in pitch while walking. Except for picking the person straight up, I guess.
This thread has prompted me to look up public records of salaries at a couple of places that might decide to make me offers. The numbers are... quite a bit lower than I expected.
Handholding gives tactile cues to make that synchronizing faster
So the army should make recruits in boot camp march holding hands until they get the hang of staying in step? I'm beginning to like this idea.
441: Sometimes other non-disclosed funding sources make up part of the compensation package.
the unique seven-story corporate headquarters of the Longaberger Basket Company in Newark, Ohio
The only shame is, that lovely building sits empty, for all the employees are on weave.
The professional mathematicians organization puts out very good salary survey numbers. You can find distributions (in chunks of 5K, I think) for starting salaries and other salaries broken down by tier of school and public/private. Does physics do something similar?
A hand around the waist is extremely useful (if not sufficient) for changing somebody's pitch if you reach around the front of the body instead of around the back.
444: Well, yes. But I was expecting the pre-summer-salary numbers to be about 15% higher than they are. I had looked at some public numbers for California public universities before, and I guess they pay a lot better than elsewhere.
To change the pitch, use a combination of an arm around the waist and sweeping the leg.
449: If you weren't so closed-minded about handholding, you might not be.
449 -- I'm with you buddy. I find hand holding vaguely annoying and not very intimate.
Eggplant and I will now chest bump.
It's tough to get anywhere chest bumping. Unless one partner is significantly larger, I guess.
You guys are all doing the finger tickle thing while holding hands, aren't you.
431ff: if you're holding hands twice, each near hand holding the other far hand (one name for this is lovers' knot), either party can switch to that grip. You can telegraph jumps, too. Very sweet on a ramble.
I hope it's clear that handholding is not an assignment, and is not required! If it feels right, do it. If it does not, do not. I've had relationships in which there was handholding, and others in which there was not: both types were fine in their respective ways. (Though I do kind of like handholding - but not if the other person doesn't! So it's pretty much a straightforward matter.)
I gave my out-laws smittens, which they were dubious of but now like. Twee factor, high.
448: Are you sure the numbers you were looking at before did not include summer salary? I've heard some complaints (well about newspapers misinterpreting salary numbers, but presumably they got them from the state) about grant money getting counted as salary.
I just want to cast a vote for arm-in-arm. It's a little formal but there's a lot to be said for maintaining a little formality, especially at the beginning of a relationship.
.linking elbows, or hand of one on forearm of the other?
OT: Somewhere along the line we should have a post about the increasing assault by conservative legislators on health insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives.
This nascent legislation -- co-sponsored by 26 Senators! -- is a matter for concern.
My first encounter with one of those, I was surprised to find that there was a last doll. It seemed to violate the principle of induction, and thereby failed to satisfy the aesthetic of infinitude that makes the dolls appealing in the first place.
464: this is why physicists can pass their integrals through their infinite sums.
463: Yes. Guest post?
This nascent legislation -- co-sponsored by 26 Senators! -- is a matter for concern.
I'm a bit gleeful at that one. The mandatory contraception coverage doesn't even appear to be unpopular with Catholics. I think going after contraception coverage in general is going to go badly for them at the ballot box.
Elsewhere in Congressional misbehavior, I'm amazed that they're only now getting around to banning insider trading by Members of Congress.
467 - And they can't back down too quickly without alienating some of the more radical religious base. They need the anti-contraception crowd for footsoldiers.
The mandatory contraception coverage doesn't even appear to be unpopular with Catholics. I think going after contraception coverage in general is going to go badly for them at the ballot box.
Exactly. Go ahead, Republicans. Sell the public on how much more they should be paying for sex.
LB, I forget which comment number you lamented your knitting speed, but do you hold your yarn in your right hand (English) or left (continental) when you're knitting? I've heard that continental is faster and that makes sense to me. That's not why I taught myself that way; that was because it was less popular than English and so there wouldn't be as many people capable of telling me I was doing it wrong. (That's the same reasoning I had for choosing gin and tonic as my drink of choice when I started drinking, because no one else my age would do that and so I'd never have to feel competitive. Is this some personality quirk I should ATM about?)
Anyway, I can't speak to English-style knitting because it seems ridiculously complex to me and even when I'm doing colorwork I keep it all in my left hand, but my technique was refined considerably when I read an article about how all the movements should come from the wrist, basically circling both wrists towards each other while the needles and yarn do what they should. I'm doing a very dorky reenactment here at my desk (and even put down my knitting to do it, which is doubly stupid) but certainly there are actual videos and whatnot. I never quite got the point of tensioning my yarn over my shoulders like all the little old Turkish ladies suggested I do, but any of the really traditional styles like that or the Portuguese giant-needle-under-the-arm thing will be built for speed.
Speaking of GOP whackjobs . . .
Mississippi Rep. Wants The Gulf Of Mexico Renamed The 'Gulf Of America'
I'm continental (although I started English -- I taught myself continental in an attempt to put on some speed). I do go back to English for colorwork so I can have a yarn in each hand. The wrist thing sounds interesting, though. I'm doing it all with my fingers, which may be why the slowness.
Yeah, the wrist thing is key, I think. I was just watching myself especially on purling and it makes everything smoother. And that's where you get speed, being able to go from stitch to stitch to stitch without really pausing or thinking.
I think I knit quickly for a casual knitter, but I'm never going to hit competitive knitting speeds and don't aspire to. I do have a goal to finish this sweater so I can wear it to Saturday's dinner, but since that's going to require wet-blocking I may well fail.
I think maybe I knit too tight for speed. What really slows me down is getting the needle into the stitch; that's a sort of wiggly, fussy motion on every stitch that I need to actually look at. If I solved that motion, everything else would speed way up.
472: In that spirit, maybe New York shouldn't be named as if it was somehow a mark of pride to be the second iteration of the land that produced the loser in the War of the Roses. I propose "Upper Pennsylvania." New York City would then become Upper Pennsylvania City and someone can create a cop show called UPC Code.
re: knitting. The wrist thing, that's alternative to what? Genuine question, as there are lots of things about guitar technique that are similar. Some people picking from the fingers, some from the wrist but wrist flat or wrist arched, some from the forearm/elbow, and so on. There's lots of argument as to which is faster, which offers most control, and so on.
I imagine that something like knitting that requires both fine control, speed, and endurance might have similar issues.
I'm not dead sure, but when I knit, I'm not doing much of anything with my arm or wrist muscles. All the motion is in my fingers. Thorn would have to describe what she's talking about more clearly.
477: I do think I'm probably predisposed to it because I played the violin for so long. Knitting you definitely can't do from the elbow, as far as I can tell, but plenty of the people I know at knitting group hold the needle tight between pinced finger and thumb and then hold the yarn tight on their other hand between finger and thumb and use that finger to move the yarn.
Here is a video where the woman is showing how her fingers move, but you can see the kind of wrist rotation I'm talking about, though she's knitting extremely slowly to make it clear.
I keep my hands relaxed, circled a little more loosely than they'd be around bike handlebars but very similar to left-hand position for violin.
I've tried to teach myself to knit continental style, but it feels too clumsy after having started with English; I'm not very good at re-learning things like that. I also have LB's too-tight stitch problem which I'm really trying to work on.
Thanks all,
I haven't been able to look at this since I'm at work, and certainly can't be looking at BLS sats!
I wonders how I should adjust for living in one of the most expensive cities in the country? As a multinational, this may not matter.
Also, I'm negotiating from a disadvantage, as almost anything they might offer is going to be better than my current intern's hourly wage (I hope!) so there's that.
Thanks all for the congrats - I just hope I didn't tell you too soon!
I wonders how I should adjust for living in one of the most expensive cities in the country? As a multinational, this may not matter.
Why shouldn't it? You pay rent like all the locals.
||
One of the postdocs in my lab just found he got an offer right as another postdoc in my lab was about to get taken out for sympathy beers because he didn't get an offer from the place he really wanted. Ouch!
|>
Probably need to move to the sympathy bourbon.
Yeah... Tea this time of year is awkward.
Perhaps the "Screw-all-y'all" methamphetamine?
I kinda want to do an ATM about where I should move, but I don't think it can reasonably be done without being totally identifiable who I am. And vague "how to decide where to move" advice without details is probably not good enough... Turns out I'm very bad at making decisions.
Also, I'm negotiating from a disadvantage, as almost anything they might offer is going to be better than my current intern's hourly wage (I hope!) so there's that.
Where's the disadvantage? You're not negotiating based on what you're currently making, you're negotiating based on what it'll take to get you to take the job. (Employers always try to get you to tell them what you're currently making. It's always a bad idea to answer unless they've already lowballed you.)
The coolest building going up in London atm is The Shard. There're going to be flats in it - if I won the lottery (possibly would have to be the euromillions) that's where I would live. C knows someone involved with its construction and was offered a tour last year; I should get him to find out if the offer still stands.
(Employers always try to get you to tell them what you're currently making. It's always a bad idea to answer unless they've already lowballed you.)
I've heard this many times, but I've never once been able to put it into practice. I've had several job interviews recently where I was asked this question, and my every attempt to evade it was met with "so what's the current number?" At some point you have to either just answer it, or flatly say "I refuse to answer that", which might not go over well.
By the way, if I get the job I interviewed for today, I might die of happiness. But yes, I had to answer the question: "How much do you make right now?"
It might be against the terms of your current employment to tell people your compensation, which is some leverage.
481:
As long as you milk enough out of them such that your wife can upgrade to a smartphone so as to goof off on unfogged during her stupid stats class, I think you're all set...
I've heard this many times, but I've never once been able to put it into practice. I've had several job interviews recently where I was asked this question, and my every attempt to evade it was met with "so what's the current number?" At some point you have to either just answer it, or flatly say "I refuse to answer that", which might not go over well.
Yet another advantage of being hourly, rather than salaried -- I could truthfully answer, "it ranges from $x/mo to $1.5x/mo" (or, if I wanted to be deceptive, "around $1.5x depending on workload") even if I only make $1.5x once or twice a year (and hate life during those months).
ObDisclaimer, I'm lousy at job interviews precisely because I'm not good at recognizing the various conventions involved in the process -- so nobody should take interview advice from me.
At least I am good at my job.
I'm going to be rather earnest in a very funny thread (because I am nothing if not a wet blanket) and say that holding hands, for me--besides being something I just like a lot for no reason I can name--has some resonance as a tiny political gesture. It's easy to walk down the street holding hands with another guy in the places I live now, but it has taken a bit of resolve in other places.
At some point you have to either just answer it, or flatly say "I refuse to answer that", which might not go over well.
I usually say, "That's not really relevant. Every situation is different, and what I was willing to accept in one position may differ substantially from what I'm willing to accept in another." But I don't ever answer it.
And yeah, they're counting on your fear to push you over the edge and answer the question. But really, if you've gotten to that point in the negotiations and you're not a complete dick about it, it's highly unlikely they're going to back out.
I had LB show me continental after learning English originally, and I found it totally awkward. I stuck with it for a few rows a couple of months later and now find it perfectly natural (though I don't tension the yarn exactly as I've been shown to do) and quite a bit faster than English after all. Um, so I request a transatlantic knitting cruise ok?
I usually say, "That's not really relevant. Every situation is different, and what I was willing to accept in one position may differ substantially from what I'm willing to accept in another." But I don't ever answer it.
See, this is along the lines of advice I've heard, and is almost exactly what I said today, and it was met with. "We understand that. What's the current number?"
499: Props! Unless you're secretly a Saudi prince.
The last time I was asked my last salary I just laughed and said it was well beyond the department's ranges. Because my current PI is a mensch, and my demands are low, I'm getting some of it back in enormous flexibility, but the *next* time I'm asked I'm going to use Josh's answer.
This is the kind of thing that I'm terrible at, so I'm interested in whether anyone has a good answer. I suppose you could just repeat "As I said, it's irrelevant, and I'd prefer not to say." But man, that sounds hard. How would "More than [wild lowball], less than [wild highball] work"?
How would "More than [wild lowball], less than [wild highball] work"?
Last time I tried that (which was a few weeks ago, in a different interview), I got: "That's a pretty big range. What's your current salary?"
Admittedly, I've never fought this battle to the bitter end. After one or at most two attempts to push back, I cave, mostly because I figure I look like an ass if I don't (and I look especially like an ass if I keep pushing even beyond that and then still ultimately cave).
But I don't ever answer it.
How important is this?
I understand why it's good advice but, in the case of an interview like urple's where they really are insistent, how much does it hurt to answer? (I ask certain that if somebody was asking me persistently that I would answer truthfully).
I've thought about just asking bluntly (but politely): "Why do you need to know that?" Next time, I think that's what I'm going with.
(The idea in 509 being that I could deflect any legitimate answer they gave to my question more easily than I could deflect the direct question of "How much do you make right now?")
I've only ever been hired twice, and obviously the question is irrelevant for the first job, and I answered the second. But I've hired a lot of people, and our HR rep who meets with candidates at the end of the day almost always reports back what the current salary is. Maybe they have HR mind tricks.
Posting from somewhere over Kansas- my first experience with in-flight wifi.
'You mean for the job I've decided to leave?'
'Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.'
(513 not to be considered actual advice)
'tarian, that's easy: move to Montana.
508: It's really only important not to answer if you're looking to move up quite a bit in salary, I think. Moving down is easy: "Oh, I make $[x] today, but I understand you probably won't pay anything close to that." seems innocuous. Same with staying flat. But moving up... it sort of takes away your leverage, especially if you might be hoping to ask for more than whatever they initially offer you (if you and they both know that it's a raise from your current salary, that request can be harder to make).
Today, after the exchange in 503, I just answered, but said that I'd expect substantially more if offered this job, and left it at that.
515 seems not well worded but I think you get the general drift.
I think you get the general drift.
Yes, and it makes sense.
My experience is the same as SP -- I've only been hired twice (though I did have a company I was working for change hands at one point) and I have no complaints about either of those experiences (more precisely, I hate the process of looking for work and interviewing, but I have no complaints about either of the jobs that I ended up with).
I do occasionally wonder what my next job search will look like, however. I'm much more professionally accomplished than I was last time I was looking, but I have no idea if any of those accomplishments will actually count for anything -- my current employer is so small and so weird, by the standards of any modern technology company, that I worry it will make the next transition challenging -- whenever that ends up being.
Also, just as a general matter, even if you're not necessarily *looking* to move up in salary, it's entirely possible they would otherwise have been *willing to pay* quite a bit higher salary, but since you're making $[x] today, they figure they can get away with offering something pretty close to $[x], or, at most, a modest bump up from $[x].
Or at least that's what HR people say in message boards on the internet. (Or at least, people who are claiming to be HR people in message board on the internet.)
At least, I assume they are people. I guess they could be intelligent robots, impersonating HR people in random internet message boards.
Actually, not "random" internet message boards at all. "Various" internet message boards. That's what I meant.
518 is definitely true, both in that we have done it to people and I think I've had it done to me- first job out of grad school, since my salary was going from stipend x to salary 3.5x I didn't really negotiate. But then they liked me and after a year bumped me up 20% which makes me think I had been lowballed and that they thought I would realize it and leave.
I can also say since I'm now in a position involving budgeting where I get to see most people's salaries that there really are big disparities for whatever reason, probably based on level of initial hire. When someone comes back and says they want 5-10% more we're fairly flexible, but that same difference hardly ever happens as an on the job adjustment.
My hope is that all future moves will involve being poached and/or headhunted which doesn't remove the salary negotiation but does make it easier to say fuck off if you don't like it.
"I'd prefer not to discuss my previous salary, but I'm sure it's right within the range you're looking at. What is that range?"
"We've established what I am, now we're just haggling about price."
This is the kind of thing that I'm terrible at, so I'm interested in whether anyone has a good answer. I suppose you could just repeat "As I said, it's irrelevant, and I'd prefer not to say." But man, that sounds hard.
The other thing I've done when pressed is to say "I'm sure you've got a range you're willing to pay. What is it?" It puts them back on the defensive, and whatever answer they give you (because they'll never answer it), you can just parrot back to them.
And yeah, it *is* hard. But it gets easier the more you do it.
mostly because I figure I look like an ass if I don't
Yeah, this is the problem. But look at this way: which would you rather look like, an ass or a chump?
Update: If, say, you happened to be on a certain subway train earlier this evening, you might have been fortunate enough to enjoy the spectacle of two mature and expensively-educated people discussing a recent movie, the diegetic and non-diegetic music therein and the explicit religiosity thereof, while picking the occasional bit of lint from one another's coats. There may have a very fleeting instant of hand contact in the theater.
Conclusion: I am thirteen again, though my knees disagree.
Wow, you went straight to grooming each other, huh?
The other thing I've done when pressed is to say "I'm sure you've got a range you're willing to pay. What is it?" It puts them back on the defensive, and whatever answer they give you (because they'll never answer it), you can just parrot back to them.
I would dearly like to respond to such a question. Because then I would have a job offer. No wait, let me start over. I would dearly like to respond to such a question, "I'm afraid it's against policy for me to disclose that figure at this stage."
529: You could go somewhere windy so hair can get stuck in her face and you can tuck it behind an ear. Unless she's a cropped gamine; perhaps you could rescue her news-cap and put it back on.
Other than that, excellent, well done, try breathing into a paper bag.
She likes you, Flip.
So long as you know there's going to be a 'next time', you can kiss or nuzzle on whatever time schedule the two of you like. There's only a hurry to make-out if you are afraid you won't see the person again. (If she is wigging about why doesn't he get on with things, she could solve that by instigating.)
529 is awesome. Especially because I'm currently undergoing a similarly shy courtship myself.
Next time is Saturday, but I intend to take this as a challenge to see who can play harder to get.
[Styrian accent:] And I play to win.
You can play hard to get about the physical stuff, but don't play any games whatsoever about your interest level. If you are interested, make it as clear and explicit as you can. The physical stuff can wait so long as she knows you want to spend time with her.
Yay for Flip! (I hope I don't come off as pro-relationship. I just like that he seems happy about this and endorse that. If he were working through a breakup I'd be just as eager to cheer him along.)
I was going to say something about 499. Lee has more hangups about hand-holding than I do and so it feels particularly nice when it's something we can comfortably do. Obviously we've solved this problem by adding a little person who insists on holding both our hands so she can do elaborate swinging.
I would love an unfogged knitting cruise, but I think I'm intimidated by general knitting cruises and a bit skeptical about cruises in general. Maybe a lake house with plenty of knitting? I could be swayed to imagine this many ways.
One thinks one has been entirely clear about one's interest level and one believes -- subject to correct from the audience (ladies only, please) -- that seeing one another on four occasions in ten days, speaking on the phone at length at least once and exchanging rather a lot of e-mails (she sent me a picture of herself out with three female friends last night), indicate some interest on her part. We both may be a bit shy/hesitant.
It is obviously working. Keep doing what you're doing!
(she sent me a picture of herself out with three female friends last night)
Daaaaaaaaaaamn.
537: Aww, re hand-holding.
Meetups in places that are more crafty, less drinky? Not that a lake house or, for that matter, penthouse would be a bad option.
538: I'm no lady (boomp), but I think you're doing fine. Like Megan, I believe firmly in lineaments of gratified desire.
I wish I could claim to have a system.
Picture? Totally wants a foursome, but is expecting you to propose it. But make sure to do so quickly, or she'll leave you forever.
I feel like it's important to hold hands a bit before a relationship progresses to a foursome.
you might have been fortunate enough to enjoy the spectacle of two mature and expensively-educated people discussing a recent movie...
A scrimmage on a subway station,
A canter down some dark defile.
Two hundred thousand pounds of education
Drops to a two-dollar DVD rental.
We went to a real theater, imperialist.
It's good that it's now been established that she didn't attend a state school.
By the way, The Tree of Life is really great.
Also, I will fistfight anybody who says anything bad about Jessica Chastain.
Further to 463, I hammered out a potential guest post, but half the front-past posters aren't around half the time, and heebie has some kind of special email address which is not her unfogged address, so I'm just sticking it here, and it can be moved to the front page if warranted.
----
Marco Rubio (R, Fla.) and Joe Machin (D, W.Va.) have introduced a federal legislative bill dubbed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012, and I'll outsource an overview of it to Nick Baumann at Mother Jones.
The link contains the full text of the bill. The short version: this bill would allow any employer to refuse, on religious grounds, to provide a health insurance plan covering prescription contraceptives. Or anything else health- or drug-related that the employer objects to on religious grounds.
There are many levels of response one might have to this, and some of them I'm not very interested in myself:
1. We might be outraged. There are places to express outrage: try Balloon Juice, or probably any number of feminist blogs.
2. We might think this is mostly an argument over whether the Obama administration's inclusion of copay-free coverage for prescription contraceptives in health insurance plans is about religious liberty, or is rather about public health. What is really about? This is sort of an interesting question, but it's doubtful that it's about a single thing to the exclusion of any other things.
3. We can observe that this is a backdoor method for conservatives to pick away at the Affordable Care Act.
4. There are certainly lawyerly questions, having to do with everything from the fact that, from what I understand, several states (New York and California, anyway) have already had health insurance mandates including contraceptive coverage with no religious exemption for some time now, with nary a peep of protest; to questions of constitutional interpretation of just what counts as freedom of religion.
But here's what interests me most:
5. The increasingly libertarian sensibilities in this country, seen mostly on the right but not unwelcome on the left, are making a serious legislative power play. The argument in favor of the Rubio/Machin bill smacks heavily of Ron Paul et al.'s argument that it's downright unconstitutional for a private restaurant owner to be required by federal law to serve blacks: if it's against his beliefs to do so, it's an assault on his liberty to be so constrained. There's some very fundamental stuff going on here; we need to smack it down hard.
550: 3. We can observe that this is a backdoor method for conservatives
Don't those usually involve junkets, interns and a bit of crystal?
I put a photo of the sweater I'm trying to finish in the flickr pool. I really hope it does block bigger, which it should, because right now it's significantly too body-conscious. Plus I didn't really make the right color choices. But that's all okay, because it's the first sweater I've (almost!) made since Mara arrived, I think.
I should have put pause/play marks around that thing up there.
OT: My command of standard Italian, much less any dialect, is more like a sauve qui peut (see?), but the Calabrian 'Ndragheta songs I am listening to all seem to be about blasting people with shotguns and keeping one's mouth shut.
By the way, The Tree of Life is really great.
We thought it was ambitious but terrible! Luckily we are unlikely to date you.
Why do you hate beauty? And love?
554: Isn't it sad in Padre Padrone where the fellow who has had to smoke his cigarettes wrong way round his whole life due to a vendetta finally squares things with the other family, and then the first time he gets to smoke normally, they treacherously shoot him?
That being sad, keeping your mouth shut to avoid being blasted by shotguns is a fine thing to sing about. If more people sang such songs, there would not have to be so much blasting of people with shotguns.
Luckily we are unlikely to date you.
Whoa, let's not be too hasty. We're going to need something to hold the blog's interest after they finally kiss.
said/sad what's the difference?
556: because they are trite, and dudely.
Flippanter:
Next date, you should address the plans for Thanksgiving. Or perhaps ask her about whether she would be more comfortable as the first or second person listed on your Advanced Medical Directive.
Next date, you should address the plans for Thanksgiving.
Plans for Thanksgiving! Hello. I come before you not as your leader, but as your comrade.
Chastain is a vegan. That's pretty bad.
495: It might be against the terms of your current employment to tell people your compensation
Not actually a restriction that your employer can enforce, courtesy of the NLRA (even if you aren't in a union). I've had employment agreements that purported to limit who I could tell about my compensation, but the employers backed down and took the language out when I handed them citations from recent NLRB decisions on the subject.
because they are trite, and dudely.
Sexist. Women have as great an interest in eternity as men.
John, I am sure you were tired and emotional and prefer to revise and expand your remarks.
Sexist. Women have as great an interest in eternity as men.
Presumably, but it's so hard to tell, because they never speak. Also, eternity is so hard to find amidst the pop-Christian motivational poster about the endless beach where you will once again meet all your loved ones.
I'm actually being meaner than I really feel about it; I thought that he did an extravagantly excellent job of expressing his deepest, most intensely held feelings about love and eternity and family. It just turns out that those feelings, subjected to rigorous and aesthetically extraordinary introspection, are kind of trite.
Also one wishes the unattainable, ethereal, eternal child of a universal mother had somewhat developed goals in life. But I repeat myself.
567, 568: Racist.
It occurred to me while watching that the childhood depicted -- i.e., that of my father's generation -- is far closer to mine than to that of a similarly-situated child today. I feel old.
You are old, and your brief stay on this earth is surely near its end.
Seeing Tree of Life together is a hell of a way to test for relationship compatibility.
Flip, you two will be nuzzling in no time. Good stuff.
It occurred to me while watching that the childhood depicted -- i.e., that of my father's generation -- is far closer to mine than to that of a similarly-situated child today. I feel old.
It's closer to yours than to that of someone a year younger than you, too.
570: I take a lot of antioxidants.
573: You people got no or very little poetry in your souls.
I think nuzzling is good. Right? I hope you're not being sarcastic! I suggest you come up with some vague thoughts for what to do after the museum date on Saturday: these things should provide opportunities for touching. I'd bet anything she's thinking along the same lines.
I suggest you come up with some vague thoughts for what to do after the museum date on Saturday: these things should provide opportunities for touching. I'd bet anything she's thinking along the same lines.
Oh Christ I had better get on OpenTable fast.
This is not to say that you should prepare a love nest for a full night. A gentleman is not so forward in his thoughts. But for heaven's sake, have the two of you even loosened a tie, rolled up a sleeve, kicked off a shoe, removed a jacket, that sort of thing?
Vegan! Vegan! Vegan! Also she's not the Chastain who did that thing with the bra or whatever.
Oh Christ I had better get on OpenTable fast.
Not something that requires a reservation! That's too controlled! More casual!
We will be in Manhattan, parsi! Not Super-Casual-Land of Ample Tables for Two Between 7 and 9 PM!
A restaurant requiring a reservation is fatal! Have we taught you nothing!
Oh God I have to choose something to wear.
(Seriously, if you have trouble getting fed in Manhattan without a reservation, I worry about you. There are diners, there are cheap ethnic places -- you can get a meal.) Wear jeans and a sweater. It's the weekend.
She'll want to go somewhere interesting! I wore jeans today! Glen check? Brown tweed? Blazer and grey flannels? Breathe. What would Jeeves say?
I think the sight of a fanny pack would cut Jeeves to the quick.
582: Huh. I don't remember New York well enough. There's no place you could go to share, oh, potato latkes with sour cream and apple sauce? Or a little out-of-the-way Vietnamese place? I could swear I've done that in Manhattan ... but yes, it does depend on where the museum is. And it is Saturday night. And if you're just a more formal sort of person, well, latkes would barely count as supper dinner.
I still vote for a place with less attentive service, so a person doesn't feel so much under inspection.
Plus-fours. Utilikilt (formal). Nehru suit. That thing Thonet invented. Toga (formal, as is winter). Harlequin suit. Ninja outfit. Cuir bouilli. Light plate.
Jeeves is no use, he'd be trying to help you get away from her.
And I refuse to be sucked into advising you on managing your date. How old are you? A fifth date with a woman who likes you enough to deliberately set up a date to see a movie by what she knows is your favorite director is not a challenge. Whatever you end up doing will work out fine.
I was wrong and clew was right. If you don't show up dressed as a harlequin, she will never love you.
A fifth date with a woman who likes you enough to deliberately set up a date to see a movie by what she knows is your favorite director is not a challenge.
I'm cheap, but I'm not easy.
I'm starting to sympathize with Lunchy here. Are there any self-help manuals on Dating the Terminally Skittish?
It's paradigmatically horses that that are skittish, right? Maybe Flip does need to be nuzzled, with a sugar cube or something.
Take her to Vietnam Restaurant on, um, I forget what street in Chinatown. Or to Hasaki, that great sushi place on, well, I forget again. I'm feeling both an intense longing for New York and very old. Oh to be falling in love in Manhattan. There's nothing finer.
I've missed the past week of Flip and Lunchy updates. Have you had sky rockets in flight?
That's not to say you're falling in love, Flip. Don't get spooked, thoroughbred.
Have you had sky rockets in flight?
No, but they've come very close to holding hands!
I think we are both pretty skittish.
Hasaki appears to be on 9th, right where it always was. As for Vietnam Restaurant, I'm pretty sure it was on Doyers. Maybe it closed? In which case, all of the declension narratives are right.
Wow, Vietnam Restaurant was on Doyers but is now closed. I...just don't know what to say about the world that has no room for Vietnam Restaurant. What's the point, Flip? I mean, it's all going to come apart in the end anyway.
603: Great. Holidays are easier when you have the same religion.
I've never fallen in love in Manhattan.
It's paradigmatically horses that that are skittish, right? Maybe Flip does need to be nuzzled, with a sugar cube or something.
No, he's a young deer. Salt lick!
606: Nice. And appropriate for reasons that I cannot disclose.
Lunchy is Aimee Semple McPherson?!?
Yes?
I suppose if there's any place that has restaurants that serve latkes year-round it's New York, but canonically they are something you eat once or maybe twice a year, and not at a restaurant. There are plenty of other Jews here who can dispute this if they'd like.
There are plenty of other Jews here who can dispute this if they'd like.
So argumentative!
It's not just a Jewish synonym for what we in the Polish regions call a "potato pancake"?
It's not just a Jewish synonym for what we in the Polish regions call a "potato pancake"?
It is, but Jews don't eat them regularly.
603, 606, 610: Oh my: Flip and Lunchy are both of the, um, whatever it is Puritan-like religious persuasion that Flip has described in his life from time to time. It's very New Englandy. It's going to be months before they consent to remove their jackets. The mutual lint-picking off the jackets was deeply suggestive.
We're talking about the guy from Taxi, right?
Let's not resort to ethnic or religious squabbling. Surely we can all agree that everything is neb's fault.
Yeah, I think I'm with Ned. I've definitely seen potato pancakes on menus at restaurants that aren't even in NYC, and I don't think there'd be anything unusual about ordering one.
I do think there would be something odd about suggesting getting some on a date.
Uh-oh, what did neb do to Lunchy?
I don't see how it's neb's fault that you won't go to a diner in Manhattan.
But okay, squabbling is untoward.
What could be wrong with ordering potato pancakes on a date? As Katherine Whitehorn said, in every person there is a potato-shaped cavity.
...Oh.
Yeah, I think I'm with Ned. I've definitely seen potato pancakes on menus at restaurants that aren't even in NYC, and I don't think there'd be anything unusual about ordering one.
Fair enough. It still strikes me as odd for it to be one's first thought of something to go to a restaurant for, date or no.
I do think there would be something odd about suggesting getting some on a date.
Years ago I went with some NY friends to a place they said specialized in them. Maybe it was a Polish place. It was relatively late, 9 or 10 p.m. -- the place was full and happy, and the potato pancakes with various toppings were fresh and absolutely delicious. I remember it fondly, and wouldn't see a problem in suggesting it to a date after we'd already spent a more date-like portion of the date, for several hours, at a museum. People were walking out of the place happily arm-in-arm!
625 certainly clears up the context a lot.
LB is right. Kiss her already. (Says the man who would be at least as neurotic about the whole thing)
Upon reflection, I suspect the main reason latkes are not part of the typical Jewish deli menu is that they're usually dairy (or at least served with such).
We had potato pancakes whenever we had leftover mashed potatoes, which was three or four times a week.
It is, but Jews don't eat them regularly.
You mean in the sense that American Jews are more likely to eat Thai or hamburger than traditional Ashkenazi Jewish food?
630: No, I mean in the sense that when Jews eat traditional Ashkenazi Jewish food that food is almost never latkes.
629 is blasphemy. Potato pancakes are made from shredded potatoes, not mashed. And, uh, dairy? You mean the sour cream you can eat it with?
And, uh, dairy? You mean the sour cream you can eat it with?
Yes, hence the parenthetical.
579: Nuzzling is for horses.
It ain't for men.
They say it's gonna kill you
but they don't say when.
632: In our house, it was just a way to use extra potatoes. They were just pan fried.
Shrimp and bacon latkes are dynamite.
538: she sent me a picture of herself out with three female friends last night
544: Totally wants a foursome, but is expecting you to propose it.
For Flip's sake, let's hope a fivesome. #mathfail.
I don't think dynamite is kosher.
I hope you're not suggesting having them on a date.
Dynamite would probably make for an intense (but short) date.
Depending on how you use it, I guess.
635:
Hay is for horses,
Sometimes cows,
Chickens don't eat it,
'Cause they don't know how!
Peter O'toole -> _What's New Pussycat_ , which has a Flunchy date @ 45min. Suits, wine, classic exterior over passionate animals, prayer shawl, sax.
I wouldn't mind some latkes right now. Earlier tonight I was nostalgic for the beanies-and-weenies of my childhood. Where are the beanies-and-weenies of yesteryear?
642: Limericks really are the lowest form of peotry.
645: Where are the beanies-and-weenies of yesteryear?
Gone to crock pots every one.
When will they ever learn,
when will they eh-ever learn.
628: They make pareve sour cream. It's called "apple sauce."
Where have all the pirates gone,
Long time passing?
Where have all the pirates gone,
Long time ago?
Where have all the pirates gone?
The Kraken got them one by one.
When will it ever learn?
When will it ever learn?
Baxter Street behind the courthouse has the Vietnamese restaurants. Doyers has Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodle which is delicious and charm-free and two could eat for less than the price of a movie ticket.
Trying to remember where there was diagetic (yes, little iPhone, diabetic is also a word, but not the one I'm after) I say, where there was diagetic music in Tree. I hope one of the dinosaurs put on a tux and sidled up to the piano and played the Couperin piece because that scene needed something for fuck's sake.
This evening confirms: holding hands is in fact awesome.
There was a Vietnamese place in Koreatown that I really liked. On something like 32nd or 33rd. But my cousin, who thought it was ok, but not great thought it was funny that I liked it more than other restaurants we went to while I was there. I just like pho a lot, ok?
If the date's at the Met they should go to that rotisserie chicken place a few blocks away. But only if dressed in a suit. I can't remember the name; there are a few other places (Astoria, somewhere on the west side) with the same name that may or may not be related.
653: Perhaps you should stop asking us for advice, Flippanter. Run silent, run deep.
Potato pancake-like foods are bloody delicious. Either in the Scottish 'potato scone' form, or Czech bramborak. Never had latkes but I'd assume they bear a close resemblance to bramborak?
Boxty in the griddle,
boxty in the pan,
butter on the boxty
and you'll always get your man.
657: time to look up that recipe again.
It took emir's comment to make me recognize that "get your man" in 657 was not police slang.
651: The father and the doomed brother play Bach. The father yells "Brahms!" at the kids and plays the organ in church.
The diegetic and non-diegetic music enact the father's confession of wishing to be loved for being great.
659; I'm more familiar with the version that says, "if you can't make boxty, you 'll never get a man".
661: I've even heard that version, which is what's so sad about my obliviousness. And I've never made boxty, though I probably should.
or "yay, Josh!" or "ewww, cooties". Whichever.
Oh, diegetic. Well, now I'm worthless in all of your eyes.
No one here understands me but Tweety and clew.
I did an internal aww, I must admit.
Dwarf Lord coming home tonight. I think I'll make boxty & saag.
I don't know, Josh, you did declare that all bathing-machines smell of salt someplace upthread.
On Saturday I had delicious potato pancakes at a Russian place in Chicago; the pancakes came with a side of sour cream and shredded carrots dressed with vinegar (I think). I also had a delightful vodka flight.
And late to the party, but: huzzah, Josh!