If it's at some dumb thing, I just finish my drink and say I need another.
Technology to the rescue, fish the phone out of your pocket, look at it with a puzzled frown, say its been nice talking with you and then walk over to the window.
2: Being sure to let them know you have Pokemon Go open.
The John Hodgman & Elliott Kalan podcast I, Podius repeatedly admired how Brian Blessed playing Augustus would give a deep, meaningful look and say warmly "We'll talk more later."
If it's at some dumb thing, I just finish my drink and say I need another.
Draining the full drink in one and then saying "ah, my drink appears to be empty. Excuse me" is Hugh Grant in Four Weddings.
Technology to the rescue, fish the phone out of your pocket, look at it with a puzzled frown, say SOMEWHERE A CRIME IS BEING COMMITTED
7: The crime of TEDIOUS CONVERSATION! I must FLEE!
"I don't want to stop you from mingling"
I have a terrible time when people say, "Well, I don't want to keep you too long" or "Well, let me let you go," on the phone, where I have the impulse to be a childish ass and explain that I'm fine, are you talking about yourself here?
But generally I do want to go, so I bite my tongue and let them off on a technicality.
Pour out your drink somewhere while maintaining eye contact and then say "Well, I need to get another drink, nice talking to you."
https://x.com/oblivion_rtf/status/1779374035580707266?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
I forgot that I intended to include this graphic in the post.
Sometimes in class, when I'm helping a student, and they've gotten un-stuck but are looking to me to prompt the next move, I'll just say "I'm going to back away now!" and walk backwards slowly, sort of a pantomime of Homer Simpson receding into the bushes. I think I'm funny.
Yes, more graceful escapes would be nice - though I suspect that it's more that people need them to escape me. In a room filled with strangers, I'd rather chat with the five people I know -- though I have been better at circulating during the company holiday party. (Part of that was successfully getting to know more than a table or two full of people, so getting in an annual "nice to see you" to everyone is more engaging.)
If you really want a technology to the rescue! option, phone on vibrate and set a timer to buzz every x minutes so you'll always have an excuse?
If you're in the middle of a conversation, "Well bye" seems a bit abrupt. Maybe, "Won't keep you," as per 18, "Sorry, must run" or the like. Then, "Well bye", as you're going through the door.
"I'm going to go catch up with some other folks!"
(I use some of the others mentioned too, but I think people actually appreciate the honesty of the above. The trick is to say it in an authentic and cheerful way. Like: Of course we all agree that we are here to talk to a variety of people, and therefore no one conversation should go on to too long!)
This doesn't answer the OP, but I appreciate this post which has a list of cases for which the "Irish Goodbye" is appropriate.
"I've got to see a man about a horse."
23. In Britain, saying you have to see a man about a horse/dog usually means you need to go and piss. Of course it's open to you not to come back.
23. In Britain, saying you have to see a man about a horse/dog usually means you need to go and piss. Of course it's open to you not to come back.
24-25 If you append, "I may be some time" is it then acceptable to leave? Or does that only apply in Antarctica?
It is very strange how that story has become almost exclusively a punchline.
The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork used "please do not let me detain you" which is appeallingly menacing and ambiguous.
I'm a big fan of the Irish Exit, and the linked piece was good.
24 is true of my idiolect as well.
If you say, "I need to use the bog," it means you are in the market for a horse.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PVrEwCa8nSA
What happens if you need to drain the dragon?
Unless you don't care about voiding the warranty, you need to take the dragon into a certified shop.
Before or after dropping the kids off at the pool?
Today, parents usually stay at the pool to supervise the kids.
That makes the euphemism even grosser.
Everybody poops. But only some, euphemistically.
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Okay, that's forty. It's hard watching President Shafik continue the self-immolation trend -- I wonder if she simply hasn't had enough time in the U.S. (hired from the UK last year, although she lived in the U.S. in an earlier era) to realize that you never, ever, ever try to appease the anti-woke right? It's gruesome.
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Unfortunately my suspicion is that a woman willing to fight back hard on principle would have been blocked from the corridors of power by some mixture of factors long ago. You're appointed to this role to bullshit and compromise, and men do it too, but IME they're at least given some license to act like they have power.
I'm sure the linked piece on Irish Exits (though the actual Irish people I know claim that a departure is more like Southerners in the US, who commence to saying good-bye and then take about 30 minutes or more to leave)(interestingly (perhaps) the technique is known as a French Departure here in Germany) is interesting, but the people who made the website think that 1500 partners are absolutely essential to serve the page, and no.
I've been saying "Good talk; thanks for sharing." when I want to leave a conversation.
I also have a thing with my friends where I abruptly rush the ending of our conversation a couple beats before it feels natural.
You sound like my boss on a bad day for both of us.
"So far 54 of the attackers have been put out of action, and 40 of their colleagues have been captured and are in custody, effectively bringing sanity to the region,"
You couldn't even stop a handful of peaceful protestors at UT with that kind of force.
43- oh is it one of those language circles, where a set of countries all blame some odd custom on one another? In tennis playing two against one is called Canadian doubles in the US; in Canada it's called Australian doubles; in Australia it's American doubles.
In swimming, I've heard the Australian crawl called the American crawl. I can't remember if it was an Australian who used the second.
One of the college protesters at UT should bring an assault rifle to campus thus assuring that DPS takes no action.
It says they're still publishing for now.
48: Probably! I'll have to slip out for some research.
the actual Irish people I know claim that a departure is more like Southerners in the US, who commence to saying good-bye and then take about 30 minutes or more to leave
This has also been my experience with actual Irish people. I wonder if it's just one of those cases where you use the nationality you hate as an adjective for "bad/wrong". Like "French leave" which is taking time off work without permission; "Dutch courage" which is fake courage due to being drunk; "Chinese fire drill" which is a chaotically badly managed situation; "American cheese", etc.
OT: a slight rabbit hole has led me to discover the novel "Johnny Got His Gun", which sounds pretty grotesque but has an interesting publication history. Written by the Communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, published as WW2 broke out and serialised in the Daily Worker as part of the Communist effort to undermine US support for the war against Nazi Germany. On 22 June 1941 Trumbo suddenly changed his mind about the rightness of the anti-Nazi cause, as did the Daily Worker, and they stopped serialising it and took it out of print.
Trumbo, of course, later became one of the targets of HUAC.
That's not the funny bit.
This is the funny bit:
"In his introduction to a 1959 reprinting, Trumbo describes receiving letters from right-wing isolationists requesting copies of the book when it was out of print. Trumbo contacted the FBI and turned these letters over to them."
As any good patriotic American should have done!
54: Interesting! For me, "Chinese fire drill" was more like teen silliness, where a bunch of people would get out of a car that was stopped at a red light and then run around it before getting back in, ideally before the light changed to green.
Hmm, I haven't heard that sense - only heard it as a synonym for something like "clusterfuck". Lots of people running round without direction.
I think "Chinese fire drill" is a bit different from the others, because it's using "Chinese" to mean specifically chaotic, not just bad in general. "In a worse state than China" was a common phrase up to the 80s, meaning roughly the same thing.
I've heard it used both ways. Either way, you can sometimes grab someone else's car.
I have heard of 56 as well, although not having been around teenagers driving cars never seen it actually done. But it's not actually different, it's just an particular piece of clowning relying on the same pejorative.
Is there a Canadian girlfriend equivalent in other countries?
62: I think the British equivalent would be "you wouldn't know her, she goes to a different school" though I never heard this myself because when I was a kid everyone's girlfriends went to a different school.
BTW, I think I brought up the awkwardness of the last word in the case of email exchanges (and by extension text threads or even blog comments*). Does not happen that frequently and it is less personally awkward but the interaction lacks body language, tone of voice, and the unambiguity of physically removing oneself. Also more broadly, the cooking/cessation of relations with casual friends and acquaintances--canonically, the Christmas card list.
*AIHMHB, I've envisioned a blog called "Sad Puppies" consisting of the last comments in blog threads.
When correctly viewed everything is awkward.
Supremes over the last two days have been letting their freak flags fly. And Roberts seems to have dropped his 'go slowly and pretend to preserve the integrity of the institution' act.
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Via an obscure vocabulary word lady on Instagram* a thread-appropriate word; 'finifugal': hating endings; of someone who tries to prolong or avoid the final moments of a story, a relationship, or some other journey.
*A few months back she had a great word for the first part of our stay out here in Santa Fe: apricity: the warmth of the winter sun. Not generally a Pittsburgh thing.