I would like to stake out the opinion that anyone who says they're gluten-intolerant and doesn't actually have symptoms of celiac disease is just being annoying. It's a rare disease -- if you don't have it, shut up and eat a pancake.
Maybe it's just less embarrassing than saying you're Paleo?
We have a local gluten-free bakery that seems to be doing well. It was used as one of the settings in the muffin-pounding video from back a while.
1 is correct.
Relatedly, I read a blog the other day right up halford's alley. The writer was insisting that feeding any baby rice cereal (or grains of any sort) causes neurotoxins to develop in the intestines which will then perforate the intestines and go into the bloodstream. At this point, they will make your child asthmatic, cognitively disabled, and eczema-ridden. To avoid toxins, you must feed your 6-month-old raw liver.
1. My sister, who is something of a foodie and enthusiastically omnivorous, has discovered by trial and error that avoiding wheat makes her feel a lot better in terms of general well being - less lethargic, less stupid in the evenings, less inclined to flatulence, etc. She's not coeliac and doesn't claim to be generally gluten intolerant as she's fine with spelt and oats and barley and other gluten producing grains, but there's definitely something about wheat.
I'm guessing this is what the people who annoy you are driving at, albeit incoherently.
my impression is that the diseases themselves are actually on the rise.
We're all going to die!
Fun factoids:
One of the compounds that gut bacteria produce when they metabolize fiber is selectively toxic to cancerous tissue. Hence high fiber diet --> reduced risk of colon cancer.
Gut bacteria can influence which genes are expressed in nearby tissues.
They also contribute to the immune system in ways I don't feel like looking up.
You contain more bacteria cells than human cells.
My question: how come its gut flora? Bacteria aren't plants.
We're all going to die!
You only just noticed?
5: My youngest is similar. Is gluten sensitivity allowed?
Isn't the actual effect of the high fiber diet tiny? I thought I read of a big study 15 years ago or so that quantified the effect and showed it wasn't really big enough to be worth it.
9: No, but just passing it along.
I absolutely hate admitting this, because I find the people who've cut out gluten harder to feed than even vegans, but...
I am clearly not celiac, and I love bread. But I do notice that when I don't eat any gluten for a couple weeks, that I am trimmer and have less gas. (Trimmer isn't just weight loss. Like, if I have gluten, the next day I am a trifle puffier and bloated.) It is a minor but noticeable effect, and totally not worth giving up bread and pasta for. Still, it is there.
7.last is one of those "whoa, dude" facts for me (by mass much smaller of course). I'd like to discuss the ramifications with Peter Singer.
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The best crime/spy story of our generation,
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Lots of food give me gas and I either eat them or don't eat them depending on how good they taste or how much to need to care about how much gas I have in the next few hours. But I don't go around telling people I'm cabbage-intolerant.
I think Halford mentioned Djokovic's move to a gluten-free diet when we last discussed it.
16: Why do they keep talking aobut a "third party" when it sounds like only two people were there? Did I miss something?
There was a radiolab episode about the gut recently with some interesting stuff about the gut-brain.
17: This is largely my thinking. On the other hand, I could be made to sympathize with anyone who wasn't annoying about it, like chris y's sister or Stormcrow's kid. But I'm going to be grumbling internally, let me tell you.
"Gut fauna" makes me feel like I have llamas in my colon.
19. I think that's part of the mystery...
I believe that there are plenty of people who have gluten allergies but don't have celiac disease.
But I'm going to be grumbling internally, let me tell you.
Could be an allergy.
21: Don't worry, my kid can be annoying as hell. Usually not about that, though (and he still gets the Big Lincoln at Pamela's).
20: I heard that, and actually found that segment to be really underwhelming. I mean, yes: what you eat can affect your mood. Stop the presses!
Maybe the point was supposed to be that there's a direct neuronal link from gut to brain instead of it working through the bloodstream and so forth, but that seems like a detail and my impression was that they were making a big deal out of the fact that there's any link at all between diet/metabolism and brain chemistry. Which is just silly.
Here's some information. I guess there are three categories: celiac disease, wheat allergies, and gluten sensitivity. But all three are real, if limited to a significant, but relatively small, slice of the population.
Oh, I was massively pwnd. Anyhow, the idea that anyone with a problem with gluten is just making it up unless they clearly have celiac disease is just wrong.
24: I had bad allergies as a kid so I was sent to an actual allergist. He had a huge ax to grind about food allergies and how they could cause symptoms that people mistook for other conditions. He annoyed the fuck out of me by making me undergo an assessment for food allergies. The assessment involved not eating anything to see if the symptoms went away. I wasn't allowed to eat anything but unseasoned, roasted beef for a week and then added back foods one at a time over the next months.
I eventually refused to go see him any more as I couldn't understand why we were searching for hidden food allergies when it was well established that I was allergic to corn pollen and living in the Nebraska.
One buzzword is metagenomes. With the advent of cheap massively parallel DNA sequencing a few years ago, people have started sequencing bacteria that cannot be cultured. There are many, many species like this, both in digestive systems and elsewhere (like the ocean).
Separately, the most interesting cancer talk I've been to this year suggested pretty clearly that looking for molecular markers associated with colon and prostate cancer in stool is much easier to do reliably than looking for markers in blood.
I'm a sucker for any bacteria/parasites affect behavior stories.
31.last Much easier for you, mister principal researcher.
Here's some more reporting on gluten sensitivity.
I'm a sucker for any bacteria/parasites affect behavior stories.
You'd beter ask for a toxoplasmosis thread, then.
In defense of LB, I will say that I think being gluten intolerant is trendy in health conscious circles. It's the new low-fat.
@36
Yes. I know that celiac and allergies & etc. are real, but it's definitely the case that, among those for whom arbitrary dietary restrictions are a kind of fashion statement, avoiding gluten has become hip.
Oh, I have a big axe to grind about people who didn't know they had allergies until the allergist pricked their skin and found they had two hundred allergies.
Allergies are definitely real, but I'm also convinced that there are monstrously many false positives on allergy tests.
It's the new low-fat.
Low carb is the new low fat. Gluten-free is the new low carb.
trendy in health conscious circles
My theory is that people like me and my friends have learned to monitor our bodies very closely and eat fairly purely. We've already cut out everything that causes a bigger negative effect, like fast food or processed foods. So we're on to the next noticeable thing, and that turns out to be gluten.
Right, right. That said, if being gluten-free causes you to eat less bread, pasta, and processed food, you'll probably feel better.
41: Probably just eating less in general is the key.
That said, if being gluten-free causes you to eat less bread, pasta, and processed food, you'll probably feel better.
Right.
I'm not convinced that allergists aren't quacks.
Do people claim to have candida anymore? These things really do have their moments in the sun. Or The Sun.
Anyway, I had a meatball sub and I feel pretty good, but sometimes when I have a whole pizza I don't feel so good in the afternoon. But, I can't run far without something like that.
The Asthma/Allergy industrial complex is certainly a thriving corner of medicine.
I would like to stake out the opinion that anyone who says they're gluten-intolerant and doesn't actually have symptoms of celiac disease is just being annoying
This is bull; a friend of mine (who has Crohn's but not celiac) has very strong reactions to gluten and her life improved a lot when it was suggested she cut it out of her diet.
And yet you haven't expressly claimed that she isn't annoying. A telling omission.
That said, if being gluten-free causes you to eat less bread, pasta, and processed food, you'll probably feel better.
The idea that I would feel better if I ate less bread is highly disturbing! I love bread!
She is delightful and certainly not annoying.
45: It's around. Don't look at the pictures on the wikipedia page.
Do people claim to have candida anymore?
Yeast infections?
My nephew has Crohn's (it very nearly killed him) and gluten has zero effect on it (He has to hyper monitor everything he eats, obviously.)
Another reason to avoid bread!
I'm not convinced that allergists aren't quacks.
Insert duck allergy joke here.
Do people claim to have candida anymore?
No, but they still get thrush and sometimes find it hard to shift; twas ever so.
53: Yeast somethingorothers? Allergists tell them not to eat things because they have too many yeasts . . . somewhere/everywhere? I remember mushrooms were on the no list. Probably because they are also fungi!
A friend of mine who has Crohn's has to eat carbs and proteins at separate times as part of his diet. Is this usual? He can eat bread if he wants, but not a ham sandwich.
My theory is that people like me and my friends have learned to monitor our bodies very closely and eat fairly purely.
I do, too; but it makes me a lot more skeptical about trends that end up with billion-dollar packaged food industries.
it was well established that I was allergic to corn pollen and living in the Nebraska
This was me with timothy grass and living in Missouri. When I finally had an allergy test in my late teens, the site on my arm for timothy grass swelled up so much that it took over the areas for all seven other grasses and trees. All the nurses in the entire office came in to look at it, because they'd never seen such a strong reaction.
58: I knew a woman in college who claimed to have candida to the point of being unable to eat anything but leaves. Took me forever to realize that this was probably more of an eating disorder than anything else.
59: To keep kosher, he'd really have to space out the parts of a cheeseburger.
Allergists tell them not to eat things because they have too many yeasts . . . somewhere/everywhere?
Too much sugar?
61: When I was a kid, if wet grass stuck to my bare skin, I got a welt. I have no idea if I got better as I no longer run through the sprinkler.
Well, that's why I think they're noticing stuff that is a fairly low level sensitivity, and not celiac's nor a fullblown allergy. Personally, I notice a slight effect that I gladly accept in order to eat delicious wonderful bread and pasta. But people who go the other way on the trade-off might want to buy some ridiculously expensive gluten-free version.
I have no idea if I got better as I no longer run through the sprinkler.
I was reading up on lice recently, and apparently adults just barely ever get lice, even if the kids have them. I'm sure it's possible, but we just don't all hunch around fascinating objects together, the way kids do.
trends that end up with billion-dollar packaged food industries
IMO this is the real problem with mis-identifying general problems with eating a lot of bread/processed food with gluten sensitivity (which is real, but different). People who don't need it are just eating the same bullshit in a fake healthy format, and in that sense it's similar to the low fat nonsense.
Heh. I spent a week at my friend's group house in Santa Cruz. A woman and I fell into the routine of doing the crossword together, hunched closely over the paper together. Midway through the week, she told me she had gotten lice and felt a trifle betrayed by a lover who hadn't mentioned it to her. I knew quite what she meant, although I never felt any lice.
How do so many people have friends with Crohn's? It's between 1 and 4 people per thousand!
Crohn's is the new Lyme disease.
On a semi-related topic, what the fucking fuck. I think I am going to die if I try this:
50 Back Squats 135/95 lbs
40 Pull-ups
30 Shoulder-to-Overheads 135/95 lbs
50 Front Squats 85/65 lbs
40 Pull-ups
30 Shoulder-to-Overheads 85/65 lbs
50 Overhead Squats 65/45 lbs
40 Pull-ups
30 Shoulder-to-Overheads 65/45 lbs
That's 120 pullups, before you get to anything else.
I know one person who has it, someone I worked with at a summer camp years ago. She's not exactly my 'friend' in any sense but the FB one, but I surely know 250 people. Not everyone would make their Crohn's status super public, but if someone is in and out of the hospital for a while before figuring out what's wrong, then word gets out.
70: Either each person with Crohn's has only one friend or the prevalence of Chohn's is really low.
73 is insane, unless it's spread over the course of several days. Who the hell does 40 pull-ups in a row? Unless you're talking about those toddler diapers, in which case my kids went through that phase.
I do think there are people who don't have gluten sensitivity but glom onto it, but I always assume that's not the case until I get to know someone better. I remember what it was like to be mocked for being vegetarian. I've had a couple of students be in tears for being mocked for their allergies (one was even afraid his skeptical peers would sneak peanuts into his food) and it made enough of an impression on me that I decided to consciously try to be more inclusive and tolerant. But I have also gotten to know people who were clearly hypochondriacs/picky eaters, and that can be very frustrating in social situations.
Don't wheat allergies have an ethnic component? I thought Native Americans can have a low tolerance for wheat.
Who the hell does 40 pull-ups in a row?
Almost no one does those routines as uninterrupted sets but even so that's a lot of reps.
70: 4 in a thousand is one in 250. How many people have more than 250 Facebook friends?
I know someone with Crohn's myself, although I wouldn't have called him a "friend" until now - I've got nothing against him, I haven't spoken to him in over a year, I don't even remember if we're actually Facebook friends or not. He's a friend of my ex-roommates. The point is, though, it just depends on what you mean by "friend." And there's confirmation bias, or maybe the birthday paradox is the relevant term? I mean, I'm sure there's some kind of disease that's unusually uncommon among friends of the commentariat, but the commentariat would be less likely to start talking about it in the first place.
And finally, as disproportionately well-educated people with the time and inclination to spend in front of a computer, we're all more likely to know this kind of thing than normal people.
Or maybe Crohn's disease makes people really extroverted for some reason.
Oh, I have a big axe to grind about people who didn't know they had allergies until the allergist pricked their skin and found they had two hundred allergies.
Hm, I got canker sores all my life, sometimes four or five at a time. I'd cut out this and that and still get them, and then went to an allergist about plain old seasonal allergies and he did the whole skin test and mentioned that I had a mild allergy to peanuts. I've mostly stopped eating them to see what happened and now (knocking on wood a million times) I get a canker sore every couple of months. It's great. So I'm not with you on this one.
I would have expected it not to be something that people talked about on Facebook, so you'd have to be close to know. I mean I don't think I have any Facebook friends who talk about their illnesses. But I guess if you were getting hospitalized it'd be a bit different.
I thought Native Americans can have a low tolerance for wheat.
We call it maize.
I thought Native Americans can have a low tolerance for wheat.
Huh, I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense that it might be the case.
Oh, turns out a woman I work with now has Crohn's as well. I don't necessarily find that it's something people hide, given that it affects everyday things like diet.
Don't wheat allergies have an ethnic component? I thought Native Americans can have a low tolerance for wheat.
That would make sense. The children of the near eastern neolithic have had 400 generations to evolve gluten intolerance out of their gene pool. Native Americans have had about 20.
I get a canker sore every couple of months. It's great.
The unsourced folk-medicine I've heard is that Northern Europeans and Ashkenazi Jews are supposed to have higher rates of gluten sensitivity. I'll look and see if there's any actual evidence of this in reality.
I know someone with Crohn's, too. She started making all her fb statuses bible verses so I hid them.
Gluten must have been considered a non-fattening thing at some point. There's this little exchange in The Women where Norma Shearer offers Roz Russell rolls, and she hesitates, and NS says "No starch--it's gluten!" (One only remembers this because RR then snarks in her inimitable way "have you ever known such a housewife...")
65.2 really breaks my mental image of Moby, who apparently doesn't frolic across the lawn while drinking rusty nails.
I know three people off the top of my head who have Crohn's, not counting internet people. Being involved with the online foster/adoptive community means I'm overexposed to people who are really into gluten-free/casein-free stuff. The woman who was blogging about her kids' (legit) PANDAS and celiac problems as well as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder stuff no longer writes about that, but there are plenty of others who are doing the diet without the diagnoses.
Hm, I got canker sores all my life, sometimes four or five at a time. I'd cut out this and that and still get them, and then went to an allergist about plain old seasonal allergies and he did the whole skin test and mentioned that I had a mild allergy to peanuts.
My dad used to get a lot of canker sores. He started gargling with Pepto Bismol on the premise that it coats your stomach, so maybe it would increase the lining in his mouth a bit and prevent it from getting ulcerated.
It worked great. Or at least as great as any solution involving gargling with Pepto Bismol could possibly be.
Yeah, there's some stuff on the internet saying that northern europeans are particularly prone to gluten sensitivity, but I don't see much sourcing.
I know three people with Crohns. But the 4/1000 thing seems about right: a long-distance friend of my mom, one of Jammies' cousins, and an old friend of college. There's a lot of people between those people.
You're all under arrest if you live in North Carolina.
The unsourced folk-medicine I've heard is that Northern Europeans and Ashkenazi Jews are supposed to have higher rates of gluten sensitivity.
This, on the other hand, doesn't make a whole lot of intuitive sense (except that those two groups would cluster together). It could still be true, of course.
Maybe someone said this already, but I think people just claim to be intolerant (and/or have allergies) because our culture (and most others, to be honest) is totally insane about harassing people about what they eat. So it's easier to say that you are gluten intolerant than to say you are trying not to eat gluten. Because if you say the latter, everybody wants to fucking know why, everyone wants to talk about how they love bread, or whatever. It's super super super annoying. It doesn't matter what the dietary restriction is. Unless you are kosher or don't eat pork because you're Muslim. Then people don't give you as much shit.
My partner is celiac and hates being one of those people with the dietary restrictions, people always ask like 70 million questions. And he wants to be the guy who will eat whatever and isn't picky, because that's who he was. I will say for my part that I am definitely not gluten intolerant or "allergic." But I eat a lot less of it just because we don't eat gluten at home, and now I rarely eat it when out because I now know that it makes me feel bloated, tired, and crappy. I'm not sick or anything. I just feel better when I eat other stuff.
I really wish that in general we could stop policing each other's food choices. When I decline a cupcake its like I killed a fucking kitten.
I meant to say "if you keep kosher." Human beings are only kosher if prepared properly.
My godmother who is a very smart woman got sucked into the Dadamo "Eat for Your Bloodtype" thing. She gave up wheat, but eats spelt. I went to a restaurant with her, and she had brought a few spelt cracker things to eat when they brought out the bread. I don't think that the blood type business is real, but I believe her that she feels better. She also finds that she feels better if she avoids tofu.
Human beings are only kosher if prepared properly.
Absolutely no cheese-humans.
I agree wholeheartedly with 96. I was a notoriously picky eater as a kid, and for a while I kinda-sorta kept kosher because it was a more socially acceptable way to explain some (but not all) of my dietary preferences. I stopped after a while because it became increasingly clear that kashrut didn't actually line up very well with those preferences.
I eat kosher hotdogs because I assume that it results in less asshole meat.
I thought about saying that I was allergic to something g in processed salad dressing so that I wouldn't have to eat it. I'm thinking about the people who have the bottles on the table and then push it on you.
100. Are you arguing that Jewish law is as it is because Moses was a picky eater?
103: No, but that's an interesting theory.
I once claimed to be allergic to apples because it was Rosh Hashanah and I was at someone's house and didn't want to say I just don't like apples. So then everyone was all, "I've never known anyone allergic to apples. What happens if you eat them?"
I think they were just curious and not trying to be shame me, but I just wanted them to leave me the fuck alone.
Claiming an allergy is a variation on the "I tried it at Lizzie's house" defense of my childhood. My parents had a rule that you had to try everything at least once. If there was something I really didn't want to taste, I would claim I'd tried it before. "Really? Where?" "Um, at, um, Lizzie's house."
"Actually, apples aren't kosher."
"Wait, but..."
"Yeah, they figured that one out a while ago. I guess someone should have told you guys."
My parents had a rule that you had to try everything at least once.
Now that there are about a dozen variations for each snack food, that would be a great rule for today's youth.
I was a notoriously picky eater
Stop blaming the victim.
"I was egregiously and repeatedly attacked by food that went out of its way to be unpleasant."
Stop blaming the victim.
I actually hated (and still hate) being called a "picky eater," so fair enough.
I'm not going to go so far as to blame the food, though.
processed salad dressing
My favorite convenience food! I go through a lot of this stuff, often eating it at two out of three meals a day. I occasionally make my own dressing, but it feels like a giant pain, all out of proportion to the actual effort involved.
I've never encountered a processed salad dressing pusher, though.
103: Woody Allen wrote that god didn't say we shouldn't eat pork; just that we shouldn't eat it in certain restaurants.
100. Are you arguing that Jewish law is as it is because Moses was a picky eater?
Well Islamic law is as it is because Mohammed was a terrible drunk.
And let's not even get started on Joseph Smith.
113: god didn't say we shouldn't eat pork; just that we shouldn't eat it in certain restaurants.
Well, He is an underachiever after all.
Well Islamic law is as it is because Mohammed was a terrible drunk.
Cite? I once knew a vicious Pakistani General who would tell you over a glass of brandy and soda that the Koran didn't forbid all booze but only some obscure concoction of fermented grapes that nobody outside the Arabian peninsula has ever heard of. Right.
a glass of brandy and soda
Is that an actual thing or just what happens when you get tossed back and forth between British colonialism and various Islamic rules?
"I've never known anyone allergic to apples. What happens if you eat them?"
For the record, my sister was highly allergic to them for most of her life. She got hives all down her throat; if she ate an especially juicy one, she'd get hives all around her mouth. She loved apples so much that she viewed this as an acceptable price to pay for eating them (and mind you, this is the 70s, when you were lucky to get Granny Smiths). By the time she went to college, it was all raw fruits and vegetables, including freaking lettuce. When Claritin came out, she'd keep it on hand for the occasional salad treat, although after awhile that didn't work anymore.
And then, at about age 35 or 40, her now-partner convinced her to try again (without medicine), and it turns out she can eat everything. How crazy is that?
Meanwhile, as you all know, I'm allergic to cheese when it's served after the entree.
Is that an actual thing
Brandy and soda is definitely a British colonial abomination. But it lived on among the sort of ex-colonials who were educated at Sandhurst. It isn't a bad way of getting drunk in hot weather, provided you don't use expensive brandy, which would be a criminal waste.
119: Maybe it was some chemical that was common and now outlawed?
I was allergic to alcohol (hives) for a month and then it went away. (Once kahlua, once wine, and once cough medicine, so it's not clear what else it could have been.)
Allergies do sometimes, I believe, inexplicably appear or disappear well into adulthood. My aunt, over 55, just lost her allergy to nuts.
her life improved a lot when it was suggested she cut it out of her diet.
Presumably because she acted on the suggestion, but I guess we'll never know.
111: some have more plastics in them than others
Does the kind with the plastic taste better?
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One of the things -- probably the thing -- I hate most about my job right now is that it's almost entirely non-collaborative. My conversations with cow-orkers are basically, "I need information about X so I can write Y."
In an earlier incarnation of this job there was tons of collaboration, largely with people I like and respect.
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salad treat
Your what hurts? (That's an expression for WTF that someone I knew years ago insisted existed in the Midwest but I've never met anyone else who knows it.) Salad. Treat.
It isn't a bad way of getting drunk in hot weather
Or in a stifling greenhouse, if I'm recalling the first scene of The Big Sleep correctly.
(That's an expression for WTF that someone I knew years ago insisted existed in the Midwest but I've never met anyone else who knows it.)
Buck's family. He says this constantly. After seventeen years I may as well, I'm not sure.
Salad. Treat.
Literally. Claritin was scrip-only and very expensive, so she hoarded them for meals when she'd really enjoy the salad and get to have a lot of it.
My mom took her to a number of doctors, none of them ever had an explanation.
Mind you, she could eat any vegetable thoroughly cooked. My mom speculated enzymes, since they're destroyed by cooking, but the doctor poo-poo'd that.
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Just got news that I've moved on to in-person interviews. Ann Arbor. WTF?
Sometimes I think half the reason I'm hunting for a job is just to be able to tell my current employer that I'm quitting--not the no longer having to work here, but the actual sit-down-talking-and-quitting process.
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I'd have guessed some pesticide residue. You could even imagine that there was a pesticide originally used on apples and then used on other things later, and now replaced by something else. Of course, you'd think that'd be easy to diagnose by switching to organic, where they use different pesticides.
130: It's like the southernism "Do what now?" which I've seen Apo and maybe a few others do around here.
I'm going to start saying "You want it where?"
My poor sister, mid thirties, who loves fresh apples for lunch, one day broke out in hives and her throat swelled shut while she was having her first apple in a while. Apparently now she is deathly allergic to the them fresh. She can't even cut them, it makes her skin itch and her eyes water. She can eat them cooked though. Strikes me as so sad.
Cooked apples are pretty awesome, though. Pretty much the only time I eat apples these days outside of a restaurant or juice context is my mum's cooked apple/melted Red Hots concoction for Thanksgiving.
130.1: I heard it, back in the days when "kiss my grits" was a thing.
I definitely buy more apples for sauce than I do for eating raw. But I would still say that raw apples are tastier..
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Watching committee hearings. The head of the Swimm/ing Po/ol Ass/ociation of Or/ange Coun/ty looks and sounds like 70% evil tobacco company executive, 30% zombie.
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137: I have the same thing. Apples, peaches, cherries, carrots, grapes pears.... Apparently, it's part of a tree pollen allergy -- birch, in my case. Really kind of sucks.
Wait, Choppo, I thought you liked your job?
The only food type that makes me feel out of it is meat in large quantities. Wheat products are my primary source of calories. Cheap, versatile, and yummy.
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First draft down! Now I see if any of it makes any sense at all.
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137: yeah, that's exactly what they told her. I think she doesn't miss the other fruits as much. Just thinking about it freaks me out, I would be so sad. Sorry you have it also. -(
143: I think he did until they cut his pay. Layoffs there too, right?
Ile, I'm taking a chance on allergy shots. Peaches are just too important to give up forever...
I think also his employer's at high risk of going under.
142: NO BIRCH BEER?! EVER?! God, that would be horrible.
Over the past couple of years it has become obvious that I have almost completely outgrown my hay fever. Mold and dust are still an issue, but they're not nearly as bad as when I was a kid. I literally used to have to spit a pint of mucus-and-saliva every day in my adolescence. It was gross. And my eyes would itch like all get out. Now I get maybe two very mild allergy attacks per year. So weird. My friend has been suffering terribly for like three weeks now, given our unseasonably warm winter and spring, but I've been totally fine. It's weird.
Also, I seem to be allergic to tzadziki sauce, but not, so far as I can tell, to any of the main ingredients. Must be some contaminant down at the factory.
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There's an asshole of a social worker who, I think was promoted, and his equal may have been slightly demoted. He got back from a vacation visiting his son in college. His son's frat (Infuana) had some sort of parent night. He mentioned that some of the parents behaved badly. I mentioned problems with some of the frat- like organizations at my school, particularly with women. He didn't exactly say that women who got really drunk at frat parties were asking for it, but he came damn close.
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I'm allergic to sunflower seeds. Apparently there's a correlation between people who experience this allergy and people who own birds (e.g.). They develop an allergy because of the pollen on the sunflower seeds in the bird mix.
I'm not sad for the loss of sunflower seeds, but it means there are a lot of vegetarian foods that I can't eat because sunflower seeds are so prevalent. Most veggie burgers are off limits. And sunflower oil is becoming increasingly popular and inserted into foods that used to be safe.
When I eat the seeds my mouth gets itchy and if I eat too much I feel this uncomfortable tightening in my chest that moves to my stomach and causes indigestion. So it's not fatal, just unpleasant.
Skinning the apples doesn't help?
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Further, on the bus today, I heard some recent college grads who worked in PR talking. One wants to go to law school, and plans to go back to PR. The other one said, "I feel like that could be useful, because in PR we want to do everything, and you really need to have someone who can say, 'Well, legally.' I think that the girl who wanted to go to law school may have actually said that she wanted to go to law school and after she finished she planned on figuring out what she was going to do with her life.
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Is this the food thread?
My housemate has just delivered to me a couple of leaves of ... something that was growing as a volunteer plant in the compost. The leaves smell very, very lemony. They are about an inch wide and long, about the size of, say, a basil leaf, but with what I want to call a scalloped outline (not a smooth outline as basil has).
I'm drawing a blank here -- I almost started to taste a piece, because I feel certain this is a food, but my housemate said, quite mildly, "Well, don't eat it. What is it?" Right, true, identify first.
So, folks: strongly lemony/citrusy smelling herbs/leafy things?
I've never seen or had lemon balm, so I don't know how we'd have wound up with that in the compost. Googling, I see that it's related to mint, so it's conceivable it could have wound up there via a loose tea.
Huh. This sure looks like the leaves that are sitting on my desk right now. I think you may be right, Blume -- thanks!
I don't know whether I'm interested in growing it -- can I make my own lemon/mint tea? We have spearmint in the garden.
But I think you may be right, Blume -- thanks!
Oops. Repeated myself there. It's been a long day.
If you let it grow in the garden, just be warned that it has a way of taking over. On the plus side, when you move the lawn where it's spread, it's like lemon Pledge all over.
159 sounds like lemon balm indeed. Lovers that stuff just outside one of the windows at one ofthe places we lived when I was a kid.
Good to know, Di. That makes sense, since it's related to mint, which has a way of doing the same thing. Maybe we'll move the bunch of it that's growing out of the compost to a not-garden portion of the yard.
Good work, Mineshaft.
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It is 8:47 PM and I feel exhausted and am going to bed. I despair of being able to fulfill the promises I have made to get things done in the next three days.
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Now that we've resolved the gluten thing and the lemon balm thing, how about a question about regional dialects and manners? The other day, I addressed an administrative officer (not a judge, but someone who fulfills a judge-like role) several times as "ma'am." She was in her 50s, I'd say, and she was asking me questions, and i thought I was being polite. Afterwards, my supervisor gave me some feedback and said I should know better that to call this woman "ma'am." My supervisor, who is also a woman in her 50s (and has spent nearly her whole life in either New York or Boston), said "ma'am" is disrespectful because it's something you only say to old women -- and it would be rude to imply that this woman was old. I didn't intend to be rude, and if that's how people understand "ma'am" then I'll avoid it. My own sense, which might represent the bleed-through of Southern mores into New Mexico, is that I should use "ma'am" with any woman older than, say, 25 who's a stranger or who is in a position of authority, unless they have another title that I should be using. I was honestly surprised by my supervisor's claim.
You'll be unsurprised to learn that I get called Ma'am all the goddamn time.
We made up "Ms." out of whole cloth, which works well; why don't we have a non-implicatory female equivalent to "Sir"?
165: I don't know. I kind of get a kick out of being called "ma'am" in a customer service context. "Miss" gets old after a while.
167: My Dad was kind of sad when someone called him "Sir" just before he turned 40.
165: I wouldn't take it that way myself (that is, if someone called me 'ma'am', I'd find it unusual but not offensive), but I'm not surprised by what your supervisor said: I've heard that reaction before. And 'ma'am' isn't in my professional vocabulary: I'd only use it myself to catch the attention of a literal stranger on the street in a sentence like "Ma'am, you dropped your glove."
I don't have a preferable substitute, though. Judges are easy, they get "Your Honor" (and I'm not sure if I do, but I might 'sir' a male judge. Still wouldn't 'ma'am' a female judge). But for an admin officer, or a court attorney, or something like that, I use the last name.
I get called sir fairly often and it doesn't bother me.
167: Because worrying about the implication is stupid -- the implication is that it's offensive to a woman to address her as an adult rather than an adolescent. Someone who's actually offended, herself, (rather than worrying that another woman might be offended) by being called 'ma'am' because of the implication that she's not girlishly youthful is being an idiot. I still don't use it because it's not conventional around here, and I think the potential for offense is why, but it's an idiotic basis for offense.
"Sir", "ma'am", and any hypothetical addition should all be contraindicated in informal settings.
For some reason I'd feel weird about referring to any quasi-judicial officer as ma'am. I don't think I've ever had a female arbitrator or mediator who wasn't a retired judge, though, and I've never been before an ALJ.
"Ma'am" is a problem at times, and yes, we do need a suitable female equivalent for "Sir". Let's get on that. (Relatedly, we need a female equivalent for "gentleman". There were many times when we had an open bookshop when I'd speak to a cow-orker in the presence of a customer, and if the customer was male, I could say "This gentleman is interested in blah." There was really no equivalent if the customer was a woman. I certainly couldn't say "This lady is interested in blah." A problem.)
Did your supervisor suggest an alternative?
My own sense, which might represent the bleed-through of Southern mores into New Mexico, is that I should use "ma'am" with any woman older than, say, 25 who's a stranger or who is in a position of authority, unless they have another title that I should be using.
I do this as well, though it doesn't come up that much, and I'd probably draw the age line at 35. Just feels weird for a quasi-judge, though.
Another New Mexican for 165.last, here. That seems to be more deeply ingrained than I'd imagined, as I've been called "miss" rather than "ma'am" a few times recently and have found it fleetingly irksome.
Supervisor did not suggest an alternative. "Your Honor" would have been inappropriate. "Ms. So-and-so" might have worked in some of the contexts. But the alternative to "yes, ma'am" would have been simply "yes," which feels less polite and deferential to me. I'll have to train myself.
I think I'd probably use whatever title the quasi-judge had (e.g., Commissioner would be "yes, Commissioner"), but I wouldn't read a yes full stop as rude or inappropriate. But these things are probably pretty specific to whatever environment you're in.
As the third New Mexican here I suppose I would be inclined to also use "ma'am" that way (and in others, as has been amply documented in the archives), but that particular type of situation doesn't come up much in my life. Back when I was rangering I would use "sir" and "ma'am" regularly with visitors, but our visitorship skewed older and southern so it never seemed like an issue.
176: Heh. A friend used "gentlewoman" -- always turning to offer an aside to the woman in question that we tend to refer to men customers as "gentlemen", so it's only natural. But that friend was way fucking charming, and managed to pull that off.
Funny thing is that I bet your supervisor wouldn't have remarked on it if you'd had a Southern accent, so it sounded like a regionalism. As a matter of logic, parallelism, and resisting stupid norms that you can't talk to a woman in a way that doesn't implicitly flatter her sexual appeal, I'd say keep using 'ma'am'. But you really don't want to antagonize people in a position of power, which argues for not doing it.
"Yes, Miss" or "Yes, Hobag" are probably not appropriate.
180: The title is, I think, "Hearing Officer," which is too much of a mouthful.
183.last: Yeah, I'll stop it, I guess. (Found out today that my client got a favorable ruling in this matter, despite my linguistic backwardness.)
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First editing pass complete. The answer to the last question is written in a fairly impossibly fruity style, and discusses at one a "confluence ... provid[ing] an evocative and profoundly rich landscape" which really is horseshit, but I don't know what to do about it.
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Teo's seduction vocabulary has come a long way.
183, 186: You could try affecting a southern accent.
70: I have Crohn's disease. Never posted before, but if I figured there was ever a time to do so, this is my cue. Anyway, you all now know an internet-person with Crohn's disease.
No, "Officer", as a mode of address, sounds unambiguously like 'cop'.
If we're listing diseases we have, I have lordosis and scoliosis.
Would it be remotely possible to simply ask: "How would you like to be addressed as we proceed?" or "How shall I address you?" when first being introduced? Or is that just not possible?
That sounds like an idiotic proposal, but I think of all sorts of scenarios in which an interviewer (say) simply asks an interviewee or interlocutor of some sort how he or she would like to be addressed. It's usually resolved with a short response, and then people can proceed.
It doesn't indicate old age, but it's not as simple as adult versus minor either. It has indications of marriage, authority, hierarchy, rather like "Mrs." I think a re-fashioning would be helpful.
People love being treated like cops.
Or at least, they love being treated how they assume cops are treated.
199: I also have that toe nail fungus thing. Life is a trial.
I certainly couldn't say "This lady is interested in blah." A problem.
Do others here find this usage of 'lady' problematic? It doesn't sound weird to me at all, and I'm quite sure I would say it.
205: It sounds weird to me. I'd say "This woman."
203: I think there is medicine for it. Or socks.
207: Yeah I know. But it doesn't work because of the immunosuppressant medicine I take for Crohn's disease. I'm turning into a one-note commenter pretty quickly aren't I.
205, 206: "This woman" isn't much of an improvement. I think I wound up saying "This customer", or any number of creative things like "We have an interest here in blah! Do we have anything along those lines?"
I would probably have said "ma'am" and I'm a goddam southern Californian.
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Fuck you, test. Get the fuck out of here. We are through, you hear me? Through.
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I use gentleman and lady as equivalent terms. For many years I began business letters using "Gentlepeople:" only to realize in my mid-20s that this was not, in fact, standard practice. I blame my father.
I would definitely NOT stop using "ma'am," unless your supervisor is somehow going to take it as a direct rebuke to her. My general experience is (that especially in a cross-cultural context) you ALWAYS want to err on the side of formality, and let the other person tell you if they want to become less formal.
There is a long history of younger white people referring to older nonwhite people by their first names and it's not a pretty one. I don't care if you are in NY, I wouldn't assume your supervisor is right on this one.
The Pirates and Critz won. Who knew?
I am not sure what younger white people referring to older nonwhite people by their first names has to do with it, Witt. Perhaps I missed something in Bave's recounting.
That said, I would have no problem using "ma'am" in the circumstances. "Lady" remains a problem as an equivalent to "gentleman", which seems to be an unfortunate side effect of things I'm not prepared to trace.
213: I use ma'am just about whenever there is any doubt. I was not tought that it was for old ladies.
216: Bave didn't mention race in his story, but I brought it up to offer an alternate explanation for why erring on the side of politeness is important.
Even leaving off a title or honorific -- especially if you would be using one with a male quasi-judge -- can be felt as impolite.
215.2: Wife and I both voted for Critz. Definitely a "be disappointed by someone new" kind of thing. He sucks, but Altmire has personally pissed me off for a longer period of time. The result were very skewed by their original areas: Critz 91% in Cambria (Johnstown) and Somerset, Altmire 69% in Allegheny and Beaver.
205: "Lady" in a retail context now refers to the people who do the work rather than to the customers, their social superiors. So, for example, in referene to a cashier, a UMC mother might say "Tell the nice lady."
Too bad Santorum was not still in the race to get walloped in his home state. (I think he saw that coming and it was one key reason he withdrew when he did.)
219: Ah, I see. Most of us are inclined to err on the side of politeness, I imagine; the conundrum in Bave's scenario was that he was told he was being impolite (on age-based grounds) by using "ma'am".
Though I've already said that parsimon's example with 'lady' isn't weird to my ear, so maybe I really just don't understand ways that word is used. But couldn't a UMC mother in a store also refer to another customer as a lady? "That nice lady was in line first, we have to wait our turn."
Yes, Blume's usage in 225 rings true to me.
I'm with Blume here. Can't see what's wrong with lady in that context.
220: It's not just a victory for defense contractors who put jobs in empty coal mining towns to get contracts, it's a victory for America.
I agree with my esteemed predecessors in 225–7.
Back a ways: I did, until the 4th round of layoffs and getting dropped to 60%. Now I am embittered.
Did Altmire's seat and Murtha's old seat get merged?
Huh. What happened to the old south of Pittsburgh, Washington and Greene County seat? I know that got carved up in some Republican friendly way.
Make something up then. I don't want knowledge that comes from outside this safe space.
I mean, losing a seat in this part of the state was required, but I don't know much more than that. Nothing has changed for Pittsburgh proper as far as congressional districts.
I think I'd use 'lady' in such a context, but I'd probably soften it with an adjective. Given that most of my professional contact is with students, "young lady/young gentleman" works well most of the time.
Academic norms we've discussed, but here I had a little fun because apparently the former dean REALLY likes to be referred to as Dean Snoot, but I don't think that former deans get to keep the title and it wouldn't occur to me that someone who introduces himself as Snooty Snoot and then calls me by my first name really prefers a title for himself.
I think I'd use 'lady' in such a context, but I'd probably soften it with an adjective.
"ugly lady"
I think I shall demand people address me as Candidate Tweety.
Although I'm pretty sure I'm not actually that yet.
The Republican-controled PA Supreme Court said the Republican-controlled redistricting was unconstitutionally shitty, but that was only for the PA legislature. As near as I can tell, the PA legislature exists to keep the minimum security prisons full and the PA Supreme Court overruled the redistricting because they are petty fucks and their budget was cut. (First clue: they said the redistricting was bad and but didn't say how and then flew to the Caribbean without telling anybody who to fix it with the primary two months away.)
240: I've been ABD since 1996 so show some respect.
Anyway, I voted today but I'm leaning toward that whole lottery plan for selecting leaders that xtranpel (sp?) keeps bringing up.
Thanks a lot, Moby. I've been happily avoiding knowing anything about the redistricting debacle just because I knew it would raise my blood pressure.
In happier news, I successfully registered a new voter today. Who says randomly exhorting strangers to vote isn't a winning strategy?
A lot of latinos, even latinos clearly younger than I, call me joven, which I kind of like. But I really like it when I get called jefe. Um,...damaz.
225: "That nice lady was in line first, we have to wait our turn."
That's a completely normal usage, but it's problematic as a counterexample, since it's presumably* spoken to a young child, and everyone present is aware of that.
"Lady" has picked up a fair amount of negative weight over time: we have usages like "my old lady" and "the bag lady" and "the cat lady" and so on. As well as "Hey lady!" The male equivalent, "gentleman", has remained clear as a term of respect, but "lady" is struggling.
* God, I hope it's spoken to a young child.
245.1: I'm pretty sure it was especially racist or something. I honestly don't know how they fixed it because they problems weren't in this end of the state. The Republicans did jam Critz and Altmire together, but Critz's district existed for no reason other than to make life easier for Murtha. The new district doesn't look any less fucked-up than the old one.
"the cat lady"
Cat Woman was already taken.
249: And turned into that pop hit, "Cat Girl, You'll Be a Cat Woman Soon."
That song should be retitled, "The Patient Pedo".
but it's problematic as a counterexample, since it's presumably* spoken to a young child, and everyone present is aware of that
It was chosen as a counter to BG's example, which was also speaking to a young child.
We also have "the crazy lady" and "the flower lady" and on and on. In none of these cases would "gentleman" be used for the male counterpart: rather, it would be "guy".
"Lady" has been more or less stripped of its use as a fundamental term of respect. It *can* be used so, at certain times, but it's not, any longer, the straightforward equivalent of "gentleman", I don't think.
I know that in French it only is for a married woman, but doing French wrong is the right of all English speakers.
I'm mildly amused to realize that this is probably why I made the error the other day -- last night? -- of rendering ABL (=Angry Black Lady) as Angry Black Woman.
A lot of latinos, even latinos clearly younger than I, call me joven, which I kind of like. But I really like it when I get called jefe. Um,...damaz.
What about esse? I just watched the first season of Breaking Bad and that sounds kind of cool when they use it.
Also, I not only have incredibly disgusting toe fungus--and it's pretty resistant to treatment; don't think I haven't tried--but also an allergy to peanuts that used to be very, very severe. However, it is no longer so severe; I know this because, when I was in Mexico City for a wedding a few weeks ago, I accidentally ingested peanuts on two separate occasions, and didn't go into anaphylactic shock, though I did experience a number of other unpleasant symptoms. So, uh, hooray! (Especially since I'd forgotten to bring an epipen.)
I love when all the dudes around our neighborhood call Jane mami.
245.1 - Have you been following the New York redistricting? Where the State Senate invented a new seat out of whole cloth and then overpopulated all the NYC districts so that they could make the new seat Republican? Because I hear low blood pressure is bad for you.
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold.
What about esse? I just watched the first season of Breaking Bad and that sounds kind of cool when they use it.
Huh, sounds like that show really is an accurate portrayal of Albuquerque (which I have heard from other sources).
190: Do I have to teach Bave a southern accent over the summer, then? Except I don't really have one. Except Bave says I do occasionally (usually if one regresses to an accent it's when one is tired or drunk, anecdotally.) I suspect I have southern intonation but not so much phonetics when I'm tired. Or when I'm on the phone with my parents. Which makes me tired. Or drunk.
I want to make a joke about Beyonce's stately pavane "All the single gentlewomen" but I'm both tired and still a little drunk.
Isn't it spelled "ese"?
I think so, yeah, but it's not the sort of term that is frequently used in writing.
That is, it would definitely be spelled that way according to standard Spanish orthography, but since it's a slang term I don't know if there's actually a standard spelling for it.
Urbandictionary has both--I don't know Spanish, so I had only thought to check "esse." Googlefight gives "ese" a 42m-to-38.5m edge, but because of the nature of the word, it's hard to tell how much of that is picking up the actual slang term.
Also because "esse" is a Latin word in its own right.
Spanish doesn't use ss at all, so to the extent that the term would be spelled using standard orthographic conventions it would definitely be ese. That's also the spelling for at least one other word with a different meaning (which may or may not be etymologically connected to the slang term), so I don't think Googlefight etc. are likely to be much help in sorting it out.
"ese" is definitely the preferred spelling on unfogged.
Had Trapnel seriously never heard ese in the wild?
It's probably relatively uncommon in Heidelberg.
Food allergies are extremely overreported. I mean, do whatever makes you happy, and I'm definitely not gonna make you eat what you don't want to, but chances are you're not actually allergic unless you have celiac disease or have a peanut allergy.
I do get a mild allergy from hard fruits, but it has to be something on the surface, because cooking and proper washing makes it go away. It doesn't stop me from eating them, but I might look a bit like a dog who has just eaten peanut butter as I scratch the inside of my mouth with my tongue.
Are you really surprised that I'm not exactly down with the gente?
Also, the OP is one of my favorite pseudoscientific beliefs. There's a plausible mechanism for how it could happen, but little scientific evidence either way. But it does play into my belief that our "conscious" decisions are usually anything but.
On terms of address, I'm firmly in the camp of dropping them altogether unless it's absolutely necessary, like in court. Outside of school, it seems to be much more of an American thing (and Southern at that) than British - I'd be quite surprised to be addressed as "sir" in the UK, except maybe by a shop assistant. And I really don't like it - it immediately introduces distance in the relationship with your interlocutor.
"Sir", "ma'am", and any hypothetical addition should all be contraindicated in informal settings.
Opinionated Sam: Johnson disagrees.
"Ma'am" is definitely what one calls people who were they male one would call "sir" - superior officers etc.
For non-chain-of-command situations I'd go for "Citizen". Depending on your age and background, this has nice overtones of either Revolutionary France or Judge Dredd.
Best line, delivered to a suicidal man on a ledge: "Don't do it, citizen! Littering the streets is an offence!"
I've said before here that C calls people sir reasonably frequently. He always makes it sound rather affectionate though. Which would be a bit weird coming from a shop assistant.
256, 257 - The French are being sensible, and dropping Mademoiselle in favour of Madame for everyone. (Ok, ok, all women.)
My mum, who is not at all annoying, and has not an ounce of faddishness, is mostly wheat-free and dairy-free because she worked out she felt better (fewer stomach problems, fewer headaches, fewer mouth ulcers) when she didn't eat them. I don't *think* it would be fair to make her suffer just to make LB happy, but I'm open to persuasion!
Objecting to "Sir" or "Ma'am/Madam" (dialect versions of the same word) is the sort of crazy that gets people going off on one about political correctness. They are completely value free terms for use when interacting formally with people you don't know and who have passed puberty.
There is apparently a high level of actual coeliac disease in Ireland. The theory is that high gluten grains like wheat grow badly here so most of our ancestors were eating oats. Oats in and of themselves don't usually cause problems to people who can't eat wheat, but as sold are often not wheat-free.
Even now wheat grown here is not suitable for making yeast bread. Hence the immediate widespread adoption of chemical raising agents in the 19th C. so that soda bread is traditional.
Even now wheat grown here is not suitable for making yeast bread. Hence the immediate widespread adoption of chemical raising agents in the 19th C. so that soda bread is traditional.
Interesting. I did not know that. What is it about Ireland that makes wheat grow badly? Too wet? Too acidic?
I would have dropped "Madame". "Mademoiselle" is more fun to say.
278.last isn't interpersonal distancing between interlocutors the real public faith of the UK? Certainly that's what I've gleaned from my weeks there.
Just remember, when addressing HM the Queen, it's "ma'm" - as in "ham". Not "Ma'am" as in "farm". She hates that.
278.last isn't interpersonal distancing between interlocutors the real public faith of the UK? Certainly that's what I've gleaned from my weeks there.
Yes, but it should be done through subtle social markers, self-deprecation and pervasive irony.
283: Oats, a grain which in England is generally given to horses but which in Scotland supports the people.
I think the point is that oats grow better on poor-quality acidic soil and in a short, wet growing season. Ireland's a bit further north on average than England and considerably wetter.
Even now wheat grown here is not suitable for making yeast bread.
This, on the other hand, is puzzling.
"the Irish wheat is much lighter than that grown in drier lands; weeds and grass spring up in abundance under even the best management, and the harvests are so wet and so troublesome to bring in that revenue suffers greatly... even the facts of nature become points of national controversy between England and Ireland. It can also be seen, however, how the public opinion of the ruling class in England -- and it is only this that is generally known on the Continent -- changes with the fashion and in its own interests. Today England needs grain quickly and dependably -- Ireland is just perfect for wheat-growing. Tomorrow England needs meat -- Ireland is only fit for cattle pastures. The existence of five million Irish is in itself a smack in the eye to all the laws of political economy, they have to get out but where to is their worry!"
-- Friedrich Engels, "History of Ireland", 1870.
Having tried and failed to make decent gluten free bread and pizza, it seems that good wheat has a LOT of structure, enabling all those great air pockets in good bread and crust. Stands to reason - back all you feeble scientists, I reason with my gut! - that it might be harder to digest. How long ago did wheat actually enter our diet?
I was happier - and thinner - when I put gluten out of my diet. But I moved to a place where wheat is like the tie that binds the culture together, so I've opted for crappy digestion over constantly making a big deal out of it. Nothing worse than being at a table with americans and italians negotiating what each american can/will eat and how that can be handled by the restaurant. It's difficult and a bit of an affront here.
How long ago did wheat actually enter our diet?
A bloody long time ago. Bread wheat is generally reckoned to be a cross of two wild varieties (emmer and einkorn) which were being harvested in the epipalaeolithic about 12,000 years back.
290: not enough dry/sunny weather for "harder" varieties of wheat (more gluten). The softer wheat grows ok in the south eastern counties. So standard "cream" flour sold here is not much use for yeast bread, you have to get strong white flour which AFAIK is made with imported wheat.
I don't think the Engels quote is contradictory - "lighter" probably is the same as softer, wetter and harder to harvest means less suitable, and otherwise he mocks the changes of opinion which are based not on local economics but what will suit the colonial power.
Personally both times I tried giving up wheat for a while I ended up putting on weight and not seeing any benefits. So despite 3/4 grandparents coming from the west of the country (where more of the population show "indigenous" genes) I clearly don't have wheat tolerance problems.
I once said "Excuse me, sir" to the back of a small, bald-headed person at the food co-op. Said person turned out to be an extremely unamused lesbian with a shaved head. Now I say "Excuse me," period.
293.2: no, I meant it was puzzling that the climate made the wheat different. But you've explained that. The Engels thing makes sense.
294: I got "sir" a lot when I had short hair, as has Lee. It once got her out of a speeding ticket because the cop was so embarrassed, but otherwise doesn't really have much impact.
I deliberately use "woman" rather than "lady" when talking to Mara about strangers. I do use "worker" for just about anyone in a service job, and should probably stop doing that. It started out as just short for "caseworker" and then she started using it for anyone who was doing a job (other than teaching, which is of course for teachers) and we've just kept up letting her say "I need ask the worker for more milk please" and so on. I don't have a strong position on "ma'am," but I am definitely not Southern in my speech. I don't like kids being forced to call me Ma'am or definitely Miss Thorn, ugh.
On a sort of depressing note: inspired by this thread, I did a brief search for euphemisms for "woman" and all the lists are very heavy with insults. Not at all true in the corresponding lists for "man".
I do use "worker" for just about anyone in a service job
And "bourgeois" for anyone wearing a suit.
298: "Euphemisms"? Words designed to make something bad sound good? I think you want a different word in this context.
Maybe AL's using "euphemism" as a euphemism.
@300
OK, "slang". I haven't had my coffee yet.
299, 301: I only say "worker" when talking to Mara, not regular people. And yeah, adding "the Man" is probably the next step.
But holy shit, my own quick search turned up this as the first example under "euphemism" on the Merriam-Webster website.
Cougar is the euphemism for a woman who has reached mid-life, who is single, financially secure and on the lookout for relationships with younger men--as in "prey." --Kerry Gold, Vancouver Sun, 17 Feb. 2001
305: Actually I see that it is the second example.
My actual search phrase was "slang terms for woman".
305. Merriam-Webster should be ashamed of themselves. Quite apart from being vilely offensive, that is not a euphemism.
As Blume said way back when, I don't get why "lady" is deprecated. "Could you please help this lady find her way to her seat" or the like ring perfectly fine to me in a service context [putting aside the whole broader issue of why we'd expect someone doing an ordinary service job to refer to anyone by a deferential feudal honorific -- if you're gonna be bust out the "gentleman" might as well use the "lady."]
I only say "worker" when talking to Mara, not regular people. And yeah, adding "the Man" is probably the next step.
Or if it's just some guy hanging around you could describe him as a drone.
if you're gonna be bust out the "gentleman" might as well use the "lady."
Heteronormative.
There's a common pattern where initially parallel terms accrue different meanings by gender, and the feminine term acquires a pejorative sense: think master/mistress, governor/governess, the funny thing where supreme court justices used to refer to each other as "Brother" but dropped the usage like a hot rock when O'Connor showed up and would have had to be a "Sister", come to think buddy/sissy were originally parallel childish terms for brother and sister... it just keeps on going.
"Lady" is a little weird -- it sounds off to me, but it doesn't so much sound insulting to the person described, as it sounds like the speaker is a generally uncouth person trying to be polite (unless the conversation is directed at a small child). I'm not sure exactly what's going on in my head, but if someone referred to me as 'this lady' I wouldn't think they were being offensive, but I would kind of think they were uneducated or lower class.
Joey periodically calls me "Captain," but then he turns around and gets mad when I call him "Number One."
I kind of agree with parsimon's original claim that "this lady needs help" rings differently from "this gentleman needs help", and her broader claim that "lady" is mostly used the way "guy" (and other informal male terms) is. But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that it always sounds informal/impolite, just that it's an imperfect substitute for gentleman.
I think it's come up before, but:
There is a long history of younger white people referring to older nonwhite people by their first names and it's not a pretty one.
I assume this doesn't refer to the tradition of referring to older nonwhite people as Mr. Leon or Miss Welthea*? You mean just calling them by first name, as if they don't deserve respect? Because I learned from observing black kids addressing their elders to do the Mr. FirstName thing. AB learned it from growing up in the South.
* IRL examples.
Hey lady, you got the love I need. Maybe more than enough.
I was a young man, I couldn't resist. Started thinkin' it all over, just what I had missed. Got me a girl and I kissed her and then and then... Whoops, oh Lordy, well I did it again.
Wrong thread?
Oh, and I totally get what LB means in 313.2. This may be due to the New Yorker in my language upbringing. When I hear "lady" in a lot of contexts, I hear a gruff service worker with an outer borough accent trying to be polite in his annoyance.
"Uh, lady, would you mind moving your shih-tzu? I can't get my cart through here."
and the feminine term acquires a pejorative sense: think master/mistress, governor/governess
Governess is pejorative? Just obsolete, I would think.
The reverse happens occasionally: princess=epitome of feminine beauty and grace; Prince=diminutive purple songster.
More of 313: What I always want to do about this sort of thing is reclaim the feminine term as positive (if Kagan referred to a concurring opinion as by her sister Sotomayor, I would kvell endlessly). I'd like actresses to remain actresses, and be recognized as serious artists without having to use the masculine word. But consensus public opinion disagrees with me with on this one -- what always happens is abandoning the pejorative feminine term and making the masculine the generic.
Middle Easterners (with whom I generally interact in a business context) frequently use Mr. [first name], which makes sense given their naming conventions. In my case, it sounds very odd -- I'm sure they are not aware of the connotations. Actually, I wonder if that's still current . . .
Governess is pejorative? Just obsolete, I would think.
When it wasn't obsolete, governess meant an upper servant who taught rich people's children academically unchallenging and unimportant material -- serious academics was taught by men. Governor meant (among other things) a man who ruled a large geographical region. They were not parallel, and not remotely comparably honorific.
Governor also meant a mechanical part that constrained speed.
The reverse happens occasionally: princess=epitome of feminine beauty and grace; Prince=diminutive purple songster.
In my idiolect, "princess" is an insult, meaning fussy and overly sensitive and demanding. "Prince" is semi-archaic, in the same register as buddy/sport/mac/ace, but is a compliment, recognizing that someone's done something considerate and effortful: someone helps you move furniture, you say "you're a prince".
To follow up on 320 last, which of you already knew, and which had to look it up on urban dictionary?
I knew, but barely -- I don't think I've ever heard "Mr. Charley" in that sense said out loud, only in print.
If one working class Englishman says to another, "You're a gentleman and a scholar, sir" it doesn't mean that he's referring deferentially to his friend having attended Eton and Christ Church; it means the other guy just bought him a drink.
Right, that's exactly the usage of 'prince' I'm talking about.
321: yes, I know the meanings, but there's a difference between being the name of a lower-status job and being a pejorative term, isn't there? Especially given that "governess" was about the only job allowed to upper-class women.
293: Was not aware of the aspect of wheat in terms of dry/wet. The actual mechanisms by which hard wheat is better for bread are somewhat interesting (from a discussion here on adapting hard wheat for growth in the Mid-Atlantic).
Soft wheat is easy to grind and produces fine-textured flour. The binding of the starch granules to the protein matrix is much stronger in hard wheat and more force is required to crush the kernel. This results in coarse-textured flour with more broken starch granules. Hard, or bread, wheat flour is generally preferred for any kind of yeast-leavened bread because damaged starch granules increase water uptake, resulting in soft bread. Broken starch granules are also more readily hydrolyzed by alpha-amylase, providing more fermentable sugars for the yeast.
Pejorative term is probably not quite an accurate description of governess (although I bet I could find a usage of 'governess' as an insult meaning something like 'prissy/bossy woman'), but my point is that the same word, differentiated only by the gendered ending, split into two words that mean completely different things: the masculine form very high status, and the feminine form quite low status.
I do use "worker" for just about anyone in a service job, and should probably stop doing that. It started out as just short for "caseworker" and then she started using it for anyone who was doing a job
I, for one, embrace my Mao-suited future
331: How about we just address everyone -- male or female, old or young, plutocrat or hobo -- as "Comrade!"? Who could possible object to that?
I just go with "Chet" or "Buffy". Most everyone aspires, so they're flattered, and in WeHo one can apply those names at random.
I liked the "Citizen" suggestion above.
Master/mistress is a weird one because both got turned into a respectable Mr/Mrs version to denote the bourgeois Everycouple, and the.words "master" (a young boy, fetish dude, some guy not the captain on a ship, and a great Metallica song) and "mistress" both took on odd meanings. Anyhow, I don't disagree on the general principle, but still contend that in an obsequious service context where the use of the word "gentleman" would be appropriate, "lady" is too.
After 1991 there was a period of a few years when Russians tried calling each other "Citizen" as a non-communist alternative to "Comrade" but it didn't work and now they just use "Man" and "Woman".
There was a homeless guy who used to say "Hi King" to every passing man and "Hi Angel" to every passing female. We could copy him, so long as we leave out the "yadda, yadda, yadda" that was his constant refrain.
335: "master" is the merchant navy version of "captain". "Master and Commander" implies that he's both in charge of sailing the ship (master) and in charge of fighting it (commander); navies used to split the two roles on class lines, because fighting was a gentlemanly activity and knowing what a maintop halliard was wasn't.
"Hi King" to every passing man
You're sure he wasn't just commenting on what he thought they were doing? "Hi King", "Strol Ling", "Wal King", or similar?
But 338 is no longer the case, right? I think the Merchant Marine has captains, and there's also some other dude on board known as the Master. OK, I don't really have any idea what I am talking about, but I am SURE that this is right without looking.
Halford, I note that the Crossfit FAQ page is full of intellectual-property bollocks about how you'd go about licensing it off them if you were starting your own coven gym. I hold you personally responsible.
I think the other thing about "Citizen" in Russian is that during communism, you weren't allowed to call yourself "Comrade" if you weren't in good standing (frex, if you were in jail), so being referred to as "Citizen" actually meant "Second-Class Citizen". No wonder it didn't take off.
330. Gosford Park. William McCordle to slightly down market guest who has been served dinner: "Don't wait! You're not the bloody governess!"
341.2: Was it common to refer to yourself in the third person like that?
336 reminds me I keep wondering idly if patronymics are still in use in Russia. At some point they replaced Gospodin, Gospozha, Gospozhitsa, which are more or less Mr. Mrs. and Miss, but (when I was current in these things) sounded utterly archaic, more like Lord and Lady and the normal way to address someone you'd call Ms. or Mister was name+patronymic. I have the idea this may have gone out at some point, though I can't remember why I even think so.
340: yes, you're right. The Merchant Navy's had captains since the 70s. My mistake.
"Hi King" to every passing man
Shades of Lord Buckley.
346: I think it was probably deinstitutionalization without proper community support.
My recollection from a conversation with my advisor's other student (both of whom are Russian), is that in Russia he would still use patronymics when talking to a professor. (This was in the context of not knowing what to call his advisor here. Everyone else just uses the diminutive of his first name, but his student was saying that felt really weird to do that as a student when talking in Russian.)
Your supervisor is insane. Female judges/hearing officers/administrative law judges get called ma'am constantly. I don't know what your supervisor is on about. Maybe I'm showing that DC is a Southern-type place, but really? I mean, I don't use ma'am because it feels unnatural to me (not my dialect), but I hear other people (clients, lawyers) use it all the time. The other interesting thing lawyers do here is use "Judge" as a form of address. I.e. saying "yes, judge" instead of "yes, your honor." I like to throw it in because I get really tired of feeling like I'm constantly genuflecting.
People also just use ma'am as like generalized form of respect. Half my clients call me ma'am even when they are older than me. Because I'm the "lawyer" and they see me as an authority figure.
I guess DC really kinda south.
She's not insane. I think anyone who herself heard ma'am as an insult would be insane, but I've heard it said often enough to know that it's a real risk (in the NE, at least) that it would be perceived that way.
I do like "Judge" as a means of direct address (although it wouldn't have solved Bave's problem). I don't use it myself much, but it has a pleasantly tough-guy-but-still-respectful air to it.
One thing I don't think anyone else has said is that I don't know if I've ever used the word "gentleman." Certainly not non-ironically.
I'm glad I so rarely have to call anyone anything.
Really? You don't think that women in that kind of authority-type position get referred to as "ma'am" on a daily basis? And at some point, even if you were inclined to be ruffled by it, you would have just gotten over it? I guess I really don't understand the NE.
On the other hand, if someone is sitting in a judge type position, I usually just call them your honor. Parking ticket hearing officer? Your honor. Public benefits administrative hearing chair person? Your honor. No one ever objected...
I call women in authority "ma'am" when I don't know what else to say. Also, women who are older than me but have no authority.
"Gentleman" is a very powerful word when used appropriately. I've used it to defuse more than a few dicey situations and preempt a couple of incipient fights.
"Ma'am, Y'r Honour, Miss" is the correct term for Lilliputians to use. At least as far as TH White is to be relied on.
On the other hand, I suck at interpersonal face-to-face interaction.
359 - misposted from the kissing thread?
Law formalities are so funny. The ridiculous charades we go through so we can have the aura of respect both annoy me and amuse me. One DC-ism that I've picked up, which I am sure people do other places (but didn't in Chicago), is that when you need a moment to look for something or talk to your client, and are pausing in your questioning/argument, you say "court's indulgence" as shorthand for the phrase "may I have the court's indulgence." It's totally ridiculous and I hate it, but I can't seem to stop myself from doing it because everybody else does it. WTF.
I'd feel pretty safe calling a literal judge 'ma'am', actually -- I'm not dead sure whether I personally do or don't, but that's a hyper-formal enough environment that it's clearly an acknowledgment of their status rather than any personal comment on them. But someone in an administrative position? I think it's a risk -- not that they mightn't hear it all the time, but it's something that might clang from a particular speaker. If it's not ruffling feathers, then keep doing it, but I think the risk of offense is genuine.
Calling not-a-literal-judge "Your Honor", on the other hand, is inoffensive but just wrong -- I'd worry that you look ignorant or unprofessional, like someone in the military calling an NCO 'Sir'. If it's working for you, maybe I'm overly cautious, but I'd ask around about whether that's normal.
I love the courtroom-speak. Referring to the other lawyer as "Counsel" amuses me endlessly.
I'd worry that you look ignorant or unprofessional
I guess. Maybe. It depends on the context. If we're having a hearing, and the person who is being addressed is responsible for making the decision, and sitting in a place where they are sitting there hearing testimony/evidence, I feel like saying Your Honor feels normal because that's what lawyers usually do in a hearing. If it's not a hearing but some kind of informal conversation, then maybe that's different.
I feel like a jerk making you worry about this, but I'd pay attention for a bit and see if you ever see another lawyer call an ALJ or a hearing officer 'Your Honor'. I do see why it would feel right -- they're in the same formal role as a judge -- but I think it's straightforwardly incorrect.
Referring to the other lawyer as "Counsel" amuses me endlessly.
Are you not "learned friends" over there? Bad luck, that's my favourite daft appellation of the whole lot.
On the other hand, if someone is sitting in a judge type position, I usually just call them your honor. Parking ticket hearing officer? Your honor. Public benefits administrative hearing chair person? Your honor. No one ever objected...
Try calling them My Lord and see how they take it.
I call women in authority "ma'am" when I don't know what else to say. Also, women who are older than me but have no authority.
But why call them anything, other than their name?
No on "learned friends". I could probably pull off an "esteemed colleague" if I were in a particularly fruity mood, but it'd be a stretch.
I've never heard 361.
To my ear, the use of "judge" as a term of address in oral argument rings a bit informal, and I don't use it. You see it hear all the time, though. Also, in a judicial context, something feels off to me about using "yes ma'am" even though I'd use it in civilian life -- either yes your honor or even just a simple yes feels better to me. But these may be idiosyncrasies. I've never been before an ALJ, so the issue hasn't come up; if there's the word "judge" anywhere in the title, though, I'm going with "your honor.". Definitely did that for a panel of retired judges serving as arbitrators.
Don't worry about it. At this point, the only people I appear before are actual judges. But when I was practicing doing Social Security appeals before ALJs everybody called the judges Your Honor, including my supervisor. But they sat up on a dais and everything, so it felt more judgey. I can see why it would feel weirder if the person was sitting with you at a table.
At this point, I'm basically resigned to the fact that judges are going to perceive me as impudent. I can't help it. Most don't like me (esp old white men, women like me better). Juries love me though :)
I did get accused of "insulting the Court" a few weeks ago. Just part of the job.
A similar situation is calling a graduate student teaching a class "professor." It's technically incorrect as an honorific, but it is the role that they're playing.
I've used "learned friend" but it's a way of softening things with a little light humor. "Counsel" is standard.
"Esteemed colleague" and "learned friends" both seem like excellent material for insulting references.
367.last: Because I don't always know the names of everyone I'm talking to and I'm horrible at remembering them anyway.
Huh, I just googled some, and I didn't even know there were federal ALJs -- I only know them as an NYS thing. "Your honor" might be right for a federal ALJ.
Mean judges are my favorite. Under pressure I get more and more elaborately polite with the complicated sentence structure and layering on the honorifics; it's not that I don't get rattled, but that's how I rattle. But it's really effective against bullying judges, who have a tendency to either back off or decide I'm their new best friend.
367.last: Because I don't always know the names of everyone I'm talking to and I'm horrible at remembering them anyway.
But outside of certain formal situations where it's actually disadvantageous not to use them, there's almost never a need to. Just say what you want to say and leave off the honorific. Problem solved.
If you need to get somebody's attention, sometimes you have to call them something.
"Esteemed colleague" and "learned friends" both seem like excellent material for insulting references.
"Learned friend" certainly is. Though the parliamentary convention that those on your side of the house are "My honourable friend" and those on the other side are "The honourable lady/gentleman" is better. The level of contempt that a good parliamentary speaker can get into "honourable gentleman" is amazing.
My response to the judge who accused me of insulting the Court? I said "Your honor, my apologies if it appeared I was taking issue with the Court's decision. My issue is with the government's position."
Judge: "oh, so you were going after the government, not after the Court."
Me: "To be perfectly honest, yes."
Judge: "That's better, then."
It was pretty funny.
Yeah, turns of phrase like that can very concisely get across "Hey judge, did you notice this guy's an asshole? And yet despite the fact that he's an asshole, I'm still not acting like an asshole."
381 to 379, and 380 sounds awesome.
"Learned friend" is hilarious. I've never, ever heard that. Love it.
Under pressure I get more and more elaborately polite with the complicated sentence structure and layering on the honorifics; it's not that I don't get rattled, but that's how I rattle.
Me too. The more thrown I am, the more polite I get.
Ginger Yellow is articulating the very opposite of my usual views. I like honorifics precisely because they introduce a distance, which is appropriate for people who aren't friends but have reason to interact. I like to call them by a title (the highest one I can find for them) to honor the work they've done getting it. I'm a bit more formal than most of my local friends, which I attribute to having all Asian-Am friends growing up.
If you need to get somebody's attention, sometimes you have to call them something.
You really don't. "Excuse me!" works fine on its own.
If you need to get somebody's attention, sometimes you have to call them something.
Hey! You!
I'm not sure why not, but in the literal shouting at a stranger context, having a vocative noun in the sentence really does seem to help. "Excuse me!" doesn't work unless you can make eye contact. "Ma'am? Excuse me, ma'am?" makes someone's head turn.
"Cuntychops" is always a good choice.
I'm sure you can always find ways to avoid direct address, but it gets really awkward in many situations. If I were gracious, I could probably introduce myself and get the person's actual name and then remember that name.
OT: Re French elections. Hollande is appealing to the FN electorate by saying that he understands that some people might want to express a protest vote out of frustration with economic distress. Sarko is courting it by saying that Le Pen is a good democrat, that the FN is perfectly compatible with 'republican values', and senior UMP figures are talking about how Hollande is relying on the 'mosque vote', and that 'Yes to France' (the FN election slogan) is 'Yes to Sarko'. Etc, etc. Sarko is also seeking to shut down those UMP figures that are expressing unease with this strategy and saying that in the upcoming legislative elections they'll support the PS in any PS-FN contests (two round election, single member constituencies, candidates who get more than 20% of eligible voters go into the second round)
388: my best friend's father was outraged when a particular long term boyfriend broke up with in a cowardly fashion and began referring to him as "Cuntlugs". (myself, to avoid poisoning with bitterness I stuck to terms so mild they were hardly pejorative at all, like "head-the-ball".)
