This is my last day in California, and you people have filled up the cosmic thread I started here. You know there’s only one sentiment I can express here, and the words to this song are just perfect.
On the day I went away… goodbye…
Was all I had to say… now I…
I want to come again and stay… Oh my my…
Smile, and that will mean that I mayCause I’ve seen blue skies, through the tears
In my eyes
And I realise.. I’m going home.Everywhere it’s been the same… feeling…
Like I’m outside in the rain… wheeling…
Free, to try and find a game… dealing…
Cards for sorrow, cards for painCause I’ve seen blue skies through the tears
In my eyes
And I realise.. I’m going home.I’m going home, I’m going home.
My mascara is running. I can’t go on. You’ll all have to keep chattering away for me.
@ Jadehawk #494
Despite having had it made quite explicit – repeatedly in some instances. Such terribly poor reading comprehension – almost certainly resulting in part from you not even bothering to give it an honest go. But that, sadly, is the norm here (as elsewhere).
@ Nerd of Redhead #496:
Another misrepresentation from another pharyngulite regular. The gang’s certainly starting to weigh in consistently on the wrong side (again).
Note, once more (ie in the just referenced post), the complete lack of evidence and reasoned argument accompanying all the false assertions made by the gang members. They all support each other without caring to honestly evaluate the truth of the matter (a lie of omission) and/or perhaps do so with more overt dishonesty (a lie of commission) having already observed their fellows to be in the wrong but being unwilling to concede it, preferring instead to pile on the chosen victim-of-the-moment anyway.
You are hypocrites. You don’t follow your own claimed standards. You should be finding yourselves to be disgusting. You should be calling each other out on it. Yet you don’t. It’s all very revealing.
cilantro
I propose that prescriptive grammar exists not as a preventive, but as a brake to language change, and as a generator of copious documentation of the rate and directions of change, by way of lengthy disputations such as these, for the benefit of generations of language students yet unborn. :^
If the reaction to cilantro is genetic then it must be recessive. My wife and I both like the taste and our daughter loathes cilantro.
@ ‘Tis Himself #500:
That wasn’t the claim you were making though. (NB Should there be any honest readers here at all other than myself, the track-back to check is the posts #493, #488, #482 and #476. This is a challenge the dishonest and lazy will undoubtedly skip.)
You’re shifting the goal-posts. Something which you should know by now to be dishonest and wrong (on the internet or anywhere else). I see what you’re doing even if you’re hoping that no-one else does. I note once again your failure to make an honest, evidence-based argument – despite you apparently wanting to be on the side which does. Hypocrite.
See how I, unlike you, can and do provide the evidence to support my claim – because, unlike yours, it is a true claim and I genuinely do hold myself to high standards.
This habitual low quality and abusive posting pattern of pharyngulite regulars is something which it is worthwhile to note, every so often. It remains to be seen whether any of you will ever become better people as a result of finally being disgusted with yourselves; or whether any lurkers start to recognise what you’re all really like. It does, unfortunately, require them to have reasonable reading comprehension and intellectual honesty themselves.
Thank you, Carlie.
The article to which Rorschach provided a link for more info on Transient global amnesia included this: “The most commonly cited precipitating events include vigorous exercise (including sexual intercourse), swimming in cold water or enduring other temperature changes, and emotionally traumatic or stressful events.” I read this after a visit from my hunky boyfriend, so I guess that was a narrow escape! I will make up for my risky behavior by going to sleep early (well, earlier) tonight.
Regarding the calcium crystals in the inner ear and resulting vertigo, I’m pretty certain I don’t have that problem. My brother had that kind of vertigo several years ago, and from that very cause. He experienced several bouts of it before he got it diagnosed. His vertigo was really pronounced and he didn’t suffer loss of memory or confusion, just awful vertigo. Damned good thing we weren’t climbing up or down some cliff at the time.
I’m trying to think about what a “class-free” version of American Standard English (e.g.) would look like.
Plurality rules on a case-by-case basis?
Or what?
*tries so, so hard to resist inquiring about the mailman*
How do I get to be sacred?
I hallucinate on a fairly regular and minor basis. This is completely different from delusions (of grandeur or otherwise), even though one often begets the other.
There seems, from my limited research, to be some evidence that many delusions are also of neurobiological origin, the way that hallucinations are, but I think these delusions are in the minority.
Seeing / hearing / smelling / testing / feeling (i.e. sensing) things that aren’t there is not neurotypical, but is devoid of any deeper meaning.
Using hallucinations (real or fabricated) to score followers, lovers, fame, fortune, etc. should be limited to professed entertainers.
If the leadership of the Mormon Church came out and said “We are doing this for the lulz, not from any higher authority” they’d still be bad people, but their position would be more defensible as freedom of speech.
*and, obviously, fails utterly*
I think the canines on vampires are also meant to emphasize their predatory nature, both for hunting and for sex. They sometimes retract, in these days, in tandem with the “softening” of the vampire’s character in modern fiction (and fang-porn); and to help the vampire “pass” in the society he is emo-ing his way through. After all, if he’s spotted in Chapter One as a vampire as he moodily stands on the side-lines of the party, brooding over how he doesn’t fit in, and is staked by the end of Chapter Two, he may never meet the heroine/love interest, we haven’t got much of a book, we haven’t got any paying customers, and we haven’t got any prospect of TV or movie rights.
“Stealthed”, “safe but dangerous” vampires make good monetary sense.
Sven @ 502
You’re killing me, I eat bunches of the stuff a week ( my diet is heavily based on south east asian cuisine ). Nonetheless I shall overlook this trangression of taste and you will remain gorgeous to me.
Lynna
Count me in for helping too when and if you need assiatnce. Don’t be shy in asking. I’m sure someone here can work out a way to make it logistically happen.
Pygmy Loris, Tis, Nerd, Jadehawk, A.Noyd and whoever else has been called out by SEF
I’ve always wanted to be in a gang so can I join? We could hang out at lunchtime and make fun of the pompous assclams ( nod to SC there).
And be sure to video it for YouTube!
‘Tis Himself (#504)
Or polygenic? Maybe the “reaction” is a combination of traits, one or more of which is polygenic. For me, the taste of the cilantro is not exactly what’s unpleasant about it. Mushrooms are nasty but they smell and taste like food. Disgusting food, maybe, but food. Cilantro really does “taste” like pain made into a flavor on top of tasting like soap. Not only that, but it dominates whatever it’s mixed into, particularly the fresh stems. Most other things I don’t like the taste of don’t do that.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Sven DiMilo (#507)
Hmm, I know, we could make Lolspeak the new Standard English!
Cicely
Nothing to do with fangs per se but I just got back from grocery shopping and saw a woman with a cute t-shirt on. It said (in that gothic spidery writing):
” and then Buffy staked Edward. The End”
BoSOM, there’s a youtube clip that goes with the t-shirt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM
Bride of Shrek,
That sounds like a plan. I do so love making fun of pompous assclams over a tasty meal.
Ha! Pretty funny verbing.
But ’twas a mere link, posted for Ms. A. Noyd. Personally, I love cilantro. I well remember my first taste, at 22 (my mom was not exactly the fresh-herbs sort of cook). “Yum,” I said, to the woman who would later become both my first wife and my first ex-wife, who had just made and served a Chinese chicken salad extravaganza as part of our pathetically awkward little courting thing, “what is this shit?”
Miki Z @509
lol. yeah, I noticed that too. Is it a typo? Should “sacred” have been “scared”? With mormons, there’s no way to tell, so I just posted the original, with the error (probable) intact. Mo’ better funny that way.
Good point. I agree. They are doing it for the power trip, and for the money — that’s certainly one flavor of lulz.
They are stocking up on orphans from Haiti at the moment, which would also be funny, except that there are real children involved. There are morgasms over the Haiti rescue all over Mormon Times and lds.org. That’s lulz mormon style.
Thanks ever so much, BoS,OM.
A club to discuss assclams sounds good to me. We need T-shirts too. The T-shirt could credit SC.
Anything not related to elephants is
irrelephant
Bride of Shrek and Jadehawk,
I must have that T-shirt, and the remix was awesome!
My bf rented Twilight because we both like vampire movies. After we watched the movie we looked at each other and said “Edward was the most boring vampire ever!” I read the book later just to see how bad it was, and, man, is that book awful!
Paypal?
I, for one, can’t use Paypal. Due to ongoing problems I have canceled all of my credit cards. Perhaps for those of us who would have to send a physical check, PZ could accept them and send them on to Lynna if she didn’t feel comfortable revealing her address to people she doesn’t know. I could send a check to PZ c/o UM-M even.
Did anyone else see xkcd today? I know it’s completely irrational to feel sorry for Spirit, an inanimate object, but this comic tugs my heartstrings.
In your case being an asshole and having an overinflated ego are two separate things. Your ego is much too large for anything else to fit in and it’s certainly too large to fit even in your enormous asshole. How silly of me not to realize that. My apologies for conflating your massive ego and your massive asshole.
The glaring incoherence must have blinded me.
It is curious to see the heights to which ego can inflate the human mind.
It is quite clear that you have not used a toilet in quite some time. This cannot be healthy.
Which is online, I note.
Hm. I note that you left out some important context.
What were these alleged wrong interpretations and wrong shapes, I wonder? Is there anything to corroborate Wieger’s claims?
Hm.
The book has 820 pages, and not all of them can be previewed.
One “mistake” that I can find, ?, zhé, looks like a variant that was chosen over an alternative. I can’t find anything that gives more detail on these alleged mistakes, and how it can be certain that they are mistakes.
Me, too.
I wish I were more of a low life scum so that I could wish that SEF get raped just so he would know how sick his comparison is. Instead, I want him to sit in the same room as newfie and get into a farting contest.
Ah, the heartstrings
aka chordae tendinae
It’s the papillary muscles that tug ’em.
And how. Got to make Dan Brown happy that someone else has taken the crown for the least-capable writer to sell a ridiculous number of copies of an awful book.
vanitas@368:
I’ve never acclimatised to the summers here, and this is despite spending a few years in various similar places in California. On the other hand, I’ve got no problems with the cool winters and rain, albeit when the mistral really gets going it’s obnoxious—as is the locals tending to overheat the buildings in winter.
In fact, my move here was the first time I’ve ever moved south in my (adult) life. I’ve a friend from Alaska, and she points out she’s always moved south, and finds my counter-directional history strange…
Nothing as it turned out. I started yawning and took the hint and went to bed. Don’t recall any dreams about sweet transvestites, science fiction double features, or what Pee Zed started this subthread with… tRHPS.
@ Bride of Shrek #512:
And another of the pharyngulite regulars returns and, unsurprisingly, chooses to side with the established in-group members who are already in the wrong, rather than caring about the truth of the matter. So very predictable. It would be far more unusual for one of you to suddenly behave decently instead.
SEF
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out I ever left in the first place.
Actually SEF, I’ve been waiting for you to acknowledge me because until you did I wasn’t in “the gang”. Now I am. My intitiation ceremony is complete. (apart from the part where I have to snog Janine but, geographical distance aside, thats totally a given). I am now GANGED UP.
Bwaaa haaa haa haaa
PS Is there a point that you realise none of us are taking you seriously and you get all frustrated and leave?
Lucia Zedner, Mary Bosworth and Professor Ian Loader.
It’s only a short introductory course (officially titled Criminal Justice and Penology) that I chose for one of my third-year options. I’m finding it quite hard, though; I’ve never studied this kind of social-science course before, and the type of thinking required is quite different from the black-letter law subjects I’m used to.
P.S. By way of background explanation (since you’ve asked about this in the past): In the UK, unlike the US, law is an undergraduate degree (usually called the LLB or Bachelor of Laws, though the Oxford course is described as a BA for traditional reasons). So I started my law degree at 18, immediately on leaving secondary school. I realise this differs significantly from the system in the US, where law degrees are graduate degrees and are only taken after first completing a bachelor’s degree.
@ Owlmirror #527:
No, I didn’t. Since I was having to type it out manually (from some rather small print at that!) I left out the chinese characters and other unimportant stuff. My evidence that it was unimportant for the context is in the fact that you had no trouble finding the passage! So where’s your evidence to support your claim that that part was important? Important for what? Anything more substantial than merely an excuse to quibble?
Read the manual. You asked for a citation and I gave it (rather easily, because I take the trouble to know how I know what I know). Asking me to now do all your homework for you is just moving the goalposts.
The characters themselves!
Note that I was already aware from my own observations of Chinese characters that there were errors in some groupings. So that much is self-evident (if you can be bothered to study, which I’m suspecting you can’t). The only bit which I’m temporarily granting to Wieger’s authority (since I don’t own any relevant ancient documents myself) is the date and names involved in particular errors arising.
blf | January 30, 2010 4:06 AM:
You should be grateful the Alien Memory Erasing Machine works on you.
SEF, I don’t get why you’re getting so worked up about a trivial matter of English grammar. Is it really worth fighting tooth-and-nail for your position, and pissing off absolutely everyone (including those of us who aren’t involved in the argument at all), just for the sake of winning a distinctly unimportant argument?
Deep Rifts over English grammar ?
Srsly ?
I think I’ll pass.
@ Bride of Shrek #534:
And yet there was a significant gap in your joining in on such things (see also another recent high gang activity thread) and you feigned non-membership in #512. I’m not like you lot, who are so casual in your dishonesty. I actually take the trouble to check things.
Is there a point where you realise that I’m unimpressed by your opinions, given how shoddy those opinions and your (collective) ongoing bad behaviours are? Why ever would you imagine that I take any of you seriously in that way? It must be your own massive ego(s) talking. You certainly don’t have the evidence to support such a view. :-D
Whereas, I take care to make sure my opinions are well supported (as repeatedly demonstrated above). All I have to do is continue being in the right.
Walton @ #538
Personally I have no background in linguistics and no knowledge whatsover of the debate that ensued.
What I do have a problem with is someone who compares the trauma, grief, physical and emotional pain of a man or woman getting gang-raped to themselves getting disagreed with by a few people…and then tries to fucking JUSTIFY it.
So your comment is pertinent. I am also wondering why SEF has such a hard-on for winding this topic up to the degree he/she would make such a completely arsehole statement, and then be such a coward as to not admit it afterwards.
@ Walton #538:
What a way to miss what the larger point is about – the outrageous dishonesty and blatant hypocrisy of the pharyngulite regulars. The grammar one is trivial in comparison (although again, I was the one making substantive arguments on the whole while most of the others whinged about how they merely didn’t like the sound of the correct versions, because they had become habituated to the wrong ones).
And there I was, not that long ago, noting that you were an interesting exception to the pile-up (as an only recently and barely accepted in-group member). It would be a disappointment but, in reality, it’s hardly an unexpected move on your part, based on prevous form.
Read the thread properly, Walton, and you might see what’s really going on – ie it’s not your superficial mischaracterisation of events. Of course, you’ll then have the tricky decision of whether to side with the gang you’ve seemingly been trying to join over past months or to be honest and speak out against them. Laziness is undoubtedly the easy option in avoiding that dilemma.
SEF
..you do realise, to make your point, you linked to a thread I not only didn’t have ANY comments on but it finished at comment #441, not the #512 you lie about me being commenting at.
Assclam
Yes. I agree, that comment was completely out of line.
I’m beginning to wonder if this is the official Week of Offensive Rhetorical Stupidity. On one recent thread, some thoughtless idiot called Ben Stein “a living argument for the Holocaust” (something a few of us called him out on, but most people seem not to have spotted). Of course, that thread was itself motivated by offensive rhetorical stupidity, when some creationist fool described Stein as the “Rosa Parks of Darwin skeptics”. Then, of course, we have the thousand or so posts about Newfie and the use of the “c” word.
@ Bride of Shrek #541:
… and even less regard for the truth, which would otherwise have prompted you to investigate what actually happened rather than simply lazily siding with your fellow gang members in misrepresenting events.
Is it cowardice which is leading you to be dishonest and stick with the gang who are in the wrong? Are you projecting there?
@ Bride of Shrek #543:
Do you really have to be so unremittingly stupid?! Couldn’t you, just occasionally, manage to take the trouble to read for comprehension instead of merely pretending to do so?
That was my point – the evidence that you had been mysteriously absent from a gang bang of someone else (note that the wrongness of that person is irrelevant to the wrongness of the gang’s behaviour). That’s part of the evidence for the significant gap in you joining in. It supports my claim.
I don’t lie. You’re being idiotic. Note where the brackets are in my post. The #512 is a reference to your post in this thread where you finally move to join in the gang’s bad behaviour on this matter. Whereas previously in this thread you had been posting on other matters (although one of those posts did obliquely reference another of the gang’s assaults). This is again evidence supporting my point.
SEF
Yes, I’m projecting here you fuckwad, and I’ve probably never been so angry in my adult internet life. I was gang raped when I was 16, a fact I have never let loose on the internet before. The 5 charmers involved served 6- 8 years imprisonment(variously) and were then let loose on other members of society. Dealing , on a personal level with this shitscum, has seen me become the best criminal lawyer I can.
You wanna tell me that your comment on gang-rape was ok? You have no fucking idea on the pain you inflict dickshit. You toss that term around like it’s a fucking adjective and yet you have no idea what it means to some people. Grow a fucking pair and apologise for using a totally inappropriate phrase to describe the minimal fucking discomfort you felt.
Is anyone interested in my opinion on English grammar? Probably not, so I’ll give it anyway!
“…than I”. Shortened version of “…than I am”. Hence “I” is the subject of the (implied) verb. It is not the object of a verb so the “me” form is incorrect.
Similarly, “he” and “him”.
The reality is that language is fluid (although possibly treacly) and modern (IMO clumsy/slovenly) usage is taking over. It will take over completely, I suspect, in a few years because there is far less concern about grammar and correct usage than in the previous generation.
I suspect the cause is that Latin is no longer taught at [grade] school (with rare exceptions). Latin, being a dead language, has carefully preserved correct forms. When did you last hear “declension” for nouns or “conjugation” for verbs referred to in an English Language class? (In my school “English” was split into “English Language” and “English Literature”. English Language and English Literature were 2 separate subjects in national exams.)
Personally, I regret the less formal (read, “careless”) approach to all use of language but it is inevitable. IMO a scientist needs to be able to express himself/herself with precision. However, they also need to be able to express themselves in the lingua franca.
SEF, I’m not part of a “gang”, nor am I seeking anyone’s particular approval. Nor did I care to become involved in this debate up until now. However, Bride of Shrek is right. Comparing a discussion on the internet to rape is not acceptable. To trivialise rape as you did, and to use it as a rhetorical device, is a serious insult to the suffering of rape victims. In terms of offensiveness and insensitivity, your behaviour is not far removed from going into a synagogue and making a joke about the Holocaust.
Tried twice now to post something but it has been held for approval – not sure what I am doing wrong.
I’m not aware of any “naughty” words. And it was about pork/bacon. Read it for yourselves at:
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/008271.html
And the fuckward uses it again at #546
it is obvious SEF thinks rape, particularly gang or multiple rape, as a funny analogy that he/she repeatedly uses to further his /her points.
Fucking disgusting.
SEF, Likewise I am not part of any group so to speak, and a newcomer to this community so, I have no particular axe to grind.
You started off amiably enough and then progressively shifted to your current offensive and ridiculous stance.
Whatever trivial point you have been laboring to make has been well and truly overshadowed by your disgraceful invective and aggressive attitude.
All that you have succeeded in doing is alienating yourself, maybe you should chill out and return when you are feeling more grown up and able to have a reasoned discussion with adults.
#548
Having read back through the thread, I wonder if I should have contributed anything …
No Alan @ #553
You absolutely shouj have. The interesting points and topics on this thread should not be derailed by someone who has their own agenda to push.
Personally, I know nothing about linguistics, but you know, I reading back throug this thread, and absorbing the info contained I’m kind of getting it. And that includes your post with it’s interesting comments on the fluidity of language.
Thankyou for increasing my knowledge today, it’s a precious thing.
BoS, I think you have every right to be angered.
Chmee, thanks for speaking out. I know this place can be intimidating.
—
SEF, you’ve burnt a few bridges today.
You really think the bulk of regulars (including many OMs) are a gang exhibiting outrageous dishonesty and blatant hypocrisy, who don’t make substantive arguments and whinge?
Does it faze you at all that you share this opinion with tone and concern trolls?
Alan: succinctly put. I for one like the fluidity of language it’s one of the other evolutionary processes I have used in the past to illustrate that evolution,as a generalized process, can cover much more than just life.
As to SEF. Have to agree you have made some of the discussion less than useful to this lurker. Failed communication isn’t worth the effort. Surely, here of all places we are striving for successful use of language so we do communicate?
SEF, you really need to re-read this thread, because you’ve gone entirely off the rails. Here, I’ll recap.
At 388, you yelled at Paul that he had “nothing” to support him other than quoting a linguistic text written by professional synacticians, while you gave an ACTUAL EXAMPLE of how English can be unclear. You also dissed the descriptivist perspective, although not directly calling it that, and then accused Paul of having terrible reading comprehension. So at this point, you have both archly dismissed expert opinion, provided nothing to counter it but two examples pulled out of your ass, and called someone who disagrees with you stupid. Let’s see if you ever provide anything else in support of your argument.
At 390, you continued by calling anyone who disagrees with you “creationist-like” and claiming that you have refuted any measly counter-examples, again based on nothing but your own opinion.
At 415, Pygmy Loris jumped in and gave a description of your viewpoint as prescriptivist, and countered with the descriptivist argument.
At 419, you said PL was wrong and out of context. PL said that no, even after reading it all, the point still stood that you were being prescriptivist.
At 442, you claimed that PL was “dishonestly” using “diversionary tactics” and hadn’t read anything you wrote. This is where you started to go off-kilter, because PL had very clearly encapsulated your overall framework and described exactly what was wrong with it from the POV of an anthropologist. I think right here was where it was clear that you either:
a) have no idea what prescriptivist and descriptivist mean with regard to how you formulate your opinions on grammar (i.e. you don’t see the connection between the frameworks PL described and your position), or
b) soundly reject the split between prescriptivist and descriptivist in the first place.
I am tending towards A in this case, because you at no point ever addressed it. You have not ONCE addressed the rationales of either of the two positions in an attempt to defend your own, you just keep saying “No, you’re wrong because I have this one great example of when it can be ambiguous.”
PL then once again explained the difference between prescriptivist and descriptivist positions, and explained in detail why anthropologists do not agree with the prescriptivist viewpoint, being quite clear why PL holds this opinion that is different from yours and again stating that “wrong” doesn’t have a meaning when making the point that one set of rules isn’t privileged over another.
At 468, you claimed that the entire discipline of anthropology was wrong. However, you didn’t say what it was wrong about. PL is at this point speaking about prescriptivist/descriptivist, but it is unclear whether you’re claiming that anthropology as a whole is wrong about those frameworks or wrong simply about the grammatical issue you started off with. Once again, you provide no support for your position other than claiming that they’re wrong. You also once again claim that PL’s talk of prescriptive grammar is a “dishonest diversion” and that you “see what [PL] is doing and will not let {PL} get away with it”, with a side swipe at the intelligence of everyone else reading.
471 is where the game is over, and you go off insulting everyone, then at 474 comparing the discussion to a gang rape.
Between 442, where anyone else besides you and Pygmy Loris started commenting on it, and 471, where you went off, comments involving your discussion were as such:
Jadehawk and Josh agreed with you, Brownian made a single comment referring to a theory on context and speech, Owlmirror said you were bad-tempered and humorless, Josh affected to be a high-class prat, and the most direct statement at you was PL reiterating having responded to your post because it “reeked of classism, elitism, and ethnocentrism. You continue to exude class and educational privilege in your “replies.” I’m an anthropologist. The very idea that there are better and worse dialects is anathema in my discipline….I’m not wrong; I have a different opinion. Get over yourself.” Then there were a couple of killfile/ego comments related to your description of your joking style. That’s it. Period. That’s what you claim is akin to gang rape.
So, you made an argument on the basis of, at most, two sentences that could be ambiguous without the rule you want to defend.
It was argued, without any reference to your intelligence, that your rule is a) not even agreed on by all synacticians and b) couched in a framework of grammar that is itself rejected by entire fields of study.
Your only response to this was to repeat over and over that all others were wrong, doing so by insulting their intelligence and accusing them of not having any idea what you were talking about. You even ended up insulting the people who agreed with you. Never once did you provide any substantive support for your argument, and never once addressed the validity of the competing frameworks. Then you started throwing around charges of gang rape without anyone else having ever brought sexuality into it, although you disingenuously said that they had later when trying to justify yourself. And then did it again.
You have provided no reason for anyone to agree with you, and indeed have provided no evidence that you even understand what anyone else is saying to you.So seriously, SHUT THE FUCK UP UNLESS YOU EITHER PROVIDE SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR YOUR CLAIM OR AT LEAST ADDRESS PRESCRIPTIVIST V. DESCRIPTIVIST FRAMEWORKS.
@ Chmee #552:
That does nothing to guarantee you’ll engage in honest reading comprehension though – as indeed you show that you don’t! So you’re really just another person disregarding the truth/evidence and choosing to side with the people who are in the wrong.
However, as it happens, you’re only a relative newcomer – having already posted several times elsewhere on this blog over several days, where I observed you apparently ingratiating yourself with some pharyngulite regular gang members. Joining in with their dishonesty here is quite likely to further your ends in this regard.
Yowza, sorry everyone about the tl;dr post. SIWOTI at 6am is a dangerous thing.
And BoS, sorry for what happened, and that SEF brought it back to mind. As for language, that’s a horrific slide in American English- how every tiny slight gets compared to rape, because rape isn’t taken seriously at all in this country (or, really, any country). Given the known reported and estimated non-reported stats on rape, it’s almost certain that any random group of 10 people or more WILL include someone who has been raped, so making those kinds of comparisons with a group audience WILL be dismissing what happened to someone there personally as something as trivial as being criticized for your opinion on a fucking grammar question. Just a PSA to keep that in mind before you say shit like that: kids, don’t be an SEF!
@ Bride of Shrek #554:
… the bad behaviour of pharyngulite regulars.
@ John Morales #555:
Doesn’t the “OM” thing give you even the tiniest clue?
I don’t just think it, I’ve demonstrated it with some of the copious evidence they’ve provided against themselves.
You display another excellent piece of pharyngulite regular hypocrisy. I’d been saving up pointing out how the gang members were whinging about my tone (in lieu of having any valid arguments to make). Go back and take an honest look, I dare you.
Ditto on their sudden concern over thread derailment while themselves piling in to derail it with their abusive posts, devoid of substantive points (because they are unable to refute the evidence against them and still don’t have a valid argument to make).
It would merely be funny if it wasn’t also so sad how very bad you all are.
Oh seriously SEF
Fuck off, you’ve startfarted and really need to go home and have asleep.
Chmee
Screw SEF ( the current idiot troll), you are more than welcome . So please don’t be put off by SEF, the rapist-analogy -but-too-cowardly-too-admit-it troll, if you’ve been lurking for any time you’ll know what I mean.
So far I have found your posts to be pretty interesting and I, and I’m sure others do, look forward to much more.
Carlie #557 – well put, and thanks for summing it up; I’ve been scouring the comments trying to locate exactly what it was that caused SEF to hulk out and kept on thinking that I missed something – but I didn’t.
Comparing having a the majority of people on a blog take an opposing viewpoint to yours to being gang raped? What the fuck?
Carlie #557: lies a lot. Really a lot. There just isn’t enough excuse (eg a lack of reading comprehension on her part) for that extreme a degree of misrepresentation of events from her (although it probably does account for some of it). Sadly, once more, this is not abnormal for Carlie. I’ve seen it before when the gang was all going at it.
I don’t know what sounds better. “Thickened bee vomit” or “mixture of pentahydroxyhexanal and pentahydroxyhexan-2-one”. Yum! :)
You know what? Now I really want an orange and I don’t have any at home. :| I love oranges.
*takes another look at the fruit bowl*
Oh well, I guess I’ll have to content myself with tangerines…
SEF
Point blank question.
As a personal victim of gang rape, I ask how can you justify your usage of the term “gang rape” or indeed “gang bang”to describe your emotional upset at being confronted by a few people on the internet?
Answer this or you are a coward.
SEF, I provided the comment numbers for everything I referenced. (I may have missed one or two while condensing, but there are enough numbers that it’s still easy to find because I kept them in chronological order.) I didn’t link them all directly so as to avoid being put into mod purgatory and because they’re all right here on the same damn page. Look it up. Right up there. Look at every single one of them and see if I’m misrepresenting. Right there. Better yet, tell me exactly which ones I’m misrepresenting and how. Don’t say I’m generally lying, say exactly what is wrong with what I said and why. Stop throwing vague charges around and make a damned point already.
And once again, you’re complaining without addressing any of the criticisms directed at your actual stance. You have not once addressed any actual comment towards you directly. You have no substance.
SEF,
Gee thanks, it has been a while since I have been a lightning rod :)
So now that you are qualified to judge the level of “newness” of a poster, please keep updating my status so that I don’t get ahead of myself.
Imagine how distressed I feel that you have turned your rather dim spotlight on me.
If you consider my politeness and respectful attitude to be “ingratiating” then so be it.
I managed to stay polite to Alan Clarke, and that took some doing when my every impulse was to leap into the monitor and “rip his bloody arms off” (Aunty Jack reference for those who might recognize it).
You may have noticed that my post only referred to your behavior and invective, I wasn’t taking sides.
You have forced the issue and now, ta da, I find myself aligned with the “gang”
So why don’t you please STFU and go back to staring at your wall sized mirror where the person who loves you the most is always there for you.
You make Arnold Rimmer look saintly.
Are you done?, because I am.
I off to see Avatar and want to save some disappointment for the movie instead of wasting it all on you.
SEF,
I read the thread, this is how I see it :
1. you were having a discussion with Pigmy Loris on english grammar.
Nota: you were defending your points very well but nobody felt the need to side with you.
2. Then you wrote comment 435 that was not only about english grammar.
3. Several members of what you consider an “internet gang” reacted to 435, and not your well defended points about english grammar.
4. You felt the gang was going after you, you were dissatisfied. The discussion became emotionally driven from both sides.
5. rather than trying to reduce the level of emotion, you added more hyperbole by comparing the gang to a virtual group of gang-rapists (comment 474)
6. and then it got even worse. You felt this was even more evidence to your point that the gang was going after you.
SEF, you had a point about english grammar. You may have had a point about a gang going at you. But you completely lost both points by comparing them to virtual gang rapists. You could have retracted, say : “this was out of line”, but you didn’t.
Let me know if you see things the same way.
So, opposing ridiculous comparisons that trivialise the enormity of gang rape means one is a thoughtless member of a pack? Funny, I thought it was indicative of the possession of of a certain amount of personal integrity and basic human compassion. Silly old pack mentality me, huh?
@ Bride of Shrek 565:
Irrelevant (though I know you’re pretending it isn’t and I can sympathise that you are partly blinded to its irrelevance by your emotional reaction).
That makes a change from people falsely telling me what my position is.
Oops – no, you’ve blown it again by making up your own falsehoods over what’s actually going on. Note how you are projecting here again. Your emotional upset magically (and falsely) becomes mine in your view. Do try harder not to do this.
Had you been paying attention, instead of merely pretending to do so, you would have noticed the key to part of that justification (#482). However, I can make it more explicit for the hard-of-thinking – even though you’ll all probably go ahead and lie some more about it.
Re “virtual gang-rapist” or “virtual rape-gang” or any other variant which might occur:
1. Imagine what a virtual (by which I mean “online”, if that wasn’t clear) instance of such a thing might consist of:
(a) a large group of people ganging up on (typically) a single victim – check.
(b) said gang members displaying very poor morals in their behaviour, including by the alleged standards of their own society (which they might well espouse to hold on another occasion), with none of them so much as chastising the others, let alone attempting to stop them – check.
(c) sexual abuse – check.
What other components do you imagine should be in there (and which you’ve failed to see) for the metaphor to be a disturbingly apt one? I really do have some non-negligible interest in what you see as missing. It’s debatable whether it would override the points of correspondance sufficiently to completely undermine the aptness of the metaphor though.
2. I made the metaphor precisely because it was such a strong one. One which demanded attention and which should, were you honest, have not merely shocked you but made you all re-examine your bad behaviour (to recognise how the metaphor applies all too well to much of it).
It’s interesting to note here the excuses that various of you have given in the past for including what you regard as “strong language” in your posts. Whereas I contend that that sort of thing is really weak language – substituting profanity for ability to make a point genuinely strong in its own right.
Hadn’t we established that it is possible to include an indefinite number of links in one comment without triggering moderation as long as they’re internal to SB?
I’m not saying you should have done it (there was no need for it in this case), but I seem to remember Owlmirror testing this a while ago. I think there was a trick involved, but I forgot. Does anyone remember it?
Long time lurker, first time poster.
Hello everybody,
Worst war movie of all time: Apocalypse Now
@ Carlie #566:
And yet you still managed to misrepresent events. Abort, Retry, Fail?
Anyone else want to try and spot Carlie’s first few errors for her in that long post (#557)?
The hypocrisy is strong in this gang. I’m the only one who has been consistently following the rules of good argument that way. This time round I’m making an exception, for teaching purposes, by requiring you (collectively) to confront your appalling lack of honest effort at reading comprehension.
Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that none of you will manage to rise to the challenge (eg through a mixture of laziness, dishonesty and cowardice).
@ negentropyeater #568:
No, I wasn’t. Fail. Go back and start again. Hint: Pygmy Loris herself admits (#415) that this isn’t true.
Anyone want to help negentropyeater out with that?
Red Dawn, for making people say “This could really happen”.
SEF, that (570) is the most despicable and vile thing I have ever read.
I could go through it point by point as to exactly how vile it is, but honestly I don’t think I could stomach reading it again. It is full of the most privileged asshattery about one of the most terrible experiences a person can go through, and just the fact that you even THOUGHT in those terms, never mind actually writing them down for other people to see, is mind-boggling to an extent I can barely fathom.
You’re not just a misogynist, you’re a misanthrope of a degree seldom seen because even most misanthropes know how to hide it enough to get along in society. Obviously you have no sense of shame, proportion, or empathy, or even the concept that other people might occasionally be right and you might be wrong.
Walton, to answer a question of yours elsewhere, this is exactly what killfile is for.
I seriously think that SEF should be banned now.
SEF,
you rarely get people to re-examine their behaviour by shocking them.
If you feel they have displayed bad behaviour, you should try to be as factual as possible and avoid metaphors and hyperbole.
Because you won’t? Obviously, because you refuse to provide any support for your ideas. Perhaps your thought of my error is in not including any of your comments between about #327 and 388, but they were roundabout ways of doing nothing else but what was then summarized by the first one I quoted from.
However, that doesn’t matter. You have shown yourself in 570 to be the kind of person who I don’t think has any business being around other people, period, and I refuse to grant you the recognition of being a person who has any justification for me to have a dialogue with.
I honestly don’t care now what you think, or how you think, or what stupid point of grammar you were trying to make. You are simply not worth even acknowledging your existence.
SEF,
Ok, I’ll start again :
1. you were having a discussion on the internet.
Nota: you were defending your points very well but nobody felt the need to side with you.
2. Then you wrote comment 435 and you felt you needed to add an aside.
3. Several members of what you consider an “internet gang” reacted to your aside in 435, and not your well defended points.
4. You felt the gang was going after you, you were dissatisfied. The discussion became emotionally driven from both sides.
5. rather than trying to reduce the level of emotion, you added more hyperbole by comparing the gang to a virtual group of gang-rapists (comment 474)
6. and then it got even worse. You felt this was even more evidence to your point that the gang was going after you.
How do you see it ?
Wait, what?!
Anyway, here’s one way this is not like a gang rape….YOU ARE FREE TO GO ANYTIME.
@ negentropyeater #576:
So that’s why so many of you lace your posts with profanities and abuse. While posting, you want to avoid as far as possible any possibility of a creationist (etc) re-examining their behaviour, joining the right side and depriving you of another victim. Yes, it’s all so clear now.
Hint: sarcasm.
:-D Ah, more of that classic pharyngulite regular hypocrisy and dishonesty. What do you imagine I, unlike most of the rest of you, have been doing all along?
Fail. Go back and look at the evidence.
#577: More lies from Carlie – easily refuted (by reference to the evidence) for anyone honest enough to look. It includes another priceless example of the local hypocrisy and projection in action:
Say what? The gang on Pharyngula lace their posts with “profanities and abuse”?
Well fuck me up the arse with a brass-handled barge pole, when did that start happening?
Ah, that’s better. You know, I haven’t had killfile for ages – at least a year and a half or so, after an upgrade when I never got around to reinstalling it. Never seemed to have a reason, not even with heddle or Newfie or dendy or Shaun… not until now.
@ Feynmaniac #579:
Anyone else want to try now that Feynmaniac has failed his reading comprehension test?
As, quite often, is a real life victim after the attack has been made. They’re not all killed.
It’s true that many victims who had that chance to escape, after an initial round of attacks had taken place, might not then hang around in the same location to report the abuse to all the observers (confronting them because they really should be ashamed of themselves for not tackling the abusers in the way they might normally do) and any authorities that might be present. Some of them don’t dare report it at all – ever. That doesn’t make them correct not to do so – merely prudent (given the significant difference of the real life situation) and cowardly respectively.
I’m standing up to the abusers here (and confronting the observers with their dishonesty and cowardice).
New York magazine has an interview with James Arthur Ray, celebrated woo-meister and potentially a defendant in a trial for negligent homicide at his Sedona “sweat lodge”.
He wants us to know that while he does not have an opinion on whether
is the case or not, the person who said it was only a volunteer relaying a message from a channeler.
However, his statement that
was completely taken out of context.
Also Benny Hex is urging a crackdown on annulments.
BS
So your own point must be incredibly weak if you need to bolster it with some genuinely odious hyperbole, comparing your position to begin gang-raped.
It was an entirely inappropriate metaphor. No one has made you powerless, no one has harmed or degraded you, no one has deprived you of your dignity…yet not only do you make this ridiculous comparison, but when people who have experienced real rape point out the ugliness of your claim, you persist in defending it, instead of acknowledging that you’ve made a wretched mistake.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I fear that I have been misunderstood.
Jadehawk:
I’m with you on y’all. That’s the second person plural I grew up with, but I’d be happy with “youse” (which I encountered elsewhere), or pretty much any damn thing except not having an unambiguous second-person plural.
I really like having the following mean different things:
Fuck you. (a person)
Fuck y’all. (a group, as a group)
Fuck all of y’all. (everyone in the group)
(I’m sure SEF would like to be able to express such distinctions clearly, too.)
The Black English “be” is another example. It allows Black English to specify a tense that is lost in Standard English.
So for example,
We jammin’ when Jim came in.
might mean either that we were already jamming when Jim came in, or that the jamming began when Jim came in (and maybe because he came in), but
We be jammin’ when Jim came in
makes it clear that that the jamming was already going on when Jim came in.
(And as with y’all, in a community where that usage is very standard, it makes the other case clearer too—not using y’all generally implies the singular, and not saying “be” suggests an action beginning at the time in question.)
Notice that in both of these cases, the language is evolving toward being more precise, not less. Distinctions are being added, not lost.
Unfortunately, those language improvements may never become standard, because they come from low-status groups. (Southerners and blacks.) They are “wrong” and discouraged because they are not the language of the ruling elites.
(Not now anyway. Maybe when the Southern Baptists take over we’ll all end up saying “y’all.” Not worth it, IMHO.)
English doesn’t have a natural tendency to degenerate, on average. Like other languages, it has a tendency to evolve, with some distinctions being lost and others gained, but the lost distinctions still being expressible, just a little less concisely. (E.g., having to say “He loves his flowers more than I do” to avoid the ambiguity in “He loves his flowers more than me.”)
Languages have been doing that for tens thousands of years, and they consistently don’t degenerate into mushy babble, despite people always fearing that that’s what’s happening.
Standardization of language with “correct” forms often makes language simpler and less clear. Dialects evolving of their own accord often make richer distinctions, but those don’t become standard, because the standard is a fairly low common denominator.
—
Given that I (like you) like being able to make clear distinctions very easily, you might wonder why I’m not more worried about the “than me”/”than I” issue.
It’s partly just because I think that the toothpaste is well out of the tube, and isn’t going to go back in; you have to pick your battles, and it’s a lost battle. (I care a lot more about many other things, like “y’all,” and I don’t expect to get most of them, either.)
There’s another reason, though, and it’s what makes me particularly interested in this particular quirk of language.
I’m actually an artificial language designer of sorts, and when I see “Xer than” clauses being syntactically similar to prepositions and not to conjunctions, it seem right to me.
That’s the way I’d do it on purpose, because I like to have basic semantic distinctions expressed in the syntax, so that it looks like what it means.
It seems reasonable to me that you’d have different syntax for conjunctions, which connect statements (which have truth values), than for prepositions, which connect noun phrases (which refer to things).
If you’re going to distinguish syntactically between conjunctive phrases and prepositional phrases, but not have yet another way of distinguishing comparative relational statements, which category should you put relations like “taller than” in?
It seems pretty clear to me that “jim is taller than phil” is much more like “jim is over phil” than like a conjunction. Putting relational expressions with conjunctions instead of with prepositional expressions is just weird.
This is tricky, though, because conjunction words are used in very different ways. The word “and,” for example, can connect two statements (with truth values) and yield a new statement (with a truth value), as in
Jim is tall and Bob is short.
But it can also be used to connect noun phrases, to yield a noun phrase:
Jim and Bob
That’s analogous, but it’s really a wildly different thing. There’s a fundamental difference between statements and noun phrases.
Now what about “Jim is taller than Bob.”?
Is that more like “Jim and Bob” or “Jim is over Bob”?
I’d say that it’s clearly more like the latter. Not just because this example allows me to express that they’re both about altitude, but because “taller” and “over” both express particular binary relations between Jim and Bob.
“Jim and Bob” is very different. It doesn’t actually express any particular relationship between them. It just allows me to arbitrarily lump them into a set or combination, and refer to that in order to say something about them, which may be a particular relationship between them, as in “Jim and Bob are the same height,” or may not—as in “I have no idea whether Jim and Bob have anything in particular in common with each other.”
I suspect that what’s going on with masses of people not following “the rule” and saying “than I” is that the masses are doing it right, in a deeper sense. They instinctively recognize that “Xer than” is a generalized preposition, quite unlike a conjunction, so they tend to treat them the same way.
This introduces an irregularity into the surface structure of the language, at least according to the theory that comparatives are like conjunctions, and unlike prepositions.
But on the theory that comparatives are (generalized) prepositions, it’s actually making the language more regular in at least a deep way—it is taking generalized prepositions out of the wrong syntactic category, and putting them where they belong.
That may make sentences easier to construct and understand, in some sense. It may fit better with the kind of language processing brains are good at.
I suspect that theory is roughly right. People are instinctively fixing something that’s messed up about “proper” English grammar, which their brains don’t like for a good reason.
If so, you will never get the toothpaste back in the tube; you’re going against the grain of how language processing actually works in people’s heads, and they’ll keep tending to do it the easy, more natural way.
Even if you could get the toothpaste back in the tube, and have everyone speak “proper” English for a generation or two, I suspect that the toothpaste would just come back out of the tube, because people would again unconsciously recognize the similarity between comparatives and prepositions, and tend to treat them similarly. You might win the battle for “than I,” but still eventually lose the war.
I could be wrong about all this. It may be that people are not instinctively “fixing” what’s “broken” about “proper” English syntax. Maybe that’s an irregularity they could just accept, if they didn’t have bad examples confusing them about the rule. I’m not sure.
On the other hand, I’m wholly unconvinced by SEF’s story. I don’t think he understands syntax on a deep level, where the rubber meets the road in actual people’s brains.
I admit that don’t know that people are instinctively fixing something that’s deeply irregular about “proper” English—I could well be wrong—but I’m pretty sure that SEF doesn’t know that they’re not. He doesn’t even seem to understand the issue, or to be the least bit interested in it.
That makes me disinclined to take him seriously when he tells me how language ought to work, and dismisses the scientists of the subject as obviously idiots if they disagree with him.
SEF,
when people here use invective and ridicule, they generally have given up on getting those creationists to re-examine their behaviour.
calling people here a group of virtual gang-rapists is not being factual. You said yourself :
Something that’s factual must be understood by all. Your metaphor was not. That’s a fact.
I’m just telling you this is evidently not going to work. and it didn’t work, did it ?
Where am I being a hypocrite and dishonest with you ? Also, I’m not more a Pharyngulite regular than you are.
See : more non factual speech from you.
Just learn to state facts, forget the hyperbole and invective speech for a while. You’ll see that you will gain a lot from it.
SEF, I think that often you write very thoughtful comments on a variety of subjects. Just stick to that.
@ negentropyeater #578:
Aha – trying to get a nice, simple, non-contentious but ultimately vacuous one on the score-board. That one really doesn’t merit a point (eg under the “Quite Interesting” system).
A rare example of honesty, for a change.
Not quite accurate. Though you could certainly argue that Jadehawk had no intention of siding with me in #335 (or #195!) – having quite probably ignored my earlier post covering the same point. She was more likely to be merely accidentally on the same side, in terms of intent. The lack of acknowledgment is not conclusive either way.
Meanwhile, David Marjanović did agree slightly (and also agreed some more while acting like he disagreed!). He wasn’t making a big deal of siding with me as me though (eg not much tackling of the wrong ‘uns in other ways). It’s up to you to decide (ie on reflection, now that I’ve highlighted it) whether that already counts as a refutation of your point. I think it might. It depends what nuance you were trying to include there. Did you want active siding or incidental siding?
Whoa! That’s skipping a whole lot of significant territory. Minus points.
You are way, way off track now – as well as introducing another falsehood by implication. Time to go back to the beginning and try harder.
Miki Z: As I mentioned upthread, a 2 hour sweat is unconscionable. The conditions in a sweat lodge, like any sauna, are apt to be lethal with sufficient time.
BS
Wow Brother SEF,
I’m shocked…just shocked…at the fact you felt you were virtually gang-taped just for being a grammar pedant.
The way you have stood up to your attackers is surely one of the most moving examples of virtual bravery I’ve ever witnessed. Call me a sarcastic prick if thousands of actual rape victims are weeping for joy this minute at your ability to empathize with them.
You’re a virtual hero, you are!
This seems apropos for some reason, (albeit in bad taste).
The only other comment I have is that if I would have called my 8th grade English teacher a concern troll or a tone troll she would have raised holy hell. (Best teacher I ever had, gosh bless her.)
The first half of Apocalypse Now, up to the point where they enter Cambodia, is pretty good. The helicopter assault on the village was particularly well done. It’s only when Francis Ford Coppola tried to modernize Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” that the movie falls apart.
The first half of Apocalypse Now, up to the point where they enter Cambodia, is pretty good.
I actually agree with that. And then when Marlon Brando showed up everything went kinda goofy.
SEF: here’s a hint. Stop digging.
Like, now.
SEF,
See, more emotions, nothing factual.
If you feel I’m way off track, don’t say it, just explain why.
If you think I’m introducing another falsehood by implication, at least state which one.
Damnit, it can’t be that difficult to communicate with another. I’m sure you can do it.
Comment by SEF blocked. [unkill][show comment]
I’m sure I’ll be called “dishonest” and various other unkind terms but I don’t care. I’m tired of SEF playing martyr because nobody appreciates his inflated ego.
Lesson of the day :
SEF is no truth machine, although he thinks he is.
I’m a bit shocked and wondering if he had a death in the family or something to explain this total loss of cogency out of the blue over a trivial topic.
But I have a few rules of conduct that are non-negotiable, and SEF’s comments have broken them, and there is no way back from where he went today.
@ PZ #586:
No, just assiduously ignored.
That’s not true. See #469 and also note that I am not solely talking about attacks made just now on me but about a consistent pattern of such bad behaviour round here, against numerous people.
Do you need more examples of it? Or is this really only a side issue for you compared with more significant differences between the real and virtual worlds – something which I readily concede. Though degradation of a victim through verbal/mental abuse is a very real phenomenon too (in the real world, not merely on the internet). Physical abuse is not the only abuse.
Not successfully no. That would be the sort of case a defence lawyer might make on behalf of his clients when faced with a victim who was too strong to have been traumatised for life. You may not have been considering that aspect but I think you should. Does the crime magically become a non-crime if the victim isn’t utterly destroyed by it?
Some of them seem to think the kill-file feature does; or even that pointedly remarking on the existence of their kill-file does. I don’t happen to agree that it works that well. But they do try to attack various people with that threat when clearly attempting to render those people’s posts powerless.
I think it was one person – that same someone who then explicitly asked me to defend it.
I do apologise to anyone who has genuine reason to be offended by the comparison.
However, I don’t apologise for highlighting the persistent bad behaviour of the pharyngulite regular gang members, whatever analogy you’d prefer to use instead for that. Any honest suggestions?
Do you claim their behaviour is devoid of ugliness? Do you defend it?
@ PZ #595:
You have to bear in mind there’s a delay in seeing posts and replying. I couldn’t have stopped something which had already gone through before even seeing that “hint”. I can of course stop now.
People need a “genuine reason” to be offended by the comparison? Basic human sensibility isn’t enough? Who decides whether my reason is “genuine”?
BS
Rutee: “Red Dawn” was awesome.
Wolverines!
If their behavior is ugly, yours has been uglier. Which is fine; I allow criticism to be rather ferocious here. But it does mean you look either hypocritical or oblivious, and that’s why you are seeing virtually no support for your continuing descent into pedantic assholishness.
FWIW: Arguing about how grammar should be is about as effective as arguing what the weather should be like.
All you can do is pay attention and dress accordingly.
Kirk out.
Worst Movie Ever: South of Heaven, West of Hell…Dwight Yoakam’s directorial debut.
Best Worst Movie Ever: Phantasm II
#564 Dania said:
As a chemist, I prefer the mixture, thank you!
However, I occasionally refer to my wife as “honey”. I suspect that neither alternative would be acceptable!
Worst western movie ever: Heaven’s Gate.
Worst big budget science fiction move ever: Dune.
Worst disaster move ever: Armageddon.
#556 ianmhor
Thank you! You can comment anytime. Mind you, I can’t remember whether I have ever had my comments described as “succinct”*
* briefly expressed, terse, concise
[Ed. I can confirm that he never has – he just goes mumbling on and on and on …]
Last time I set up a Paypal account I got all kinds of spam and scam mail, so I closed it. My daughter has a paypal account and she said we can use her account for the Diagnose Lynna fund. She thinks it’s “really sweet” that the online community wants to help, but also speculates that you just don’t want to reduce the atheist community in the Morridor (mormon corridor) by even one.
I’ll finish the investigation on costs for the two tests ordered by my doctor (including filing a “hardship” application to reduce costs) on Monday and then we’ll know what we’re dealing with. Once I have all the info, I’ll post my daughter’s paypal details.
My Typepad profile includes a link to my website, so people can find me there as well.
Switching subjects, I was amazed to see the metaphor of “gang bang” to describe an internet disagreement over the fine points of grammar; and this was written by SEF after “gang rape” had been thoroughly dismissed as appropriate metaphor. Still shaking my head over that one.
Dania, I was so pleased to see that my addiction to oranges is contagious. :-) Tangerines will do in a pinch, but really, you need
human bloodbig, stalinist oranges. Which reminds me, “Twilight” sucks.Alan B #605
As an experiment I just called my wife “mixture of pentahydroxyhexanal and pentahydroxyhexan-2-one”. Her reaction was “huh?”
IMHO :) Dune is…weird, but not bad.
What the hell just happened here?
I guess there is some truth to the idea that Language Rage is somehow uniquely Anglophonic.
Heh. I had it capitalised initially, but then I recalled that French doesn’t do that the way English does – but that’s just the languages, not the nationalities, right? In fact I was more worried about how the fuck to spell »fous«.
Out of left field, I have a story to add to the honey or bee vomit discussion. My brother, Steve, likes to read the diaries of prospectors from the late 1800s — oddities from “wild west” literature. Apparently, it was common for prospectors to obsess over food or drink they didn’t have for months at a time, obsessions they mentally nursed as they toiled alone on their remote claims. When they finally did make it back to town to buy supplies, odd behavior was pretty much guaranteed. One guy wanted honey. He had wanted honey for so long that as soon as he arrived in town, he bought a gallon of it and sat down on the wooden sidewalk to consume it. Then he threw up. Then he passed out.
Sort of a tangential thought to this whole discussion… I’m not going to chime in on the whole SEF really poorly chosen analogy… I think it’s been pointed out and dissected thoroughly.
What does interest me, though, and it seems to happen from time to time, is this interesting aspect of behavior of people within this “social group” dynamic we have here. SEF is a regular here, a part of the “social group”, as it were, of pharyngulite regulars. I’m going to generalize for a bit to make a point, but as a group we have some basic similarities… we are (for the most part) logical, fairly liberal, inquisitive, and, to varying degrees, highly intelligent. Another thing we also share in common (and this certainly doesn’t apply to everyone, but quite a few, anyhow) is a fairly high level of self-assuredness. It’s mostly a good trait, but I do notice that it can cause us to become quite defensive in the face of our own fallibility.
Even in cases where we’re so clearly wrong (as I believe is the case in this instance with SEF), we’ll often defend our reasoning and skirt the validity of the argument itself, occasionally to the point of strained absurdity. It’s really interesting to observe, and it happens here from time to time.
I myself have struggled with this behavior. I have a hard enough time accepting when I’m wrong, nevermind when I’m horribly or even offensively wrong. It can make me defensive, and some inherent mental reaction moves me to defend my reasoning rather than risk the embarrassment of admitting I simply said something horrifically wrong. I want to be a person incapable of saying something that stupid, and want others to see me that way as well. So I’ll re-frame the argument, shift the focus to my (obviously valid) reasons for making the statement, and avoid directly addressing the statement itself altogether. And the more resistance I get, the harder I dig in.
Inevitably, this makes things worse and I end up feeling stupid and shitty about the whole thing. In recent years, I’ve tried to mitigate this behavior by stepping back, letting the responses of people I respect sink in, and seeing how I would respond were it not me that made the comment. More often than not in the last year or two, I actually find myself able to self-correct before I have to be by others… I feel like it’s been a net gain, and I feel like a more rational, fair, and balanced person as a result…
SEF, I have known you to be an intelligent, reasoned person and I generally respect what you have to say… I think you’re feeling a bit attacked and cornered and are trying to rationalize and defend a position I believe you know is pretty indefensible. A little distance, some rest, and I think an admission of poor choice of words, without qualification, would serve this discussion well.
I apologize if this has come across as preachy… it’s not intended as such.
Huh. I didn’t realise Jackie Chan had French kids.
Alan: My pleasure!
Had to read an awful lot to get to your post and the change of tack was a breath of fresh air!
Maybe a little relativity in my assessment (but not much :)).
On a more fun and interesting topic, have any of you read this report in he PLoS Biology journal?
Evolution of Adaptive Behaviour in Robots by Means of Darwinian Selection.
As a techie and biology lover, I found this to be just so cool… not to mention a really interesting and pretty poignant study.
You need to be reminded?! You really must be ill!
I’m broke – filled in the dole notification wrong – but get that account set up stat so I can contribute.
What am I missing? They are isomers, aren’t they?
That reminds me that I should try to learn the sugars by heart, too. Finally know the amino acids now – couldn’t be arsed to do so when I had to. I finally know all 112 elements now as well. Though only in order … anyone know good techniques for connecting the numbers to the names?
–o–
Sorry to hear about your past experience, BoSOM. I can only say that I’m glad you’ve ‘won’ in some sense.
I dunno… was “Wild Wild West” considered SciFi? That was way worse that either of those films…
Ils sont fous ces Romains ! (French)
Sono Pazzi Questi Romani ! (Italian)
SPQR (the abreviation can be read everywhere when in Rome)
Senatus Populus Que Romanus (the Senate and the Roman People)
Paul @587:
Now that was an excellent disquisition. Thank you.
Fuck is wrong with you fuckers.
I show you for years how superior my movie taste and knowledge is and how your viewpoints are but bad comedy compared to my superior appreciation of the facts of movie quality.
Sick of you fuckers gang-raping my superior opinions on movie quality, you sick pack-raping bunch of fucking assholes.
Ehm, sorry, must be the water here….
I wanted to say, Armageddon was really cool, I loved it !
As a Brit I’m a little bit embarrassed at pointing out this little gem from our government.
Apparently we are supporting prayer to help the police with their jobs. Only in a small way but still…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/16310000-grant-for-christian-police-who-believe-prayer-can-cut-crime-1882554.html
@ PZ #603: (? oddly appearing to wish to continue the meta-discussion component fully an hour later – unless it was supposed to be an example of “last wordism” but not marked as such)
Oh no, that happened long beforehand. People are only pretending that a later event was a cause of their earlier behaviour. If correlation of an effect is not causation, then this reversal of the usual time order of claimed cause vs actual effect is an even less reliable indication of causation – ie an impossible one outside of weird physics.
@ Celtic_Evolution #613:
More of an “irregular” and definitely never part of the social group!
No, other people are consistently pretending the arguments are about something other than what they are/were – including you in this instance. They pile fallacy upon fallacy in doing so (as I have been pointing out). And it’s not just me to whom they do this (though that’s another part of their pretence over the real nature of the disagreements here). It’s all too standard bad behaviour / poor reading comprehension (through not even trying, in many cases, rather than necessarily a lack of theoretical ability) on this blog (as elsewhere).
SEF, in the past I have enjoyed many of your contributions to discussions on Pharyngula. I hope this lamentable flapdoodle can be put firmly behind you (obscure literary reference to Smoggy’s body of work), and that you come back cleansed of bile, metaphorically speaking.
Ah. Duh. So they admit it. :) That’ll teach me to skim a thread upwards while spaced out.
Is was so bad the film cans had to be disposed of as toxic waste.
This is not a real-time conversation. I run this site, but I’ll actually ignore the comments for a whole day sometimes, especially when I’m traveling.
As for the rest of your comment, you’re just making excuses and placing blame everywhere but on yourself. Stop it, just stop it. You said something that was crass and very, very stupid; admit it and move on.
It’s your inability to do that that is making you the recipient of so much snarliness here.
Re link posted by ianmhor #622:
Enough circumstantial evidence for a conviction, an arrest or a search warrant? Or are they applying double standards …
SEF #623
*sigh*… or, in simpler terms, sometimes some people are just stubborn assholes.
“The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.”
– George Bernard Shaw
Continuing the Cilantro/Coriander discussion. I remember reading about this before on SciBlogs, and just found the link.
Coturnix had a very interesting thread about it last April, here.
Tis,
Sure, she didn’t understand why you just called her “inverted sugar syrup”.
If you wanted to call her “honey”, you should have said :
“mixture of pentahydroxyhexanal, pentahydroxyhexan-2-one, 4-O-α-D-Glucopyranosyl-D-glucose, O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-α[1-6]-α-D-glucopyranosid,(hydroxymethyl)oxan-2-yl]oxyhexan-2-one and quite a few more compounds with strange names”
With its messianic hero, mystical forces, interplanetary warfare, and giant sandworms, Frank Herbert’s Dune was just daring some producer to make it into a movie. And in the aftermath of Star Wars what producer could resist? Well, all of the sane ones could and did resist. It took Dino DeLaurentis to overlook all the potential pitfalls and throw a large fortune into the project. But then nobody, not even DeLaurentis, ever said he was sane.
Briefly, Dune is the story about the desert planet Dune and the spice that grows there. The evil emperor has allied himself with the grotesque Baron Harkonnen to plunder the planet and enslave the inhabitants, the Fremen. Duke Leto is coerced by a complicated scheme into ruling Dune. What nobody knows is that Leto’s son Paul is the long-awaited messiah and that once he arrives on Dune he will discover his true destiny, develop his mystical powers, and lead the Fremen to revolt and victory. “Muad’Dib” (Paul’s Freman name) is the Freman battle cry. Whenever we hear that, we know who we’re supposed to be rooting for.
But it’s okay to be confused. Confusion is the natural response to a narrative involving four planets, a complex conspiracy, a lot of elaborate folklore, and a whole slew of characters who are not what they at first seem. Writer/director David Lynch tries to help by cramming in some densely detailed exposition before the action starts. Only confirmed Dune cultists can be sure of what’s going on, everyone else has to play catch-up-with-the-story. The problem is the movie is such a mess most people have no way of knowing when or if they’ve caught up.
Lynch needs so much time to set up the film that he ends up doing a Cliff Notes version of the rest of the story. The result is really just an illustrated companion piece to the book. Lynch eventually gets all the main plot points in but there’s little room for anything else. The movie’s impressive cast is largely reduced to cameo appearances. Max von Sydow (Liet Kynes) turns up just long enough to be killed. Sting* froths onscreen for about ten minutes as the evil Feyd Rautha. But even the actors who get a lot of screen time don’t make much of an impression. They don’t so much as portrary their characters as represent them.
With so much saga and so little time, Lynch can’t afford the luxury of any set pieces. Most scenes just flit by, replaced by yet another brief interlude somewhere else. Too much of the movie takes place in caverns and small rooms and tunnels. However even its vast desert scenes seem hemmed in by the edges of the screen. Sure, Dune has its share of visuals: polished jade floors, gilded throne rooms, boil-covered villians, and, of course, the railroad car-sized sandworms. But when you’re slogging through a film trying not to get lost, you don’t have much time to stop and admire the scenery.
Dune wasn’t high concept enough to attract a mainstream audience. Nor was it true enough to the novel to please Dune cultists. Nor was it very satisfying for David Lynch fans, who were not accustomed to seeing the director struggle to bring an eccentric movie to the screen. In short, it was a movie nobody could embrace. And nobody did. Dune was a total box-office bust, dying away so quickly and quietly that today almost no one thinks of it anymore. Among all the failed blockbusters it’s a true black hole.
*When Sting retires, will he become Stung?
And of course Battlefield Earth has them all beat… except that it wasn’t really “big budget” (and in fact the film company lied about what that budget was, to the tune of about $30 mil, IIRC).
starfart (doodle-up dah da-liddle-up)
starfart (doodle-up dah da-liddle-up)
starfart (doodle-up dah da-liddle-up)
starfart (doodle-up dah da-liddle-up)
S-T-A-R-F-A-R-T
starfart (doodle-up dah da-liddle-up)
[reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPMZqCTFMcI%5D
Celtic @613: that was very nicely put.
SEF, from what I’ve seen, you prolifically write witty and informed pieces, without a hint of nastiness. Which is why I find use of the gang rape analogy distinctly out-of-character. Not only was the initial use of the analogy highly crass, but the subsequent defense of it was unconscionable. I have to voice my condemnation of it with what negligible authority I have.
Given the comments I’ve enjoyed reading from you before, I just hope that this was some kind of anomalous outburst. I don’t have much of a position to speak from, having found myself using that kind of language in real life, but I feel I need to say this.
‘Tis @#606:
Dead right on all three…seems we share musical and cinematic preferences.
Have you seen “Volcano”… or worse yet, “Daylight”?
Armageddon (while appallingly bad, for sure) is orders of magnitude more watchable than either of those two, in my opinion.
For the record, it was not.
Yes!
URLs can be written in different ways. The main way, which is necessary when referencing a website that is different from/to (Oooh, more fodder for a language argument!) the one that you are on, is to use a complete absolute URL, eg:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/[year]/[month]/[post_name].php
However, when you wish to reference a site that you are already on, you can leave off the resource type (http), the characters “://”, and the domain (scienceblogs.com).
Thus, you can reference The Thread as follows:
<a href=”/pharyngula/2010/01/one_thing_will_never_end_the_e.php”>The Thread!</a>
The Thread!
Which will be properly interpreted as being a link to:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/one_thing_will_never_end_the_e.php
It appears that the comment moderation software only cares about the number of appearances of URLS that begin with the actual string http:// (and possibly also ftp://) (which I am getting around by mangling the string internally). So you can (assuming that I have not overlooked something) link to an arbitrary number of posts (and comment anchors) internal to the entire scienceblogs.com site itself.
====
Note that the initial “/” in the URL string is crucial! Otherwise the URL will be interpreted as being relative to the current URL, which is simply wrong!
If you do this:
<a href=”pharyngula/2010/01/one_thing_will_never_end_the_e.php”>Absolutely NOT The Thread!</a>
It would be interpreted as something like this:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/pharyngula/2010/01/one_thing_will_never_end_the_e.php
Absolutely NOT The Thread!
This can only lead to link FAIL and palming of face.
====
NB: One of the useful features that Firefox has is a “View selection source” — you can select the text of a comment and view its source without the surround cruft of the entire page source. This is useful to see what a URL looks like as encoded in the page, as opposed to what it is interpreted as by the browser.
SEF, frankly you are one of the regulars that I did not pay much attention to in the past. And the conversation about grammar did not interest me. I only caught the gang-rape shit because other people, rightfully, called you on it. The fact that you would compare having a group of people online criticize you posts to being physically beaten and violated shows a lack of perspective.
But the fact that you can not and will not stop and think about why your comparison is offensive puts you in an even worse light. Your response at #570 is unconscionable.
I made the metaphor precisely because it was such a strong one. One which demanded attention and which should, were you honest, have not merely shocked you but made you all re-examine your bad behaviour (to recognise how the metaphor applies all too well to much of it).
So you purposely pick a strong metaphor. Here, allow me pick a strong metaphor that will force you to reexamine your bad behavior. You use your words like you are a SS guard in Auschwitz. You are smashing in people’s faces with the butt of your rifle. There, does that force you to rethink what you are doing?
I have not been raped, for that I am grateful. But I have been a volunteer councilor. No one I have spoke with sounded nor acted like you have. Plus, the way you dismissed Bride is disgusting. Just because a victim is able to get past her assault and live a good and productive life does not lessen the trauma she went through.
VICTIMS OF RAPE HAVE GONE THROUGH A TRAUMA. You merely went through a momentary discomfort. How fucking dare you conflate the two.
The State of Idaho may complicate my personal health care situation even more. I know, hard to believe that could be possible, but, lo, the Republican Heavies are weighing in. Naturally, they are calling this a “Health Freedom Act” (beware conservatives who come bearing a flag of “freedom”):
Source
OK. I have much reading to do, that’s for sure.
The famous Art Buchwald v. Paramount lawsuit (1990) illustrated that when it comes to money, “Hollywood” is unfamiliar with the concept of true, and uses mathematics not known anywhere else in the universe. I sometimes wonder if that’s where economists and bankers are trained?
…much reading up to do
Worst movie of ALL TIME: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
You’d think from the title it might fun in a kinda Plan 9 way, but no. It’s just awful. Not even having the witty commentary of the MST3k crew could make me finish watching that.
Warning: I spent about 5 hours writing this comment, cooking, eating, washing one dish, and making tea… accordingly, it’s a bit long, and only 576 comments had been posted in this subthread when I started writing. I won’t refresh now because lengthening this even more would be cruel.
Language evolves to and from clarity at the same time, all the time. None of the languages you or I speak have an evidential – read what that is, and weep!
Remember the Pirahã who deconverted the missionary Daniel Everett? Their language has one; there’s no way in it to make a statement of fact without expressing whether you’ve personally seen it, heard about it, or inferred it from evidence. It’s like how in most European languages you can’t say a word like “teacher” or “friend” without expressing whether it’s a male or a female one, no matter how uninteresting this extra information is at the moment.
Surgery, in a country where you have health insurance. It’s routine these days.
:-) Come on. You’re hardly even reading. You’re just
imaginingfantasizing about us baring our teeth at each other. :-)Speaking of teeth, here and here are close-ups of yesterday’s toothy goodness. (Kindly ignore the word “carnosaur”, it’s wrong.)
You might also be interested in some of the illustrations of this article, but – for completely different reasons – in the text as well.
Isn’t it customary to precede this by “holy” and add “Batman!” to the end? Unfortunately I haven’t seen any Batman movie except the prequel.
Oh yeah, forgot to address that yesterday. Before I read comment 463, I wondered if he was referring to the PRC simplification (…so not the Yellow Emperor, but the Red one…) of a lot of commonly used characters (adopted by Singapore, partly paralleled in Japan, obviously rejected by Taiwan)? I assure you, all “mistakes” in that process were entirely deliberate. For instance, “love” (a fairly complex character) used to be found in the dictionary under “heart”. The simplification made a handwritten version official which has a single stroke instead of the four that make up the heart. Now “love” is in the dictionary under “claw”. Laughing yet? The one who laughs last hasn’t got the joke. It can’t be a coincidence that this simplification automagically made a “friend” appear in that character. Friend. Comrade. Communism. Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution® (which was triggered a bit later).
Thou protestest by far too much.
…Wow. You seem to be entirely ignorant of Jonell’s law: “It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file [sic].” and of stogoe’s law: “I maintain that no statement could possibly exist that is obviously stupid enough such that no one could be convinced of its veracity. There’s always a bigger idiot.”
You’re not such a frequent commenter that people know by heart what you mean seriously and what you don’t. Even your general level of displayed sanity doesn’t help – there are extremely inconsistent people out there!
:-D
Win.
The Dunning-Kruger effect oozes from everything you write about logic or clarity in language.
(Reminds me of a linguists’ proverb… “Lots of people believe they’re experts on language, because, after all, they speak one!”)
That’s a bit short for a starfart, but… by all other criteria… B-)
<headshake>
TLE and SEF: twins separated at birth???
You should try to become a scientist.
Or are you just trolling?
That’s not stupid – it’s merely laughably wrong. Check out the last few subthreads and try to figure out who has been here all the time.
That is more than enough to trigger a comparison to gang rape?
And besides, I haven’t noticed anything sexual except the very word “fuck”, the meaning of which (as you know) has completely bleached out in fixed phrases like “fuck off” or “shut the fuck up”.
I didn’t know the leaves are eaten at all (nothing wrong with coriander seeds), but I ate soup in China several times and didn’t notice anything…
Great. Now I don’t need to watch the original anymore. :-)
(Not that I had any intentions to do that anyway.)
LOL! My sister will love it.
Aww. That’s an evil comic.
Reminds me of the ancient Egyptians calling the Euphrates “the river that flows in reverse”. After all, water flows from south to north!
Is your name Glen Gordon?
Yes, except that English has an additional rule which encourages use of the object forms instead of the subject forms for emphasis.
It’s not clumsiness – if it were, it would happen all over the world. But it’s not even happening in German. It’s a new rule of English grammar (…and apparently it’s several hundred years old already).
And you seriously believe the same grammar is correct for different languages?
How many do you speak?
Firstly, these are technical terms. We’re talking about what they describe, not about the terms themselves.
Secondly, there is almost no declension or conjugation in English, so it’s not surprising that the terms don’t come up more often!
Viagra is one, because spambots like to use it so much. I used an HTML trick to get it through the filter (open and then close a tag in the middle of the word, so that the offending string of letters doesn’t actually get posted, but there’s no visible difference).
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Warning: I spent about 5 hours writing this comment, cooking, eating, washing one dish, and making tea… accordingly, it was so long that it got caught in moderation. Posting again in several parts now.
Language evolves to and from clarity at the same time, all the time. None of the languages you or I speak have an evidential – read what that is, and weep!
Remember the Pirahã who deconverted the missionary Daniel Everett? Their language has one; there’s no way in it to make a statement of fact without expressing whether you’ve personally seen it, heard about it, or inferred it from evidence. It’s like how in most European languages you can’t say a word like “teacher” or “friend” without expressing whether it’s a male or a female one, no matter how uninteresting this extra information is at the moment.
Surgery, in a country where you have health insurance. It’s routine these days.
:-) Come on. You’re hardly even reading. You’re just
imaginingfantasizing about us baring our teeth at each other. :-)Speaking of teeth, here and here are close-ups of yesterday’s toothy goodness. (Kindly ignore the word “carnosaur”, it’s wrong.)
You might also be interested in some of the illustrations of this article, but – for completely different reasons – in the text as well.
SEF isn’t the only one making offensive and demeaning remarks around here at the moment. On another thread, a commenter called “shonny” recently described Ben Stein as “a living argument for the Holocaust”. He has not retracted this comment, nor has he bothered to respond to any of the people who called him out for it.
Part 2…
Isn’t it customary to precede this by “holy” and add “Batman!” to the end? Unfortunately I haven’t seen any Batman movie except the prequel.
Oh yeah, forgot to address that yesterday. Before I read comment 463, I wondered if he was referring to the PRC simplification (…so not the Yellow Emperor, but the Red one…) of a lot of commonly used characters (adopted by Singapore, partly paralleled in Japan, obviously rejected by Taiwan)? I assure you, all “mistakes” in that process were entirely deliberate. For instance, “love” (a fairly complex character) used to be found in the dictionary under “heart”. The simplification made a handwritten version official which has a single stroke instead of the four that make up the heart. Now “love” is in the dictionary under “claw”. Laughing yet? The one who laughs last hasn’t got the joke. It can’t be a coincidence that this simplification automagically made a “friend” appear in that character. Friend. Comrade. Communism. Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution® (which was triggered a bit later).
Thou protestest by far too much.
…Wow. You seem to be entirely ignorant of Jonell’s law: “It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file [sic].” and of stogoe’s law: “I maintain that no statement could possibly exist that is obviously stupid enough such that no one could be convinced of its veracity. There’s always a bigger idiot.”
You’re not such a frequent commenter that people know by heart what you mean seriously and what you don’t. Even your general level of displayed sanity doesn’t help – there are extremely inconsistent people out there!
:-D
Win.
The Dunning-Kruger effect oozes from everything you write about logic or clarity in language.
(Reminds me of a linguists’ proverb… “Lots of people believe they’re experts on language, because, after all, they speak one!”)
That’s a bit short for a starfart, but… by all other criteria… B-)
<headshake>
TLE and SEF: twins separated at birth???
You should try to become a scientist.
Or are you just trolling?
That’s not stupid – it’s merely laughably wrong. Check out the last few subthreads and try to figure out who has been here all the time.
That is more than enough to trigger a comparison to gang rape?
And besides, I haven’t noticed anything sexual except the very word “fuck”, the meaning of which (as you know) has completely bleached out in fixed phrases like “fuck off” or “shut the fuck up”.
I didn’t know the leaves are eaten at all (nothing wrong with coriander seeds), but I ate soup in China several times and didn’t notice anything…
Great. Now I don’t need to watch the original anymore. :-)
(Not that I had any intentions to do that anyway.)
LOL! My sister will love it.
Aww. That’s an evil comic.
Reminds me of the ancient Egyptians calling the Euphrates “the river that flows in reverse”. After all, water flows from south to north!
Is your name Glen Gordon?
Yes, except that English has an additional rule which encourages use of the object forms instead of the subject forms for emphasis.
It’s not clumsiness – if it were, it would happen all over the world. But it’s not even happening in German. It’s a new rule of English grammar (…and apparently it’s several hundred years old already).
And you seriously believe the same grammar is correct for different languages?
How many do you speak?
Firstly, these are technical terms. We’re talking about what they describe, not about the terms themselves.
Secondly, there is almost no declension or conjugation in English, so it’s not surprising that the terms don’t come up more often!
Viagra is one, because spambots like to use it so much. I used an HTML trick to get it through the filter (open and then close a tag in the middle of the word, so that the offending string of letters doesn’t actually get posted, but there’s no visible difference).
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
(Just for clarification, I’ll add that my post at #647 is not in any way a defence of SEF’s remarks – which, as I said above, were deeply offensive and inexcusable.)
MrFire,
This (see the comments that follow) is from earlier this month:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/cancer_is_a_disease.php#comment-2182638
Note that this was in response to my making a little joke about always being right.* More examples of bizarre belligerance, slagging, and ludicrous hyperbole on the recent atheist convention thread. IIRC, SEF was the one with whom I had a similar discussion concerning “crescendo” a while back. Same behavioral pattern.
*On a thread in which I had already acknowledged an error, no less.
***
I think Rorschach is right that SEF thinks he is truth machine when he’s most definitely not. He’s an angry person, and I’ve just generally been ignoring him (including not responding to errors in his posts) since the recent incidents, but his defense of his awful comparison here, especially in response to BoS, has been unconscionable.
while I agree that adding y’all and all y’all to the language actually adds to clarity, your second example does not. Standard English already has those distinctions in “we jammed when Jim came in” and “we were jamming when Jim came in”. The new construction doesn’t add clarity grammatically, but detracts from being understood more generally. I don’t really care about what happens in local dialects, but I think I have to agree with A. Noyd that at least one version of a language needs to be more prescriptivist than descriptivist to act as a sort-of lingua franca between the dialects; and this goes for grammar as well as pronounciation, actually. (wasn’t it Tis Himself who told us the anecdote about the Scot and the Alabama dude who supposedly both spoke English, but couldn’t understand a damn thing they were saying to each other?)
Following up on my previous comment, I note that relative URL interpretation can be made to work for you:
A URL anchor link (#[something]) can appear with nothing additional prefixed, as long as it references an anchor name in the very web page/post that the link appears in.
Thus, I can link to a comment like this:
<a href=”#comment-2238242″>previous comment</a>
And it will be interpreted by the browser as referencing that very comment in this very thread.
Since the URL does not include an http:// string, an arbitrary number of such anchor links can be included in a comment without triggering comment moderation, with the additional benefit of being shorter than putting in all of the additional link information besides the anchor.
(This is as always particularly useful for when spammers are throwing in stuff which will be deleted by PZ.)
(I note that “hery” and “hery”‘s furniture spam are still around. Ahem, PZ.)
Nope.
belligerence
already tried that. worked for about a month or two before it bend itself back into the original and useless shape.
Eh? I do wonder, sometimes, if…
How is it you know better than I what it is I wonder?
Well, if you know that, why the hell are ya asking? ;D
…and to add to #650, there was the argument about how badly the American university system sucks and how extra credit was cheating (though that one also had Hyperon in it)
Ladies and gentlemen (and Floyd), the legend, the epical, Mr. Slim Whitman…
Because your question was given in #643, which I quote in its entirety:
Even before I went to the linked wiki article, I knew Buchwald v Paramount had to do with “unconscionable accounting.” I further knew that you were trying to conflate economics, banking, and “unconscionable accounting.” You were making a dig at economists and I was denying the dig.
I could be wrong, but I sincerely doubt it.
Owlmirror, thanks for the clarification on anchor links. That will be really handy for referring to comments within the current endless thread.
Subject change: Remember the discussion several months ago about the LDS Church giving its approval for an anti-discrimination law proposed by the City Council in Salt Lake City? At the time, some pessimists called it a PR trick on the part of church officials, meant to distract attention from Dallin Oaks stupidly comparing the protests against mormons who supported Prop 8 to the sufferings of black Americans who participated in the Civil Rights Movement.
I was not one of those pessimists. I assumed the city ordinance, which only sought to prevent discrimination against gays in the workplace and in housing, would pass, if only because it carefully avoided gay marriage rights. It did pass, and I assumed similar laws would be passed for the entire State of Utah. I was wrong on that count. The pessimists were right.
Source
Yeah… I remember that one…
Indeed, you are correct: I was making a dig. And I apologise for forgetting to include MBAs; that was an oversight on my part. Sorry!
catchin up…
(and too lazy to remove redundant points that others have already addressed)
Oh, man, BoS…what to say?
AlanB @#550: Do you really not see the magic word that hung your comment up? Think about what must be the most common word in spam…
Almost makes me want to peek.
Almost.
Huh, really? I wield the killfile like a machete to ruthlessly configure and clean up my Pharyngula experience. I even have a couple of OMs in my killfile. Not telling.
In the Pittsburghese of my youth it’s “yinz”
I don’t see a difference in your example between “be” and the standard “were”.
Otherwise–sorry, Paul–tl;dr
carry one of these?
Anomalous, perhaps, but not unique. Not linkin’, sorry.
A few choice comments from readers of the article linked to in comment 661. Commenters are Utah citizens for the most part:
un-good?
someone actually used a newspeak word seriously (probably without even noticing it was newspeak)?
Thanks, SC.
*scratches head*
Same behavioral pattern, indeed. When SEF loses his/her shit, he/she really loses it.
grammar debate over ‘he/she’ vs. ‘they’, anyone?
That was double plus ungood.
I find “he/she” to be cumbersome, not only to write, but to read.
Alan B, if you wish to refer to the commercial name of sildenafil citrate [I wonder if these would be caught as well?], you will need to use
black magica simple trick.Write: Via<i></i>gra or something similar.
The embedded tags will interfere with the comment moderation parser from picking up one of the substances most advertised by spam, spam, spamity spam.
Worst Movie Ever: Dudley Doright (sp?)
Apropos of nothing I just tried to cook up some borscht.
Not all that remarkable really, but to be fair I’ve deviated a lot from the recipe. But it’s warm and I have my latest batch of (failed) bread to soak it up with. (A bit thin – possibly should blend it a little.) Finally buying some balsamico paid off though, I think. Another issue is the colour. I bought a bag of ‘mixed beets’. Turned out that only one of them – a very small one – was the regular red variety.
Ah well. Perhaps the dead cava will make me ignore the issues.
(Still haven’t come around to make the Pear Crostini. Sometime next week, perhaps.)
wotthehell anyway:
Test 1,2,3:
Ooga Booga, sildenafil citrate !!
Agreed, but I do use it, mostly since I think of they as plural and it doesn’t seem appropriate for most humans. I also dislike the automatic initial position of the male pronoun, and so often write it as she/he, or she.
SEF,
When a rape survivor tells you your comparison of being abused by text on the internet is wrong, admit that you fucked up and apologize. Anything less is perpetuating Rape Culture and minimizing the experiences of rape survivors. We get enough of that from elswhere.
Success !!
Sildenafil is not caught by the comment moderation parser.
Catching up, and still no where near current, but Jadehawk (@473) hit the nail on the head:
This is not the first time I’ve started out agreeing at least in part with SEF1, but ended up concluding that s/he is just a giant assclam.
Arguments around here seem like a monkey trap to SEF: Once the fist is closed around the banana, SEF seems incapable of just letting go, no matter how much pain, thrashing, and screeching ensues.
1 In this case I agreed, more or less, with SEF’s original explication of the specific sentence structures in question, though I do not agree with the approach that followed, which strikes me as hyperprescriptivist.
ack, lost myself typing.
should be
When a rape survivor tells you your comparison of being abused by text on the internet to being gang-raped is wrong,
Hi Bill D.: Curious as to whether you’ve read the DF Wallace essay I linked above someplace. I think you’d enjoy it.
so, it’s a bit bigger than I expected. Also, is the use of pens for showing size normal?
I want that guy’s job. Well, his second job, anyway :-p
Yeah, that does seem to be the case… Which is why I used the George Bernard Shaw quote up at #629… seemed fitting.
Currently my favorite Australian:
(He seems to have his 12-string strung with 11 strings. Strange stringing.)
Were you homeschooled or something?
Please. Even I haven’t had such a sheltered upbringing.
As I just wrote, you should try to become a scientist. More specifically, you should submit a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal. That way you would learn that, when you express yourself in writing and are misunderstood, it is your fault.
(Obviously this doesn’t include cases of trolling where people pretend to misunderstand something in order to drive the authors into madness. But nobody in this thread is doing that. Newfie is, for comparison, and he has said so.)
I don’t remember. Please tell me where I should look for it.
And do something about your notpology for your complete loss of, if nothing else, all sense of proportion.
While it’s not up there with “Turkish Star Wars”, watching Rambo IV is a funny experience. The first half transparently pretends to have a plot. The second half drops all that ballast and is just TFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT anymore.
The sound was so bad that I had to rely on the subtitles occasionally. The subtitles were in Czech. I don’t speak Czech*. Still, I don’t think I missed anything of importance. :-)
* Well. That’s not exactly the same thing as when I say “I don’t speak Hungarian”. But still. :o)
Mordor!
It can get pretty bad in German, too, but I do think it’s a bit less common…
It’s the adjectives, not the nouns (…well… adjectives-used-as-nouns).
Of course, but I acted as if there were only two possible ones. I had confused glucose and fructose with α- and β-glucose… <slinking off chair and under table>
Right from the beginning…
CeresTexas. Yeah, riiiiight. <mock mock> There goes my suspension of disbelief.Deep Impact… is one thing. Armageddon is another.
There’s a hydroxymethyl compound in there? What strange metabolic pathway makes it???
The Freemen? :^)
Third option: different than.
That’s the one useful Firefox feature that IE lacks.
For the record, I want to disclaim any support for SEF. When I jumped into the discussion about prescriptivism/descriptivism, I was just having a little jokey fun, and didn’t really want to engage in the substantive argument.
Then, SEF made the gang rape remark. Then defended it. Then Bride of Shrek revealed her gang rape, and SEF defended the remark again.
I’ve seen a lot of hateful shit on the Internet, SEF, but that was fucking obscene. You’re a hateful son of a bitch.
Ok, took a break for a few hours, ready to be around society again without causing a ruckus.
So terrible movies, and no one’s said The Core yet? It starts with pigeons killing themselves by flying into buildings they presumably can’t see because their inner long-distance compass is messed up. Not much can beat that.
Sven–
1. Which link is to a DFW essay? I don’t have much time to read this thread and as fast as it moves, finding the link should become more difficult over time.
2. I grew up not far from Pittsburgh myself (though on the other side of the mighty Ohio). My wife is from Canonsburg. Ever have to red up your room as a kid? Not to be nebby or anything.
And of course, “The Day After Tomorrow”… yikes…
Do you know that I know people, AGW denialists, that really think that AGW scientists actually believe that the scenario played out in that flim-flam of a film is actually what will happen, and that’s why they won’t take it seriously.
I shit you not.
Thanks for the tip. I’d never noticed that feepture before. (feepture, from feeping creaturism, from creeping featurism, also known as feature creep.)
#648 David Marjanović
I freely admit to only speaking one language fluently. School French and Latin are a long while ago and I have never had the need to follow them up. (I also had to pass an exam in scientific German to get my degree. Never used that since, either.)
Taking your points one by one:
I am unaware of that and I can’t see how I might use it in normal speech. Can you give me some examples and a source? I can’t find any reference in Greenbaum and Whitcut “Longman Guide to English Usage”.
Of course I don’t! I may be ignorant but I’m not stupid. And I did not say that, seriously or otherwise. What I am saying is that Latin does has clearly defined forms of nouns and verbs which are largely missing in English. Thus, we only have the common case, Caesar, and the possessive case (‘genitive’), Caesar’s. And many people can’t use the possessive apostrophe correctly, adding it to common case plurals!
In comparison, take the name “Caesar” in Latin. You would decline the name of Caesar thus:
Caesar, Caesaris, Caesari, Caesarem, Caesare for the different cases (with nominative and vocative the same).
We had 5 declensions (and 4 conjugations), with irregular forms, hammered into us by rote (rather like Churchill when he complained that he would never address a table, “O table”, so why did he have to learn it). Each had their case endings and you learned/learnt them and where they were used (or else).
In English some pronouns have three cases with different forms. For example:
I subjective or nominative
me objective or accusative
my possessive or genitive
I am arguing that, since few English people are taught Latin, the importance of the different case forms and where they are required are not understood. Many children would talk about “Me Mum” when they mean “My Mum”. Similarly, the misuse of I and me which has reached epidemic proportions to the extent that the rules of common English usage are changing.
And hence I am arguing that when there are different forms, the child is not sensitised to the importance of using the correct form. They would be if the structure of their language were taught as it is in Latin.
Ah! I was wondering whether V****** was the “naughty” word! Thanks for the confirmation. Do we have to learn by trial and error or is there a list? Obviously, some words which would be regarded virtually as taboo in polite circles in the UK are accepted without any filter showing the slightest concern.
It appears to be a condensation of the IUPAC name for sucrose, minus the hydroxyl groups and stereochemistry.
Sili: My Russian buddy liked to throw in some fungi of the genus Russula for crunch in his borscht.
BS
Has no-one else here been so unfortunate as to see The Day After Tomorrow, which has a scene where it appears that the very laws of thermodynamics have magically become a hungry predator?
DF Wallce links.
Well, my parents are from Chicago so no, but my friends did. They’d find gumbands and dirty worsh under the byoora.
(Fans of weird local American dialects can find way more of this than you’d ever care to read here, btw. If you want to hear it spoken by the quintessential Pittsburgher, click here.)
I love The Day After Tomorrow…after drinking a few beers anyway.
I (generally) love movies with apocalyptic/eschatalogical themes…after I have a few beers.
I just want to say thank you to Janine, to Pygmy Loris, to BoSOM, negentropyeater, and to all the others who called out SEF on his grotesque “virtual gang-rapist” metaphor, and dismantled his ridiculous defense of it.
Thanks, by the way, to those who reassured me about the harmlessness of aspartame. I’m on my second can of Diet Pepsi of the evening, which I desperately needed, since I have three essays due in next week and am currently trying to wade through this 128-page research study:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/hors291.pdf
(Don’t read it, unless you’re suffering from insomnia.)
Anyway, please tell me to shut up if I try to start any interesting political arguments in the next couple of days. I have tons of work to do, and am worryingly good at procrastination. :-)
ACK!
‘Thank’ you …
Hydromethyl is H-O-CH2-. Are you thinking methoxy, H3C-O-?
Oh. I’d completely forgotten the α/β issue. And to think I used to be good at nomenclature (I managed to master the A/C convention for stereoisomers of inorganic coördination compounds) …
Sven:
I had missed the DFW (which never fails to look, to the Texas boy in me, like Dallas-Fort Worth [Airport]) links the first time through, so thanks for the pointer. I’ll read it as soon as I can. BTW…
The PDF was <8 Mb, and downloaded on my system in about 20 seconds. 8 Mb is “ginormous”? And more to the point, if you can’t handle an 8 Mb download, how do you ever manage to get any porn?
;^)
SEF (#536)
By the way, O Great Supporter of Opinions, why did you never respond to me at #491? I posted that in the middle of your tantrum and rather than respond, you continued flogging your persecution complex. Not that I want to continue a discussion with you now that you’ve gone so far beyond offensive. I tend to overlook a lot of objectionable language, but your refusal to admit wrongdoing in the case of the rape analogy followed by a protracted defense of it, no less, is disgusting.
lol, yes! Complete with Morcs that work for the Morg (Mormon Organization). And talk about having the best Evil Eye in the religion business … my mother used to get the Evil Eye just for buying coffee when she first moved from New Mexico to Idaho.
The Morridor still has pockets of ultra-conservative mormonism, but their influence is slowing thinning. No one give me the Evil Eye for buying coffee, but I did get the Evil Eye from a dental assistant for drinking coffee. With my brother, Leland, I recently presented an Art Meets Adventure show in Rigby, a very mormon community. I reminded myself not to use any swear words, but one “damn” slipped out. Luckily, the audience just laughed.
Oops, blockquote fail in comment 648. This
was a quote.
C’est d’la triche !
Participates in The Thread without reading all of it! Cheater!
Well, there might be the (southern?) German word ungut involved, which carries connotations of “weakly sickening”… but I doubt it.
(Anyway, congratulations on the comment number! Subthread-wise, I mean.)
“Debate”?
“Singular they”: God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Debate is whatcha put on de hook to catch de fish.
(Wanted to provide that link about 500 comments ago, but Language Log didn’t work yesterday. But while I am at it, behold the spokespirate!)
It happens, probably more commonly than using one’s own head as a scale bar, and less commonly than using a rock hammer or (for smaller specimens) a coin. Most commonly, however, people use the special overpriced ruler provided by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Strangely, I can’t find it in the SVP’s CafePress store, but I bought one last conference and will bring it to the dig. :-)
Note to self: Qapla’.
Walton (#544)
I spotted it, but I also spotted that you’d already ripped him a new one for it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Alan B (#548)
And the need for precision communication in some contexts is why I’m not against a prescriptivist language being taught for such purposes. The problem, as Pygmy Loris noted, is that what we tend to take for granted as the “correct” and “precise” English is just an upper class dialect. Precision is a feature of all dialects. The more awareness we have that our Standard English dialect is a tool, not an ideal form that people are straying from or degrading (most don’t speak it naturally, anyways), the easier time we’ll have using it for precision communication.
(#689)
The child automatically acquires the correct form for his or her own dialect, though. What you’re calling misuse is merely linguistic variation.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Carlie (#559)
It was sexy, IMO. Nice strong takedown.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Paul W. (#587)
Awesome post.
Or they would start overcorrecting elsewhere, introducing more “wrongness,” as in the case where attempts to correct constructions like “Mom and me went to the store” (which works just fine in English but drives prescriptivists nuts) results in people coming out with the likes of “Dad came to the store with Mom and I.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Celtic_Evolution (#637)
Volcano was assigned watching in a geology class my friend took. They had to write a paper going over all the errors they could spot.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Owlmirror (#639)
David beat me to it, but this is what I would use.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And a general thanks to all with HTML/Firefox tips and cilantro-related links!!
Weird…I too pulled it right down just now (it’s kind of a groady-looking pdf). Don’t know what my box’s issues were yesterday.
and–wait–there’s porn on the internet?
#669 Celtic Evolution
Until someone comes up with a convenient form, agreeable to all, I shall continue to use the form used by English Law and Quality Assurance Manuals everywhere(?):
Reference to “male” includes “female” and singular includes “plural”.
I have no problem at all with “Chairman”(Chairperson? Chairpeople? or, worse, “Chair” – as if the man/men and/or woman/women involved were a piece(s) of moulded plastic), manhole cover (peoplehole cover?), Headmaster (but now almost universally replaced by Head Teacher in the UK).
What next?
Human Hu-person
Manager Personager
Harriett Harman Harriett Harperson*
*UK Govern-persons-t Minister for Equality.
That’s the rumor…
A. Noyd:
It kind of got lost in the SEFstorm, but I just wanted to say that my (much) earlier comment about cilantro was just a bit of cheek, as I hope my reference to the almighty bacon made evident. I would never seriously try to dictate to anyone their taste in food.
That said, I find the distinction you make between food that tastes like bad-tasting food and that which tastes like not-food a bit creepy. I’ve never run into the not-food sensation (at least, not in anything that was supposed to be food), and I’m afraid if I ever do, I’ll mistake it for a neurological symptom and head for the ER.
Of course, since you’re familiar with it, I guess you can be confident it’s not a stroke or anything… but it would scare the hell out of me.
#670 Owlmirror
Thanks for the hint!
Problem for a newcomer is knowing what the offensive words are.
Guess I’ll sneak in a quick update before PZ slams the portcullis down.
Executive Summary: up up up
21131
Avatar – Umm
IMHO – I will have to wait for the RiffTrax version before I stand a chance of enjoying this stinker.
The best thing about the movie was the banana flavored choc top ice cream that I purchased in the lobby.
That is awesome.
Chairperson is too much for you? (Not to mention that femal equivalents of these terms exist and are easy enough to use.) Look, I don’t have the energy for another one of these discussions right now, but sexism is built into the language, and I suspect you might see it differently if it were “Reference to ‘female’ includes ‘male’.”
Jebus, over 700 posts in a little over two days. Looks like if this thing ever has to change direction it will be a spectacular derailment.
Celery is not food.
Yes, it is, but only in small doses, as a flavoring. On its own, it is most definitely food.
Personally i like cilantro.
Wait, did I just walk in on something going on in here?
Manager comes from manus, not man.
*clenched-tentacle salute*
celery is food. so is cilantro.
melted ice-cubes OTOH are not a valid substitute for 3/4 of that beverage I just paid for
Will this thread still be here tomorrow?
I catch up and then the time zone effect kicks in and PZ has to start a new incarnation of “The Thread”.
Has anyone kept a record of whether the time between reincarnations actually has been shortening – or does it just seem that way?
:-o Wow. What was the idea behind that?
“Who was that?” – “Me!”
“It’s me!” (Strictly “I am it” in German.)
“It’s them again!”
Can’t give a source, but…
…usage guides aren’t scientific grammars. Unfortunately, the probably best grammar of English is a brick of a book that I wouldn’t dream of buying because it’s pretty expensive per kilo. I don’t possess any scientific grammars, in fact…
Or dative: “give me…” –
If you look only at contemporary English (a synchronic point of view), this makes plenty of sense and doesn’t run into any contradictions.
If you look at the evolution of it all (diachronic), this is utter and total bullcrap that stinks from sea to shining sea. My/mine is the possessive pronoun, same as German mein-, French mon/ma/mes, and Latin meus/mea/meum/mei/meae/mea.
It makes sense to say that the grammar of English has evolved, the two roles (kept strictly apart in Latin, Russian, and German if it’s so formal that you still use the genitive of the personal pronoun in the first place) have merged, and it doesn’t make sense to pretend they’re separate anymore.
You don’t really believe that one needs to learn Latin to understand one’s own native language. :-)
I don’t actually know it (and I’m sure linguists figured it out long ago), but I bet this is a remnant from sometime before or during the Great Vowel Shift – they are saying my, they’re just pronouncing it the way you pronounce me. In other words, they’re simply speaking another dialect.
Pretty complex things can happen that way. Most, perhaps all, German dialects pronounce das and dass with different vowels, yet in the standardized version of the language (despite all the regional variation within the standard!) they’re pronounced exactly the same. (The ss, or rather the s, is a red herring.)
Is there really such an importance?
What you’re proposing (and what used, indeed, to be done) is to teach them a pared-down version of the structure of Latin. Which isn’t that of English. It’s more similar to that of English than that of Basque is, but it’s still not the same.
I think no list has been published. That would make it too easy for spambot programmers.
There is no politeness filter. ScienceBlogs isn’t family-friendly, it’s scientist-friendly, and scientists don’t really form polite circles. There’s only a spam filter.
Also, PZ has banned the names of certain dungeon inhabitants, and I think Conservapœdia is not to be talked about either.
<facepalm> Oh yeeeeeah – the ring form has a methoxy group attached to the ring. Of course!
<facepalm> Yes.
Not me! =8-)
FIFY.
Don’t you know what the internet is for?
mmmmmmm… blood…oranges. :)
Owlmirror, #639 and #652: Thank you!
Yes. I actually discovered that feature on my own and have been using it to learn how to do certain things I see other people doing. That’s how I know how to insert images here, for example.
Already couple of subThreads out of date, but:
http://terrapinprocrastination.blogspot.com/2010/01/metathreadual-analysis.html
In Deutschland bekam man keinen Eis mit seiner Getränke ins Gasthäuser.
Sven has been keeping track…
#719
It’s on at the moment – Channel 4 UK. Halfway through.
And, no, I’m not watching it!
Jebus, over 700 posts in a little over two days. Looks like if this thing ever has to change direction it will be a spectacular derailment.
And there was no tears of regret from my runaway train.
A cafe in Cambridge (MA) that I like for breakfast
http://cremacambridge.com/
switched one day to blood orange juice. Their regular orange juice was terrific, but this was even better. (Haven’t been there in a while, so I don’t know if they’ve switched back….)
and that’s precisely how it’s supposed to be.
That’s the kind of example I was looking for.
Via French menage “housework”.
I’ve actually seen German texts that use male and female forms at random and always mean both. (They spell that out first, of course.) Interesting experience to read that.
If properly boiled in a soup, I can eat fairly large quantities of it (with the soup, obviously), usually more than actually ends up on my plate.
To my surprise, celery cream soup with carrots, too rarely offered in the canteen, is very good (because, remarkably, it’s spiced just right).
Celery purée, occasionally offered in the same canteen as if it were potato purée… :-/ I can eat that in emergencies, but not much.
Janine: yep. Commenting rate on this subThread (up to # 700) was an unprecedented and scary 327 comments/d.
Reminds me for some reason of ol’ Henry.
The real question at hand here is does PZ know about this?
No you can not ask why I know it exists.
<clenched-tentacle salute>
mirepoix is the base of a large part of many things food.
You don’t get them in Cambodia either. Instead, it’s compulsory that you drink with a straw. (So wasteful.)
Where in the rule book does it say we can’t?
http://www.sushiordeath.com/v2/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/bento_1.jpg
Sometimes I’ll do that (…if I’m understanding you correctly). I think it’s probably the best way to go at this point, especially stating it up front.
I can eat a number of items I wouldn’t otherwise if they’re in a soup.
WARNING: Shameless self promotion contain in the following message. If these types of messages offend your sensibilities or those of the young children in your home, please change the thread you are viewing for the next few comments. Thank you.
If anyone is coming to Charleston for the Southeasten Wildlife Exposition in two weeks, stop by the Francis Marion hotel for the “Landscapes and Locals exhibit” and try to figure out which exhibitor I am.
Hint: I’ll be the photographer chimp.
:-o
Impressive!
Celery is the proper garnish for a bloody Mary. (Dang, having trouble finding Salsa Brava recently. The Redhead’s version of BM uses 10 dollops.) Used in mirepoix, as part of stock, OK. Just to eat a stalk of, bleah.
It was a train that took me away from here. But a train can’t bring me home.
I’m going down to Florida to get some sand in my shoes.
There’s nothing I can do. Can’t make it turn around.
Similar combinations, both in and out of the French culinary repertoire, may include leeks, parsnips, garlic, tomatoes, shallots, mushrooms, bell peppers, chilies, and ginger
I would happily substitute any of those for celery.
PS: Congratulations!
Janine, we have Cuttlefish as our “unofficial” Poet Laureate. You must be our “unofficial” DJ Laureate. Bring it sister, bring it…
From the “capacity for self-delusion” thread:
Janine owes me 1 (one) new monitor!
Classic. :)
You’ve probably ingested celery in many things without being conscious of it. Nearly every single stock I’ve made both in and out of professional kitchens used the classic mirepoix as the base and many many soups as well.
It is the classic trio for mirepoix.
And thanks!
I didn’t know it (mirequoi ?), but I bet a good soup can be made of it.
If that’s wasteful, you’re doing it wrong. (Or the straw is much too short or some other weirdness.)
I bought bread earlier today. Now I’m eating some. :-) :-) :-)
It’s actually the base on which many things such as soup are made, not what the soup is about.
You start by sauteing the mirepoix in oil or butter which adds a base layer of flavor to which you then add the rest of the soup or stock ingredients.
The only movie Jack Black didn’t ruin by being in it: Mars Attacks
I have nothing against celery.
Cilantro, on the other hand…
Cilantro is a fantastic food.
Celery should be used for flavoring only, and never consumed directly.
All the talk about The Day After Tomorrow reminded me of The Day After. I think it may have originally been a tv-movie, so might not count, but still. It has Steve Gutenberg, Lawrence KS, and a nuclear disaster.
Oh, I’m sure. Like I said, I can usually take it cooked in soups and things, as long as I can’t taste it specifically. The thought of biting into s stalk of it or big chunks of it in a sandwich salad, though…*shudder*
Classic, shmassic.* Every food on that list except parsnips is a favorite of mine.
*Kidding.
No, I’m sure drinking with a straw can be efficient and maybe protect your teeth from the suguar or acid in the drink, but straws themselves are usually wasteful because people will use them once and throw them out and they end up in the pretty lotus ponds that were created through bombings.
What about stuffed celery?
I see Sigmund Freud slippin and a slidin with your friends…
You are disintegrating into everything all around.
Way to put myself, my children to sleep.
Lots of rulebooks for book-and-paper RPGs do this in English.
The movie with so much wrong it woke me up:
Toxic Skies
Anne Heche is a virologist looking for a vaccine to cure the people who have heavy metal poisoning from a virus spread by jets. This ‘plague virus’ was previously amenable to antibiotics, but for some reason they have stopped working.
When she finds the vaccine, people visibly improve within minutes of injection. Much rejoicing ensues: the movie is over.
Of course, the main purpose for celery is to show students what collenchyma looks like.
*Thanksgiving flashback*
The horror!
:)
Boygenius, I got that line from one of the most gloriously bad movies, Reform School Girls.
All this talk of celery is bringing back memories (PTSD?) of a version of chop suey, served either by the high school cafeteria or the dorms, which was primarily celery based. Good, except for the large quantity of large chunks of celery…
The weird thing about cilantro is that it doesn’t matter what it’s mixed into or how small the quantity is, I can always taste it spewcifically*. That doesn’t happen with most of the foods I don’t like.
*Literally. Spewing is exactly what I end up doing.
Bill Dauphin (#706)
Oh, no, I was returning in cheeky kind. I suppose sandwiching it between the more serious replies to the language discussion wasn’t such a good idea on my part. Whoops!
Having more categories for taste is all part of the sensory processing issues I have. I am extra aware of sensory input. All the damn time. (Hence my handle–I’m “A.Noyd” by everything.) If I don’t wash my hands after handling coins, the lingering stink of the copper can distract me, for instance. (And I can still smell the perfumed crap on my hair I mentioned last thread after five rounds of shampoo, but only if I put a lock up to my nose. Before it was like my head was wrapped in the stench.) There’s no way to turn down the “volume” on my senses.
It’s not all bad, of course. I have abnormally increased or decreased abilities to separate out various types of input. I can’t identify particular instruments in a piece of music and have trouble separating the voice of a speaker close to me from the surrounding noise. But I can identify separate reactions when tasting and smelling things. The flavor of eggplant is delicious to me flavor-wise, also sometimes bitter, and always triggers a pleasant reaction that’s separate from the enjoyment of the flavor. (Sesame is the same way, complete with being sometimes bitter.) Beer, while I tend to like the flavor, always has a bitter element that builds up to a sort of pain and I can’t keep drinking it. It works rather like the spicyness of foods with capsaicin (hot peppers). Foods made spicy with allyl isothiocyanate (mustard and horseradish), on the other hand, can be painful to eat, but the pain depends on the concentration and remains at a constant level rather than building up.
And that’s just, um, a taste of the weirdness of my brain. No stroke, but not normal either.
~*~*~*~*~*~
SC (#712)
Oh, and I hate celery leaves (excessively bitter), don’t mind mature stalks (vary in flavor, but mostly boring), and really like some young stalks (which have a pleasant woody, cabbagey taste), though other young stalks taste like the leaves. Not sure what’s going on chemistry-wise there.
~*~*~*~*~*~
David Marjanović (#719)
Correct. And it can get confusing because the “me” pronunciation might end up part of an idiom, so some speakers might use “my” and “me” in different contexts to mean the same thing. I think this habit of retaining variant pronunciation in idiom is really common with English, but can’t come up with other examples. Grrr.
Cilantro. The Redhead keeps asking me to buy this stuff on my forays for breakfast and lunch material at the grocery store. If it isn’t labeled, I can’t find it. Or taste it in food for that matter. And it is plentiful in our area, as it is used in Latin American cooking.
I like cilantro so much that I’ve had a jar of Goya recaito in my cupboard for months now. The only reason I haven’t yet used it is that I simply cannot get it open. I just can’t. It’s become a battle at this point and I’m not going to ask for help. It’s me against the jar, and it’s going to open. You have my word.
*glares*
***
One movie that made me actually swear off of them for a while was The Forgotten with Julianne Moore. I was expecting a completely different kind of film, and the ending was creepy as hell. Horrible (though MST3K could have done something with it). Fortunately, the next one I saw in a theater was Dirty Pretty Things.
SC,
If the jar has a metal lid, have you tried running hot/boiling water over the lid to loosen it away from the glass?
Humm, lets see how to ramp up the food wars…
Vegetarians, Vegans and “You shouldn’t eat that becauseians” may want to skip this comment to hold back the desire to tell us meat eaters how immoral or unhealthy we are.
Some of these have been asked before but why not. I have an hour to kill.
Pork or Beef BBQ? (Sorry somewhat American centric question)
Me, Pork but I do like a very nicely prepared smoked brisket
Do you put ketchup on your hotdog (and if you do you should be ashamed of yourself)? How do you like it?
My answer should be evident on the ketchup. Currently my favorite dog is a pickle, blue cheese slaw and spicy mustard. Occasionally with chili but usually not.
What is your take on organ meat like sweetbreads? do you eat them or are you terrified?
Love them. Pan fried sweetbreads are fantastic. If there was a heaven, foie gras would grow on trees. Other organ meats are good too but I haven’t gone extremely crazy on them… yet.
Rare, Medium or Well done and which cut of steak do you prefer. You can answer with different combinations if you feel the need.
Rare on most anything but I will order mid-rare on a rib-eye or if the cut has a lot of connective tissue.
When I used to cook professionally if someone ordered a well done steak I would almost take that as an offense and that steak would be as well done as you can cook a steak before it becomes charcoal.
What is the best restaurant you’ve been to recently?
Easily Trattoria Lucca. The place is amazing.
Oysters: Raw, Steamed, Fried or all of the above? Or no fucking way that’s disgusting.
All of the above but I prefer raw and I love fried oysters. Especially in Po-Boy form.
What level of heat (as in spice) do you like or can you handle
I like it hot, very hot, but not so much I have to have a hug and someone tell me everything is going to be ok hot. I have a fridge in the garage that is only for beer and hot sauce.
Yes I am a food snob of the highest order and I make exactly zero apologies for it.
I pity the jar. To quote a famous philosopher, “more power!” But sometimes it’s the right tool.
Thanks. Yes, many times. Many, many times.
Come to think of it, I should write a short story about this….
Oh hell yeah! Staring the always fucking fantastic Wendy O’ Williams from the Plasmatics.
Maggots is still on of my all time favorite albums.
I think you need to write up everything you’ve tried as a list, right now, else this thread will hit 1000+ with suggestions on opening jars.
(Have you tried smacking its bottom? Ooh-er!)
You don’t need no ticket. You just get on board.
All alone I bare the shame. I’m a number not a name.
If I die on the hill. If I don’t make it. You know my baby will.
I’m laughing so hard I’m crying.
Fearing just that, I had started such a list in that post (“Yes, I’ve also…”), which I was too lazy to complete, but that was the first item.
Based on random rules I have developed in this contest, I will use no tool of more than one part.
I also admit that I have injured myself trying to open this jar from hell.
Chocolate:
What about chil(l)i pepper flavo(u)r? I bought a bar of Lindt’s chili chocolate out of curiosity, and while I liked it (or perhaps, didn’t loathe it) enough to finish it, I don’t feel any need to repeat the experiment at all. I don’t think it really works as a flavo(u)r combination.
On the other hand, Green & Black’s ginger chocolate bar is concentrated awesome.
#719 David Marjanović
Thank you for your comments. Here we go:
The number of Englishmen (sorry, English people) who are familiar with the scientific study of language is (vanishingly?) small. As you surmise, I was looking only at contemporary English.
Your examples of the rule that encourages use of the object forms instead of the subject forms for emphasis:
Sorry, David. I don’t see your point:
“Who was that?” – the reply “Me” could be taken as “(It was) me” with the verb in the question implied in the answer. “Me” being objective would then be normal usage.
“It’s me!” It seems to me that “me” is objective. “I” would be stilted and incorrect.
“It’s them again!” “Them” is the objective form of they. Hence, they would be stilted and incorrect.
I may have missed something but the examples seem to be exactly what would be normal grammatical usage of the objective form. Is the fact that the verb “to be” and its forms is the problem here? Taking it as a “normal” verb, I cannot see this “… additional rule which encourages use of the object forms instead of the subject forms for emphasis.” If this is scientific grammar or derives from a historical derivation, fair enough. But it does not seem to be an additional rule in contemporary English.
I did not say this, David. And don’t talk down to me, please. The smiley is not enough to make it sound otherwise. I am saying that in the past Latin provided all you ever needed to know to approach English grammar (and a whole lot more).
Of course I do not need Latin to use English. However, knowing some Latin, a pupil will have a solid foundation in the structure of grammar and will not make mistakes like “Me Mum”. And it is a mistake. It is not mispronunciation in the modern child (although it may have all sorts of discernible roots in the linguistic past). If it is anything it is not understanding that there is a perfectly good English word “my”. Again, of course, this is part of the flow of language and quite possibly the word “my” will disappear and we will be back to just 2 forms – I and me.
Unfortunately, having done away with Latin (hooray!) IMO English grammar is not being taught in a secure way. You may think this is good and fine. Others may applaud the freedom of a language with flexible rules (or no rules at all).
Let me use an analogy. If I want to understand the physical chemistry of bromine I can study the physical chemistry of bromine. Fine, provided it is done well. Alternatively, I could be given a grounding in the chemistry of the other halogens which would show how bromine “fits in” the halogen group of the Periodic Table e.g. liquid bromine (at room temperature) fits in between gaseous fluorine + chlorine and solid iodine.
I think there is. Again, it is my opinion and it is strictly utilitarian. But for those who were educated to understand how English functions, to hear (or read) the language being used incorrectly means the young person is at a disadvantage. too often, “incorrectly” verges on “incoherently”.
Why should I employ as a typist or a clerk someone who will be making contact with those in other companies who also have a working knowledge of English. And, no, I’m not talking about posh accents versus regional accents or coming out with unusual words like “without” (a Scottish word meaning outside or beyond). Unless, of course, the accent becomes so extreme that the average person (my clients, for example) can’t understand it.
Like it or not, someone who sounds “uneducated” will be regarded as uneducated and maybe it’s not fair but there’s a lot of people out there wanting jobs. Last time I wanted to fill a position where I worked there were something like 200+ applicants. We could not interview them all (!). If you wanted to be considered for the long list (let alone a short list) the applicant needed an edge. Sounding uneducated in their use of language would not be the way to do it.
In addition, I like English and I like to hear it used well.
Jar-opening-thread it is!
Nerd joke: Have you tried unzip?
Rubber (*smirks*) glove?
That’s the one shaped like a pie wedge isn’t it? Appropriate…
Depends on what you’re looking for, but have you been to any of these…
– Pacific St. Cafe, in Cambridgeport;
– Petsi Pies on Beacon St
– Blue Frog Bakery in Jamaica Plain (best croissants ever)
– Various Hi-Rise bakeries
– Various Brazilian bakeries on Cambridge St
Fuck yeah I’ll second that. Have you ever cooked down onions for Indian curry sauces? I’ve tried a few things that work well, but never quite the same to that elusive restaurant flavor.
As I am the “more power” at the Nerd household, I recommend looking at those with two parts. I have saved a lot of face with two such tools from Craftsman. They may have plastic handles, but they do the job…
I guess this disqualifies my suggestion to simply take a hammer and phillips screwdriver to the lid
Chimpy, one of my all time favorite television moments. A woman, wearing a shaving cream covered bra, shooting up the stage with a shotgun. At the age oh fourteen, that was my first exposure to punk.
SC (#763)
If this doesn’t count as help: Nail a hole in the lid to let the air out. Seal the hole with wax if you don’t use the whole jar at once. And if that doesn’t get it open, work a flathead screwdriver under the lid at various places around the circumfrence.
SC, I use small channel locks on caps of 1.5-2″ or less.
Jar-opening thread? OK…
Have you tried using a lighter (or, if the rules don’t allow that, a matchstick) to run a flame around the lid?
Shit. I meant to start that post with “Great links, Janine,” but hit submit too early, as I, y’know, tend to do.
No. To be doesn’t work like that.
MrFire,
Yes, it is kind of wedge-shaped. It’s in Brattle Square. Of those, as far as I recall, I’ve only been to a Hi-Rise (…or saw it on Phantom Gourmet…it all blends together :D)).
I have tried the rubber jar-opening things. It’s all part of a global conspiracy against left-handed people, I’m sure….
Take the shotgun (Janine #779) to the jar. Guaranteed to open. In Mythbusters fashion.
Ever since I saw the magnificent beard of ‘Tis Himself, I cannot help but feel a certain awe and reverence when I read his comments, whatever they might be.
At 38 years of age, I might be discovering that I have a weakness for lush beards.
The stalks are actually part of the leaves – they’re grotesquely enlarged petioles with tiny dissected blades.
My dorm cafeteria used celery as a filler in just about everything – soups were one thing, but when I found it in the spaghetti…
#772 Owlmirror
Chili + chocolate used to be the way the mesoAmericans ate chocolate. I’ve tried it but definitely not for me.
My favourite is 81% cocoa solids but I will eat almost anything with 70% and above. Yes to Green and Black’s ginger!!
Definitely not Cadburys! To be fair they have introduced a 70% chocolate but “plain chocolate” Bournville is 30% which is less than many good milk choclates. And when it comes to Hershey words fail me …
Finally, some arrests in the kidnapping of Haitian children.
10 Americans arrested, taking 33 children.
23:30 over here, gals and guys. “See” you on the morrow. What odds it will be a new incarnation of “The Thread”?
OH DORM CAFETERIA NO
I’m not a huge fan of chili chocolate, but salt chocolate is da bomb.
If anyone is looking for good gourmet chocolate, Lake Champlain Chocolates is a fantastic little place that develops and makes all their own chocolates, and their hazlenut bar is most definitely worth the price and shipping. (featured in the also fantastic little book Candyfreak by Steve Almond)
SC, I just fell over laughing.
*perplexed*
Rubber things are exclusively right-handed?
Have you tried adrenaline?
Find something that makes you furious. Imagine that the jar is the reified neck of what (or who) makes you furious. Twist hard!
Alan B (#773)
Why not teach kids the anatomy of English grammar, then? Using Latin’s grammar to create a foundation for English speaking students is pointless given how different the languages are.
All children acquire proper grammar for their native dialect(s) without being explicitly taught (minus occasional correction on irregular forms, but they can usually get these without instruction as well). And they also learn to understand, but often not to speak, the grammars of other dialects within the same language. This is especially the case if they natively speak a dialect associated with lower status. Those who acquired a high status dialect at home often won’t even learn to understand low status dialects. Which I wager is part of the problem you’re having with the grammatical features of such dialects sounding “wrong” to you.
Anyways, if you have to spend an inordinate amout of time teaching a child “proper” grammar, it’s because what you’re trying to teach the child either isn’t what is actually spoken anymore or is the grammar for a foreign dialect.
For those of us who were educated to understand how language functions, your statements concerning Latin and teaching grammar are a bit silly.
Now you’re trying to justify outright linguistic discrimination.
And here is a flier for the group responsible, detailing their plan to collect orphans from the street and bus them to the Dominican Republic. Donation information is included — you could help build the orphan viewing center / tourist resort that they have planned.
Real! Live! Orphans!
On all this grammar pedantry: I don’t know who elected the legislative body that is making grammar “law”, but I was not given the opportunity to acquaint myself with the issues, the candidates or their platforms. Nonetheless, I will not follow laws made by non-representative bodies. I declare myself a Free Citizen! I will split infinitives! I will answer the phone with a cheerful “It’s me”. I will not feel guilty when I insert an apostrophe into “it’s” even when I am using the possessive. The grammar cops may come a knockin’, but they’ll never take me alive.
Blee’dat.
Argh. Blockquote fail right after the first line.
Leather gloves.
And if it’s not on a Mac, you have to install Java first…
X-D
The horror, the horror…
One example is how my dialect has a feature that is ridiculously overformal in Standard German! The so-called past subjunctive… hm… is identical to the past tense in English, except for I/he/she/it were, which is dying out. In German, it’s only identical to the past tense in weak verbs, but the forms for the strong verbs involve complex vowel changes; as a result, both end up in disuse in Standard German, and the “would” construction is used instead (unlike in English, it means the exact same thing as the “past subjunctive” in German). My dialect, in contrast, lacks the past tense except for “was/were” and most forms of “wanted” (because a sound change made it identical to the present tense in weak verbs), so there’s nothing to confuse the “past subjunctive” with. As a result, it stays (and is regularized to various extents for strong verbs). So, the low register (dialect) has features in common with the highest register (over-formal standard), but not with any others (normal written standard).
Depends on when PZ wakes up. Soon there after. Definitely by the time I wake up (6 am CST, 12:00 pm UT). +1
It’s not the rubber things, it’s the threading on the jars. Using the right hand for a grip and twist, the wrist is curling inward. Using the left hand, the wrist curls out. I can bend inward about 90 degrees, out probably 60 degrees at most.
I have a technique of inverting my left hand when opening particularly stuck jars to compensate for this.
No, sorry – I should’ve separated the two sentences. Jar lids are biased against us.
Dude, I’m made of adrenaline…and histamine.
How about linguistic classism?! Bourgeois!
This won’t stand, man. This elitist aggression will not stand.
This is known as prescriptionist’s grammar. A close cousin of grocer’s quotes.
Oh, just drop the jar off a tall building, buy a new one, and forget about it.
The combination of pepper and chocolate is less crazy than I had thought, but I still prefer, you know, sugar in my chocolate. 40 % cocoa is best.
Though, putting salt in it is a surprisingly good idea. But then, I have low blood pressure and eat lots of salt anyway…
Exactly. Step back, wait a few seconds, start growling, roar, and jump at the §$&#!%§#%$ jar. It will open immediately.
That’s spelling, not grammar. Writing, not language.
Being right-handed, I normally use my left hand to hold the jar in place and the right one to twist the lid off.
When the jar resists seriously hard, I invert that: I hold the jar in place with my right hand and twist the lid off with my left one.
That’s because I can push on the thumb harder than I can pull.
Oh, sure. Endanger innocents, waste food, and smash in lieu of a fair fight.
Elitist scum. :)
Nope.
***
There’s so much history here (writing and reading) it’s like code:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/should_just_anyone_be_allowed_1.php
No access to the OED at home, but wicki definition of grammar is “In linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language.”
Nota bene, David” “Words”
Countless grammar and style books deal with this issue (it’s vs its). However, I would laugh if the distinction were a key obstacle in any spelling bee victory.
So it’s grammar. Pedant.
The apostrophe is not a geminate in your English speaking?
Has anyone played the game Chocolatier? Surprisingly addictive. I loaned my copy out once and never got it back, and can’t remember who I loaned it to. :(
(and of course can’t bring myself to buy a replacement, since mine is out there somewhere.)
Awww, but I like the sound of it.
…I’ll get me coat.
?
Movie plot? That’s the dearly held belief of my woo-addled Reiki-loving computer tech buddy.
BS
Antiochus Epiphanes | January 30, 2010 6:38 PM:
FIFY.
Carlie,
There’s also Chocolatier 2 and 3, available for download. 3 is arguably better than 2, with different mini-games for establishing production of different varieties of treat and some open slots in the recipe book for custom recipes.
that’s… just…
I’m glad some of them are getting arrested. kidnapping traumatized kids is absolutely not cool
@llewely: To boldly split infinitives? Its how I roll too.
My dorm cafeteria made cream of whatever we ate yesterday soup. If we had chicken the day before, it was cream of chicken soup. If we had broccoli the day before, it was cream of broccoli soup. We had cream of carrot soup, cream of beef soup (gross!), cream of pork soup, cream of corn soup, and so on. One thing that always struck me was that they never seemed to cut the chunks stuff into soup sized bites. You would get huge stalks of broccoli or cauliflower that required a fork and knife to eat. Once they didn’t cut the chicken up, so my bowl of soup had a wing and drumstick in it.
Miki Z – do you like 3? I thought a lot of the charm of the first one was the old-timey nature of it, flying around in dirigibles and such. I wasn’t sure if the gameplay would be as much fun in a post-WWII setup.
Not a train song but it is based on a train.
Also takes place on a train.
They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs and too many right wing meetings.
Random question.
The bf and I were just discussing the snow outside. He says we there’s a fuckload of snow. I’m of the opinion it’s more like a shit-ton.
Is a fuckload bigger than a shit-ton?
Carlie,
I liked 3. I have horrendous memory problems, and 3 has a much more developed task checklist, factory list, etc. With 2, I found myself forgetting what I was supposed to be doing if I skipped a day playing. Since I don’t have time to play every day, that was a problem for me. I haven’t played 1; I think it may not have been available on Mac when I first tried 2, but I don’t remember.
Spoken words or written words…?
Using the left hand to twist a lid counterclockwise puts pressure on the left thumb. I’m better at this than at putting strain on the right one.
Wow. No dorms over here!
Both.
Pygmy Loris,
I would say a fuckload is bigger than a shit-ton but smaller than a metric shit-ton. Here’s a partial ordering of snow dumps:
ass-load < shit-ton < fuckload < metric shit-ton
Pygmy Loris, this sounds like definitions your your own communication with your bf. Me thinks you two need to set up the ground rules.
But what the hell, It will take a shot. I know that the band 10CC got their name because that is the average volume of a human male ejaculate, a fuckload. Not very heavy. A shit-ton sounds like what it is, a ton of shit. I would venture that a shit-ton is about 10,000 times heavy then a fuckload.
CHIMPY!!!!!
Well, it is a funny typo.
Miki Z,
Then I think we got something like a shit-ton, which is a lot around here. There’s a good 7 inches on the ground. We’re out in the middle of no where too, so the roads are rather treacherous. It’s a good thing I went to the store last night to get the stuff to make chicken soup.
This is a decision between the two of you. Heinlein stated in his Lazarus Long advise in Time Enough for Love, if you find yourself in the right when arguing with your woman, apologize promptly. I will say you should be magnanimous at any attempt for him to apologize.
My spending 15 years in Dah UP gave me a diffent prospective on snow. Where I live now, 12″ I would call a shitload. In Dah UP, at least double that. It is all relative. And you hold the balance of power (at least according to Heinlein)…
I just told him people on the internet think we got a shit-ton of snow and he smiled and said “Oh, okay.”
Sometimes we just like to have a silly argument :)
[Weird! I refreshed with text in the comment box and on return the box was hidden. I clicked “Sign in” and the box reappeared with all the text in it.]
Exactly. As long as the error (or relative difference in personal languages) can be corrected for adequate understanding, it isn’t worth correcting (not that it is not irritating).
As if you never did that yourself, SEF *eyeroll*, to non-trolls in fact. But when a commenter is obviously (and sometimes reliably) trolling, there is no reason not to unleash the abuse, especially when they are bigots that want to deprive us of our human rights! Fuck the bigots.
Nice way of putting it. “Than I” sounds very wrong and you wouldn’t answer the question, “Joe is taller than who?”, with “I” but with “Me”.
Loved that.
Miki Z
..bring the jar down to the Southern Hemisphere. The threads run in the opposite direction here.
I usually don’t have a problem with jar lids. Glass jars are somewhat unusual here, and the wife is of opposite chirality, so she often opens jars as well.
Best advice I ever had on opening jar lids: do not squeeze the lid hard when gripping it; so doing distorts the lid and changes its shape so that it’s no longer evenly round, the which makes it even more difficult to turn.
Maria McKee has long been one of my favorites. And Vicoria Williams is such a distintive song writter. That was from a benefit album from the early ninties, Sweet Relief. It was to raise money for Williams’ medical cost after she was dionosed with MS. I just checked to see if there were any other videos. None. I rather liked Lou Reed’s cover of Swing The Statue.
What?
SC, if it’s a glass jar with a metal lid, you should warm the lid under hot running water. The metal will conduct heat faster than the glass, and the expanded metal will make the jar easier to open. For really tough jars, I take the heated jar and wrap the top in a towel, then strike it sharply on the edge of the counter. The blow will definitely loosen the lid if it has been heated enough. Needless to say, don’t hit the jar hard enough to break it. One sharp rap! should do it.
Yeah, that’s right. I dropped in just to help SC open a jar.
She’s a jar
With a heavy lid
I apologize for being repetitive with the jar-opening lessons. I should have known that a problem like that would expand to take over the entire universe of the Endless Thread.
SC,
You could try running hot water at the joint between the lid and jar. Sometimes there’s a errant bit of whatever is in the jar acting like a glue. I turn the jar upside down and run the hot water right at the jar-lid seam.
Just my $.02 on jar opening.
Too much ambiguity in the language here again !
Are we talking glass jars with screw top lids ?
In that case, turn them upside down and hit the bottom with your flat hand as to[insert the thingy it does physically here], works every time.
SC @ 801,
That’s why you make me itch all the time then…;)
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Hey everyone. I’m new here, but I’ve been lurking for a few months. I was wondering if you could please recommend some human embryology books for me.
I was born with at least 3 serious birth defects –tracheoesophageal fistula , congenital hypothroidism (though luckily without the retardation) and uterus didelphys . I’ve been told by a surgeon that some of my other organs don’t really look typical either.
Can anyone recommend a book that might give me some clues about how, when and why all of these things developed? I’d like to know more about them and if they pose a threat for my own plans for breeding. I’m an engineer, not a biologist, so I’d appreciate books that were meant for the general population.
I’ve already read The Greatest Show on Earth and Your Inner Fish, which is what gave me the idea to find out more about what went wrong with my own embryology.
Thanks!
Sorry, here are the links for the birth defects:
uterus didelphys
Congenital hypothyroidism
Tracheoesophageal fistula
In a jar where you keep me
All I could do was lick your hand
Testing this login thing.
Ick.
SC, a complete reading of Heinlein would indicate that the women rule the households, with most men fallaciously thinking that they do. The smartest men know better. I only oppose the Redhead when we can’t afford her ideas. (Dang, that old guys are better in math comes back at this point. I don’t think I’m necessarily better at math, just more realistic about the long term effects of deficit spending.)
Is the Redhead a republican?
‘ducks for cover’
Anyone up for some more commenter stupidity ?
Serious nutcase just appeared here :
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/a_birthday_benefit_for_half_th.php#comment-2239234
SC,
There’ve been a couple of pictures of them posted already but I recommend a strap wrench for your jar lid. You might even use two of them, one on the lid and the other, pulling in the opposite direction, on the jar.
Testing the typepad login thing. Hello hello. *tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
Pardon?
Pope decries growing ‘aversion’ to Christianity, urges unity on ethical issues:
Oh, noooo. Why do they always think they will win us over with even more vigorous evangelizing? I can feel my aversion growing.
1)Anyone who takes Heinlein’s advice on anything deserves a few hits with the cluebat
2)What’s with the sudden creeping sexism? Since when are women incapable of a)actually being right, and b)being convinced by rational argument when they’re wrong? are the suggestions to just condescendingly “yes dear” them really necessary?
:-(
Hi Kseniya! Long time no see.
Detritus,
not to appear unfriendly, but what exactly do you want to know from the people here that you couldn’t easily google for yourself ?
There is a million embryology books on Amazon, for example.
You might want to get one on evo-devo or development as well, since these defects, while not fully understood genetically as far as I’m aware, are all errors in early development caused by issues with tool kit genes, genetic switches and the like.
Kseniya, you’re back just in time for the simmering sexism battles that has been going on the past few days.
Hi, John. Hi, everyone. :-)
Jadehawk, you know we have to handled very carefully, lest we become hysterical.
She just voted early in the Democratic primary. We have to replace a Dem. senator who found a better gig…
indeed. nothing worse than a woman who misplaced her valium and insists on having a conversation as if she were a real adult. Especially if she’s PMSing!
Hi Kseniya!!!!! Good to see you!
I am NOT going to say anything about Heinlein,I am NOT going to say anything about Heinlein,I am NOT going to say anything about Heinlein,I am NOT going to say anything about Heinlein,I am NOT going to say anything about Heinlein…
We just had a starfart in the Wheel Within Wheels thread. Behold the glory.
I saw he/she posted, but tl;dr. Still a classic meltdown?
Carlie, is this your OH ROBERT HEINLEIN NO moment?
Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking. (RAH)
<pulls out notebook> Remember to have adequate supplies of Valium™ on hand. Also have list of adult topics to discuss.
And lots of milk to wash the Valium™ down. <replaces notebook in shirt pocket>
I beheld. It hurt my eyes. I ran away.
JC
Not really a meltdown. It is a long but rather complete thrashing of Kevin Wirth’s argument for ID.
It was a post by Starfart on a flaw in ID. No ranting involved.
Wheels within wheels? Hmmm. Ok. I’ve been away.
I’ve enjoyed some Heinlein, and there may be some merit to the arguments in defense of his (consider the era in which he wrote) characterizations, but for the most part, his female characters seem… constructed to play pseudo-progressive roles that now seem dated at best.
One of the better songs to come out of the 80s:
Where is that portcullis, anyway?
Rorschach @ 859,
Mainly, I wanted help to narrow down those millions of choices to a few that would be helpful to me as a non-biologist and my specific issues. I don’t announce my medical history on the internet lightly. I just get overwhelmed when confronted with that many choices and tend to give up. :)
I was able to get through Dawkins and Shubin because they are written for someone who doesn’t have a background in all the terminology.
SC, OM:
In keeping with your highly commendable adherence to fairness in your campaign against the jar, may I recommend a technique that has yet to fail me? It involves only a one-piece tool.
Strike the rim of the jar lid with the spine of a butter knife at a slight angle all around the circumference of the lid. Hit it hard enough to dent the metal of the lid but not so hard you break the glass of the jar.
Never fails. YMMV :)
Harumph
portcullis…
castles…
Another jar opening idea:
1) get an old broom or mop handle, or other stick of similar dimensions
2) saw it lengthwise down the middle for a length approximately that of the jar lid.
3) saw down to the cut
4) superglue the flat surface just cut out to the top of the jar.
5) let dry
6) when dry, use the moment arm to torque the jar lid off
Before he discusses the limits of science and technology, his holiness should discuss the limits of his religions first.
I love this blog.
As an experiment, I tried using a can opener to puncture the lid of a peanut butter jar (that I was about to toss anyway). It worked just fine.
Sit the jar in the center of a table
Shine a light on the jar
Pull of a comfortable chair
Stare at the jar and scold it vigorously for not opening.
Damn it, are we all so cowed into political correctness by the feminazi gender-thought police cops that none of us–not one!–will step forward and say what needs to be said about what SC really needs to solve her jar-opening problem?
I will then:
She needs a man.
What?
Most of us are one-piece tools.
Take off and nuke the jar from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
When all else fails, use advanced topology.
The rubberized grib-cloth thingie always works for me.
Oh for crying out loud how many atheists does it take to open a jar?
/rant
People you’re being too complicated. Whatever happened to bashing the top of the jar against the table top. Sure there will be shards of glass but you can pick them out yourself.
That poor anthropod.
Agreed. One hell of a wall of text, but well reasoned and coherent. Perhaps a new computer also?
BS
Errr… make that “grip-cloth”.
We love you!
That’s 1 genus idea!
Have no doubt – it would take a real man-tool, using a rubberized grip thingie, to open this particular jar.
Boygenius is right – rapping the blunt end of a butter knife at a 45-degree angle so as to dent the jar lid works every time. It lets enough air in loosen the lid, without leaving unsightly holes. This was taught to me by Bonnie, Mother of Josh, Official SpokesGay.
on further reflection (from 894), of all the manifold ideas offered, that small one is the smoothest. Ask any guy — Heawood give you six colored stars for that.
A riff on Sven DiMilo’s approach:
– Collar the nearest male, and ask him to open it for you.
– He will stress and strain for several minutes in an attempt to impress you, to no avail.
– Defeated, he hands it back to you.
– It should now pop off effortlessly in your hands…but only as long as he is there to be humiliated by it.
With that lockdown advice, I bid all Pharyngulites a merry goodnight.
*hic*
– Positive thinking. Visualize the jar being open.
– Sympathetic magic. When opening jars that are less stubborn, do so right next to the jar in question.
– Scientology. Use an E-meter.
– Pray to Satan. Make a blood sacrifice in a pentagram.
– Pray to Almighty God. Promise to convert if the jar opens, Hallelujah, Amen!
Yes, or just open it in the 4th spatial dimension.
Just get a diamond and cut the glass.
Or give it to an octopus.
In cylindrical coordinates, 4-dimensional space coordinates are given as
(radial, azimuthal, vertical, bacon)
If the Redhead can’t open the pickles/olive/mayo, etc, she gives the jar to me. Usually I can twist it open, but, say one in ten times, I will need the strap wrench. Takes longer to find it and get it set up (on the lid, and not the bottle) than to open the jar. The extra torque from the longer lever arm never fails.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Do not taunt Obstinate Closed Jar.
Fixed.
problem: octopuses hate cilantro
*must not think bad thoughts*
*must not think bad thoughts*
*must not think bad thoughts*
I need the noises of destruction. Especially when I’m lonely.
Those darn jars! There’s got to be a better way!
Why is this a problem? That just means all the more for her.
(she can use seafood as a reward/payment)
Can we jar this thread to four digits before the CO opens a new thread? Onward! +1
Unbelievably, Ronco does not appear to have a jar opener…
Everyone was born to suffer.
Sven (@885):
I do admire a man with the nads to walk right up to the death-defying edge of humor! ;^)
SC:
If we were closer, I’d lend you my Ned Lamont for Senate jar opener; surely that’d do the trick.
Kseniya:
Hooray, you’re back!! Woohoo!
All:
Just got back from dinner with 3 other couples from my Democratic Town Committee. We get together every 6 weeks or so for a pot-luck dinner with dishes around a culinary theme… which this time was soup. My contribution was an Asian chicken soup made with (in addition to chicken stock and cubed chicken breast) lemongrass, lime zest, lime juice, carrots, snow peas, baby corn, and prodigious amounts of cilantro. It was a big hit.
hulu appears to hate me right now. *pout*
A circular saw would probably do the trick. I know for a fact it will open beer cans.
Goddammit Janine, you are causing me to spend way too much time on Youtube! Is this some nefarious scheme to distract us, while you hatch up diabolical plans involving Foul Mouth Abuse?
Dang BD, I almost got hungry just reading your description of the soup. Sounds awfully good. ‘Night all.
Bill, any chance you could share the recipe for that soup?
:). Believe it or not, I have two, of which one says – no, I’m not kidding – “Get a grip – Vote Republican.” It was my father’s and I’m not getting rid of it, but it doesn’t work at all. The other is woven and I’ve had much more success with it.
*You wound me! :P
***
Welcome back, Kseniya! And all y’all are crackin’ me up.
But Black & Decker does… two of ’em, in fact!
BTW, how many of you would’ve bet there was such a domain name as electricjaropener.net?
ditto. that soup sounds right up my taste buds, uh, alley.
Is a fuckload bigger than a shit-ton?
Absolutely not. A shit-ton is the largest of all the naughty measurements.
what about a metric fuck-tonne?
Baby, I’ve been breaking glass in your room again.
In order to encourage the sharing of recipes, I will share one of my own:
Enchilada Bake
The sauce recipe comes from my friend George’s mom, it’s authentic Mexican cooking. I added a few things.
Sauce Ingredients
4 tbsp. flour
1/4 cup oil
2-4 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups hot water
2 beef bullion cubes
Brown the flour in a dry pan over medium high heat, stirring with wooden spoon until it becomes golden and starts to smoke a little. Add spices, then add oil, mixing until smooth. Add hot water steadily, stirring rapidly to prevent sticking and lumps. Add tomato sauce, beef bullion cubes, and garlic. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Enchilada Ingredients
-1 package 12 corn tortillas (flour gets soggy and gross, and doesn’t have as much flavor)
– 1 lb. ground beef browned, or cooked chicken breast
– 1 pound grated cheese (colby jack or Monterery Jack works well, cheddar will do)
-1 half onion, chopped.
Brown beef or chicken with chopped onion, salt and pepper liberally. Coat the bottom of a glass baking dish with some sauce, than put down six tortillas. Spread meat next, add some sauce, and sprinkle with half of the cheese. Put the remaining tortillas on top, and cover with remaining sauce. Add the remaining cheese, and bake at 350 until melted and bubbly.
A couple more:
– Psychotherapy. Establish a relationship of honesty and mutual trust. The jar will open up when it’s ready.
– Linguistics. Put it into a doorway, then leave it a jar.
– Media. Tell a reporter, they’ll blow the lid right off it.
An ongoing fight between these:
– Insurance. Rescind the jar’s coverage.
– Legislative. Declare an end to lifetime caps.
UN agency calls for global cyberwarfare treaty, ‘driver’s license’ for Web users
BS
The problem with the CO being overseas is he might pop up here anytime and give us the temporary cull !
Should be 0533 am in Ireland now.
Yeah, it tells me I don’t live in the right country.How presumptuous.
*googles cilantro*
Why does it exist? Is somebody making money off it? If so how? (The “where to buy” link takes you right to Amazon.) If it’s altruistic or a labor of love or whatever, wtf?
Sorry about the hulu thing. These link to the same vid:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=42795631
or
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/jar-glove/656341/
it’s a…bit…too long but still funny IMO
The Electric Jar opener is waiting for his moment, then he’ll seize his deserved fame.
…and for the truly video-challenged, here’s the damn transcript:
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/08/08ajar.phtml
(btw, turns out there’s a lot of stuff besides porn on the internet! huh!)
SC:
I meant “closer” strictly in terms of physical proximity, of course; in other terms, I’m quite sure we’re as close as two (snow) peas in a pod!
Josh, OSG, and Nerd:
The recipe is not my own, I’m afraid, but from this book, which (IIRC) I picked up from a bookstore remainder table a few years back. I’m reluctant to relate it verbatim for copyright reasons, but maybe I can manage to put it in my own words:
1. Put 1 bruised fresh lemongrass stem, 1 small red chile, zest of 1/2 lime, and the stems from a handful of cilantro (reserve the leaves) into a pot with 4 cups chicken stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered for 15 min.
2. Strain the stock and discard flavorings. Add juice of 1/2 lime and salt/pepper to taste (I didn’t end up adding any salt, because the store-bought stock I’d used was salty enough).
3. Add 1 8 oz. boneless chicken breast, cubed, to the stock, bring to boil, reduce to simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add 1 cup snow peas, sliced diagonally into thin strips; 3.5 oz. baby corn, sliced thin; and 1 carrot, shaved into ribbons, and simmer for 2 more minutes, or until chicken is cooked through (in my case the chicken was easily fully cooked within this time).
5. Finish with the cilantro leaves, chopped, and 4 scallions, sliced thin, and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings (but I doubled the recipe to serve 8).
Note that the recipe calls for a “handful” of fresh cilantro; it’s the only item for which there’s not a fairly precise measure. It goes without saying that my handful was a hand full.
Hee. Worked. (Fortunately, as I was afraid to say I couldn’t open video links – with all of the helpful people this sucker would’ve hit 1500 in no time!)
Apropos of nothing, but it is cold as balls outside tonight. 3 degrees! Windchill of -6! (I made the mistake of stepping outside for a smoke and whoo boy, that was a mistake!)
man that sounds good
Bill, that rocks. All my best recipes are . .um. . adapted. .from somewhere else anyway. This sounds like just the ticket for my stuffy nose. Christ, I hate having a cold.
I’ll bet if there was whiskey in the jar, SC would be able to get it open.
Warning: NSFJ (Not Safe For Janine.)
I feel ya. It’s below 0 in Vermont tonight. I, however, did not make the mistake of going outside to smoke – I sat here in my own house and did it:)
SC,
You know, if you ever do get that jar open, you’re going to have to tell us what technique was ultimately successful.
My mother always resorts to the “pry the lid open with a screwdriver” technique when all else fails. She pries it until she can hear the pressure being released. Works for her.
I tend to hold the jar between my knees and use the rubber-gripper-thingy.
I, however, did not make the mistake of going outside to smoke – I sat here in my own house and did it:)
Most of the time I don’t mind having to smoke on my porch (my landlord doesn’t allow smoking in the building, plus it’s nice not having furniture that smells like burning), but holy fucking Christ on a pogo stick, I totally should have risked smoking inside tonight. It took longer for me to prepare to go outside than sucking down that one cigarette did.
I always go with the “turn jar upside down and bang edges of lid on hard surface” technique.”
never fails, and I’ve never broken a jar, either.
it’s very similar to the “hit around edge of lid with blunt object” technique.
*googles cilantro*
try coriander
I understand, but that’s one of the perks of owning your own place. Yeah, it means more cleaning is necessary, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be put out in the sub-zero temps to have me smoke:)
Bill – yum.
Ich – You might be interested in the discussion here
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/should_just_anyone_be_allowed_1.php
(or quite possibly not; mentioning it because the original involved you).
Yeah I was wondering there what the magic ingredient was my asian food hobby-cook versed self had never heard of…:-)
Sounds like a great recipe, BD.
PZ mentioned this yesterday :
Skeptics stage homeopathy overdose
Stand and deliver
For I am a Bold Deceiver…
“a folk song”
“a cool one, though”
By the way, Teh Google (knows all…tells all) reveals that that tune has been recorded by:
Alan Lomax (Folkways field recordings)
The Irish Rovers
Burl Ives
Peter, Paul & Mary
The Dubliners (about 20 times)
The Pogues
Thin Lizzy
Simple Minds
Belle and Sebastian
and
Metallica
in addition to that informal Grateful Dead version.
Must be a good song.
Oops, I meant to weigh in on this topic:
I have no directly relevant opinion, but I did once have a long discussion with a friend about how many shitloads makes up a buttload. Ultimately we failed to reach consensus, because we couldn’t agree on units: He was talking metric shitloads, but I could only think in terms of Imperial buttloads. And that’s how we managed to crash a Mars lander!
Josh:
Is there any chance that recipe would work with fine cornmeal, or perhaps some non-wheat flour, in place of the flour in the sauce? My wife eats gluten-free, and other than that one ingredient, it sounds like something I’d love to cook for her.
Fuck the jar, tghe jar is obvisouly evil. Put a stake through it’s heart and bury it at a crosroads.
Bill D.: The flour in that recipe is just a fat-free roux, yes? ‘kipedia sez:
BoS,
is that a bad Rev BDC impersonation or are you under the influence of spelling-warping substances ?
;)
Excuse the typos in the last post people. Sciblogs apparently has a new starfart, and that is submitting comments before the goddamn submit button is pressed and thus not letting you edit your post.
I’m not saying the 3 glasses of champers that I have consumed on my first child free Sunday afternoon had anything to do with it.
.. it’s all Sciblogs fault I tells ya.
I gotta get some sleep.
Watch out for the portcullis, Oz contingent.
Bill-
Well, when you get that sorted out, maybe you can help me with the question “how many buttloads are there in a pantload?”
And another endless thread is reaching its end! *shocked*
Sven:
I can’t seem to come up with linky proofs, but I’m pretty sure you can add the Smothers Brothers (I think they did both a comedy version and the straight song) and the late, deeply missed Kate McGarrigle to that list.
Prolly a lot more names, too; that’s a great song.
This does not fit any theme but I have to share this. Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band on American Bandstand doing Diddy Wah Diddy.
I don’t know Bill, but it’s worth a try. Experiment.
Now, please don’t tell me your wife “eats gluten-free” because she’s convinced she’s “sensitive” to gluten? If she’s got celiac disease, then OK. But if this is some “gluten is the latest not-healthy” thing. .umm. . .
Josh and OurDeadSelves,
I’m enjoying a cigarette right now in my toasty warm flannel pajamas. In the spring, summer, and fall I smoke outside, but from mid-December to mid-February guests (and me!) just have to deal with the stink. When the temp drops down into the 10’s and 0’s I just can’t bring myself to go outside to smoke.
The first time I ever heard Whiskey in the Jar was at a Boiled in Lead show. (’90-’91?) Awesome Minneapolis band.
Ich – You might be interested in the discussion here
Greg sez:
OK, fair enough. Henry was being a complete ass and thus a hypocrite, perhaps. (Or I take that to be your point.)
done and done, far as I’m concerned.
Hell, he (Henry) started that fight, and right after PZ gave him kudos as an introduction.
I stand by every invective I slung at Gee in that thread, for whatever that’s worth. I would have said similar to my very best friend if he spouted off similar drivel.
He was dead wrong, acted like a fucking child, and generally needed a good slapdown.
It was shocking that he actually was an editor for Science (IIRC) at the time.
Is he still?
The way SC seems to remember who said what when and where on Pharyngula and 25 other blogs at any point in the last 30 years is rather amazing.
“New Life Children’s Refuge”, the group I mentioned above some of whose members were arrested for attempting to transport “orphans” across the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, are speaking up.
Their senior cleric also adds that some of the children are injured and need medical care. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to take from that — throwing them onto a bus and driving them across an international border without permission doesn’t seem like a sincere effort to get them medical care.
An anonymous “senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the case” assures us that nothing untoward was going on, they were just transporting the children from one or more orphanages to another.
This conflicts directly with the group’s stated intentions (linked above) to grab kids from orphanages and off of the street.
(source)
Cheers to you, Pygmy Loris!
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.
Josh OSG
I have saved your enchilada recipe and will make it as soon as I can. It sounds delish.
I have named it my hard drive “Josh’s Gay Enchiladas” which I think has an excellent ring to it. I hope you don’t mind. If you do let me know gorgeous.
I’m enjoying a cigarette right now in my toasty warm flannel pajamas.
I was wearing pjs, too. And a bathrobe and slippers and a snuggie and a pair of stretch gloves and a pair of mittens and a knit hat and a scarf and a ski jacket.
Dammit, I’m tired and cranky and I really want another smoke! And it’s even colder (2 degrees! Gah!) now!
Bride of Shrek – hahahh! It is delish, and it works for all recipes, whether you roll the fillings up in the tortillas, or if you do it casserole (lazy) style.
You really should name it “Margaret’s” though, since I nicked the sauce recipe from my best friend’s Mexican mom. That doesn’t quite have the ring of “Josh’s Gay Enchiladas,” though, I admit!
Here you go guys… special offer for atheists… just what you need!
ah, Nature, not Science.
Well, I’m unable to find any evidence that Kate McGarrigle ever recorded “Whiskey In the Jar,” and I’m about ready to believe I imagined it.
Damn.
She should have sung it.
Here she is with her sister Anna, singing “Talk to Me of Mendocino.” What a loss.
ah dendy comes to drop off another turd.
ban this blogwhore?
yes/no?
Oh, Jesus Christ. Just when I thought he was dead, Perfesser Dendy(TM) shows up. What’sa matter Daddy, wifey won’t give you your customary reach-around tonight?
“falsely arrested” is chapping my language-loving ass.
If the police think you are someone you’re not, and they arrest you: Not False Arrest. You were mistakenly arrested.
If the police think you did something and you didn’t, and they arrest you: Not False Arrest. You were arrested but innocent.
The police think you did something and you did, but you think you should be exempt from the rules: It is Not False Arrest. You are exactly like most criminals.
The police know you did not do anything and arrest you because they just don’t like you: Not False… oh, right. This is False Arrest.
If what you are accused of is against the law, you did it, you got caught doing it, and you got arrested: The police were doing their job correctly when they arrested you.
dendy,
A sense of humor requires both sense and humor.
BTW, isn’t it past your bedtime?
I hope no one bothers with old fuckface’s link.
I think no one has bothered with his link in a while.
That’s “Old Fuckface, shitstain on the panties of life” to you, missy!
It’s just somebody’s unholy hoax.
Perfesser Dendy, why are you trying to get us to watch the Slap Chop of Retarded Christianity?
Josh:
Well, she hasn’t had a definitive diagnosis of celiac (largely because of the incompetence and/or disinterest of a doctor who “forgot” to perform the appropriate tests during an endoscopy she was having for other reasons), but she has very specific physical symptoms (not ones you could easily fake, or would want to!) whenever she eats wheat, and she doesn’t have them when she avoids it.
It’s not just diet fadism. In fact, her awareness of the link between her symptoms and wheat predates the current fad for gluten-free products by several years… but we do have the fadists to thank for creating a market for products that have made my wife’s life much easier! Silver linings, eh?
Guys, don’t pick on poor ‘professor’ dendy – he has serious mental issues, a wife who disgusts him physically, and (perhaps not coincidentally) three kids that another man has fathered for reasons he seems reluctant to discuss.
Mocking someone who is such a miserable failure at life is too easy. He deserves our pity.
Dendy Troll! You’re back! Have you given up lying? Are you willing to admit that you are not an Associate Professor, but Adjunct Faculty at American River College?
Ah thank you John, happy music !
MOAR :
Yellow Submarine
Octopus’s Garden
If we ban him for blogwhoring, then the TimChannel should get the boot as well.
My pity takes the form of poking him with a stick.
and yes, he deserves it.
Good to know. I wish your wife the best, and good on her that she can shop in the supermarket for foods that won’t put her in misery!
I do, however, loathe the diet fads, and I fucking hate the fact that the “gluten free” section of the grocery store has gotten so big for the express purpose of luring New Age, Lefty, Organic Moms (TM) into buying shit that costs more, but that does nothing for them.
People who can’t tolerate gluten have a serious problem, and I’m glad they can buy products. But Organic Moms (TM), annoy the shit out of me, because what they’re doing isn’t fact-based. It’s all about affecting a 2010 “awareness” of. .bullshit.
Right wingers are totally hung up about sex. Left wingers are totally hung up about food, and the moral/fake-health-consequences-there-of. I hate them equally.
SC, have you tried praying?
I’ve hear that never fails–unless, of course, your opening of the jar is not within god’s mysterious secret plan.
There’s no shame in being Adjunct Faculty. As of 2005, the NCES estimated that 48% of college and university faculty were adjuncts. They may even be the majority by now.
There is shame in lying about it.
Who’s the first person you call when you get in trouble?
Jesus Christ
Bail Bonds
Old fuckface, put him on your speed dial.
Oh this is just priceless :
The Muppets–Bohemian Rhapsody
;)
The diet fadism is hard on some people, too, because of the elimination of “bad” foods. Getting honest-to-goodness glucose is hard in a form larger/cheaper than diabetic tablets. Finding products without soy is getting more limited, as well.
Sorry wut ?
Josh, OSG:
I hadn’t made that connection, but now that you mention it….
Rohrschach:
“Yellow Submarine” is the first song I can remember playing on a jukebox with my own money. I would’ve been 8 (i.e., the year the movie was released), and the jukebox was in the little sweets shop run by the mother of a classmate of mine named Chesty Summers. I swear that’s a real person, BTW, not a character from a 70s porn film… although as it turned out a few years later, that name was prescient.
IIRC, I had a Yellow Submarine/Peter Max lunchbox, but it’s long gone now.
Thanks for the memories!
Miki Z,
I think being an adjunct is a shitty job that colleges and universities are increasingly relying on to fix their bottom lines. I’m not judging Dendy Troll for being an adjunct, but for lying about it. It’s hardly his only lie, but it’s one with clear-cut evidence.
It may be different elsewhere. Here in Japan, most things are sugared with either sucrose of HFCS. The exception is glucose tablets sold at the pharmacy for use by diabetics. These are both expensive and small.
I was rereading my comment at 997 and I’m not sure I was clear about something.
Being an adjunct is shitty because of the working conditions, long hours for little money, no benefits and no job security. The people who do it are, by and large, good educators and recent grads who can’t find a permanent position.