Would you say that "there is a cherry on the cupcake" and "a cherry is there on the cupcake" are semantically equivalent?
How about "there needs to be a cherry on the cupcake" versus "a cherry needs to be on the cupcake there"? I know you already addressed the irrationality of the cherry's needing to be somewhere, but what I'm getting at is whether "there" as a subject pronoun in the former instances is distinct from "there" indicating precise location in the latter; and in the latter, is it actually an adverb?
Also, is the lexical marking of "need" as taking "to" before an infinitival a relatively recent convention? Or did "needs be" only ever occur without the infinitival following?
An odd construction that may one day sound as involuted and archaic as certain Shakespearean turns, but that really does make perfect logical (if not literally spatial) sense.
I understand fully the limits of moral suasion. We have no illusion that changes will come easily or soon. But I also believe that it is a mistake to undervalue the power of words and of the ideas that words embody. In our own history, that power has ranged from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream."
- Jimmy Carter, Notre Dame commencement speech, 5/22/1977
In Hebrew at sign is colloquially known as shtrudel (שטרודל). The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is krukhit (כרוכית), which is a Hebrew word for strudel.
I had the thankless task last year of trying to get a roomful of rowdy/bored/apathetic/confused/brilliant/asleep eleventh graders interested in this piece.
Don't know if I succeeded at all, but it sure did get me interested again.
It's so freakin creepy/awesome how themes from all times in history remain so essential to the present.
Wow! Thanks for the encouragement and discussion, y'all. I'm intrigued by the idea of changing my identity to "someone who doesn't smoke." Maybe I should look into the Zyban thing--oddly, it never occured to me to use drugs to kick the drug. My biggest problem with quitting before has always been the triggers--social or personal rituals that just seem to call out for that little accoutrement, that lagniappe. After the first few days, I don't feel a craving as a physical thing so much, but the psychological pull is sometimes overwhelming. But maybe even that is attributable to the nefarious workings of the nicotine.
Actually, the point about ashmouthing is peculiarly pertinent. Just deciding to quit because I know I should has never worked; nor have reason, nor logic, nor civic responsibility. What tipped me over the edge this time was a little experience I had while washing my hands in the restroom at work. I was making faces at the mirror (of course), and stuck my tongue out hyperfar--and it was yellow. Way in the back, not where anyone else would readily notice it, but. That, I thought to myself, rather horrified, is disgusting. If I should allow that little microvision of Hellish decay to resurface any time I have a craving, I might actually stand a chance!
I'm definitely doing it. It's an excuse to write, really, a way to sidestep the usual routines and subroutines of failing to give yourself permission to screw up and enjoy. The other couple of times I did it, I didn't get anything like a real "novel" at the end, but I did get some mighty stacks of words that I still enjoy reading back through and rearranging and playing with.
I read that Leonardo da Vinci said something along the lines of "it is a poor pupil who does not surpass his master." Are we largely then a race of poor pupils? Because if we weren't, wouldn't our progress toward perfection have skyrocketed by now? If everyone always got better as the generations wore on, shouldn't we be enlightened, beautiful, sublime, war-hunger-poverty-hate free by now?
Remember when we could say anything? There was no delete key. We made the same typographical mistakes over and over again. There was no pause for thought. There was no need to pause. Fingers thought. Brains listened.
Writing was hammering, and oily, and smelled good too.
Anyone else have this problem? If there's a link to a Youtube clip in a comment, no further content gets loaded (Safari, Mac) below that comment on the latest 400 page.
I think she may have changed some of the words a little bit. My eldest daughter wanted it, so I said okay 'cause I was tired of listening to the Wonder Pets theme song.... There's an animal in trouble! (There's an animal in twouble...)! (Cue 5- and 3-year-old paroxysms.)
Yeah, Big Rock Candy Mountain.... but Lisa Loeb does a very pleasantly ethereal version of it, I must say. Got it from iTunes, off some children's album.
Hey, speaking of that story, I also recommend Terry Bisson's other work. I just read Walking Man a little while ago. Very dreamlike and atmospheric--once you get over the lead girl's always saying "hit" instead of "it," that is.
I see. I would have been raised Catholic if either of my parents had kept up with it; as it was, we only went to mass when visiting my grandparents in South Dakota. But I still have a soft spot for Catholic paraphernalia. :-)
Oh, of course. And now I have in my head a slurry of all these bits of ditties swimming around... like an auditory analog of the miasma from the Kmart receiving room I worked in, long ago, particularly the area where health & beauty aids overlapped with all the candies & gums, which was never quite far enough away from the trash compactor!
I think you're spot on with the "ordinary" words. Playing with this sort of thing (Wordie) allows the ordinary to interconnect. You can make transcendent weavings with plain old yarns.
Noted chaordic theoretician (nee von Smarty Pants). In later life, advanced lame-ass theory of the non-existence of adjectives; arguing that an adjective is really an adverb modifying an implied verb of existence. The theory rested on some dumb-ass idea that the conventional distinction between "existence" and other "actions" is artificial and misleading; that all verbs are, in their purest state, expressions, like everything else, of pure energy.
Yeah! It's one of those awesome (in the real sense of the word, not the diluted popular) phenomena that seems so simple--and is--and then turns out to be more complex than you'd dreamed.
I don't know if I'd say the music is like jazz--although that's an interesting thought; hopefully I'll think about it some more. I'd have to reread the Nestor Capoeira book, cuz I don't remember what he says about that. But it does guide the game. It kinda calls in the spirits, I think it's safe to say. Plus, the different rhythms (toques) direct the energy in the roda. Certain toques make you play slow, low, and tigerlike, and some make you play high, flying, and, oh, I don't know, songbird-like?
Playing the berimbau has become one of my favorite things.
This guy explains it a lot better than I ever could. I've heard it compared to chess, in that you can execute moves to try and "set up" the person you're playing with, to get them in a vulnerable position. None of the Mestre's I've talked to, or batizados I've been to, have had anything like scorekeeping, time limits, or any claptrap of that sort. But believe me, you know when you've been taken down. Part of the challenge is to be good natured about that. It's simultaneously cooperative and competitive--kinda like some of the wordplay that goes on around here!
In my twenties, I wanted to take Yoga at the YMCA, but the class was full, so on a whim I took karate instead. That lasted a few years, and served to get me over my fear of martial arts.
*whirring flash forward effect*
Then, barely in my thirties, after a long spell of not enough physical activity or community, I looked to see what the YMCA was offering, and saw the description for Capoeira. Mispronouncing it horrendously, I read that it was a dance, a fight, and a game, set to its own traditional music. "That sounds gay enough," says I to myself, and I went down to check it out.
It proved addictive. It's curvy and improvisational, where some other martial arts are angular and rigid. It has a vast, expanding history, and draws together lots of vibrant, diverse people from all over.
But seriously, Capoeira doesn't have to be painful. Depends on the tenor of the game you're playing, whom you're playing with, etc. The roda varies as much as conversations do; it can be a game, a tease, an interview, a challenge, a joke, a fight....
I re-stumbled upon it yesterday when looking back through some of my old, slightly embarrassing journals--in one, I told myself I was no longer going to berate myself for reading poems that I didn't really understand!
I won't claim to understand fully all of it now, but diving back into it has proven to be a good example of the benefits of rereading at different life moments.
Is there a word for the words one utters, if one's conversation and urge are intertwined, during the process of lighting the cigarette? The muffled lip, the relaxed remove, the leaning easily to the left, or right, to facilitate digging in the pocket for the lighter.... It is an inbetween moment, a smoker’s favorite kind of moment.
Please excuse more nosestickinery. I am not in favor of a time limit on editing/deleting comments. Why throw up an obstacle to someone's rhythm? This is Wordie, after all, not--you know, some other place. Different physical laws may apply. If people want to rewrite history, I say let them.
That's kinda what we're doing here anyway, isn't it? ;-)
I actually dreamed I was on Wordie last night. I had a slew of words to enter, and I was alternating between Wordie and other applications, looking into the meanings of the words and entering them on my list. By the time I got to vergerhade, my computer had become a wall-sized, 3-dimensional affair, and on entering the word, automatically a life-sized professorial-looking guy popped up in front of an enormous, animated map, and began explaining the history of the word to me. It turns out it's an apocryphal island, somewhere near Australia or maybe Antarctica. Some people claim to have inside knowledge of it, some intimate they have actually seen it. No-one can verify exactly where it is, however, or whether it is submerged, stationary, etc. My brother was watching the giant computer with me. I said, "So they don't even know if it exists?" and he said, "It has nuclear weapons on it," as if that explained everything.
I can't remember the other words in the dream, except for berger.
A game played on a table having a semi-circular end at which are nine holes. The balls used are struck from the opposite end of the board with a cue. The name is sometimes applied to a modified form of billiards known also as semi-billiards.
You know what's just as irksome as verbing? Nouning. I HATE HATE HATE how everybody on the radio now says, "There's a disconnect...."
That being said, I'm not sure I see the distinction between "sectors of society artificially forcing a change in usage...and the natural evolution of words." I mean, words, like organisms, flourish in certain environments at certain times. How can you pick and choose which sector's influence is "artificial" and which "natural?" It's all natural. (Some of it is just more asinine!)
Oh, and my "favorite" example of verbing: "Authored." Why the #@$! can't you just say "wrote"?
Yes... I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the way the guys harangue and cuss at each other, but it all still sounds so civilised. Anyway, I finished it, so I'll stop inundating all these words with Crane quotations, for a while at least.
"Great heavens! Have you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. But he was."
"Later, when the cigarettes had become exhausted, Hawker volunteered to go after a further supply, and as he arose, a question seemed to come to the edge of Florinda's lips and pend there. The moment that the door was closed upon him she demanded, "What is that about the two violets?"
Even the most bleeding-heart adaptivist among us probably harbors a secret list, longer than he or she might want to admit, of words that "don't and ought not to"! :-)
"We'll get some more claret," observed Hawker musingly. "And some cognac for the coffee. And some cigarettes. Do you think of anything more, Splutter?"
As they came from the shop of the illustrious purveyors of potato salad in Second Avenue, Florinda cried anxiously, "Here, Billie, you let me carry that!"
"What infernal nonsense!" said Hawker, flushing. "Certainly not!"
"Well," protested Florinda, "it might soil your gloves somehow."
"In heaven's name, what if it does? Say, young woman, do you think I am one of these cholly boys?"
"The door opened, and Miss Florinda O'Connor, the model, dashed into the room like a gale of obstreperous autumn leaves.
"Why, hello, Splutter!" they cried.
"Oh, boys, I've come to dine with you."
It was like a squall striking a fleet of yachts.
Grief spoke first. "Yes, you have?" he said incredulously.
"Why, certainly I have. What's the matter?"
They grinned. "Well, old lady," responded Grief, "you've hit us at the wrong time. We are, in fact, all out of everything. No dinner, to mention, and, what's more, we haven't got a sou."
Is there a good word for the sociocognitive dissonance that occurs when you suddenly realize that, despite having several identifiable traits in common with someone else, your assumptions about further commonality or compatibility with them are false?
Just asking, 'cuz that's happened to me a few times.
That imprecision is why I pointed to chaordic. Our vision is too impaired to parse every wavelength in the spectrum. This "communication" program is insanely vast and complex, but it's all encoded "out there" somewhere, on a universal scale.
Maybe. :-)
(As a non-programmer almost fetishistically enamored of programming analogies, my understanding of what I'm actually talking about is always suspect.)
Leaving messages for future deep-link readers.... I love that thought! Reminds me of the initials carved in stone the explorers in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth found, shortly before being volcanically puked back up to the outside world.
I don't think there's any inherent misuse that's worth worrying about. To me, rules of language are an interpretation of the current situation (a schema?) rather than an authoritarian prescription. I'd say a misuse is more like a bug in one's code. A mismatch between usage and intended audience, or a misapprehension of the mindset of the intended audience, or even a mismatch between intended audience and actual audience, as a result of foreshortened foresight on the part of the developer (author).
"Hollanden surveyed this outburst with a critical eye, and then slapped his knee with emphasis. "You certainly have got it—a million times worse than I thought. Why, you—you—you're heels over head."
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
When you think about it, this makes more sense than "head over heels," which pretty well describes a normal state of array.
Bookseller's Row in the Haymarket was a grotesque sight—like almost all sights then: destitution and wretchedness were carried to such absurd lengths that they ceased to provoke tears but only decrepit, wise laughter such as the last Romans must have aimed at themselves and the Gauls. Somewhere in the hidden, half-legendary Petersburg cellars precious manuscripts were still being exchanged for equally fabulous, apocryphal things—a pound of butter, a ham; but in the Haymarket they dealt mainly in the literature of the Russian Golden Age, naive literary almanacs in which vulgar quarrels were carried on, with opponents caught in misprints and hidden peccadillos hinted at—so-and-so lost everything at gambling, or had informed on someone, or was a kept man... The public was most picturesque and ill-assorted: here was the beginning of the disintegration of the Petersburg School—zaumniks, "ushkuiniks," pustoglots, nothingists, metaphorists, columbines, going-to-the-peoplists, and the completely enigmatic quasists. Here stood the gnomelike graybeard Trufanov with a bundle of "northern antiquities" transcribed in a decorative style and said to have been collected at the time of the Arkhangelsk rites—in fact they had been taken from a collection of byliny and worked up into a state of complete incomprehensibility; he was seen with his group singing the bawdy songs of No-sow ("My name is because we are not simple peasants: we do not sow nor reap, we are peasants not by calling but by willing").
re: sprite—Wow! It is heartening to see how non-flamey that potentially volatile discussion remained.
Inspired by one of reesetee's comments there, I feel like volunteering this bit of tangential autobiographica: I am bisexual, and trying to figure out when semi-self-referential ironic gay comments are going to be well received, has often proved a challenging social puzzle.
Comments by npydyuan
npydyuan commented on the word there needs to be
Very interesting. Thank you.
Would you say that "there is a cherry on the cupcake" and "a cherry is there on the cupcake" are semantically equivalent?
How about "there needs to be a cherry on the cupcake" versus "a cherry needs to be on the cupcake there"? I know you already addressed the irrationality of the cherry's needing to be somewhere, but what I'm getting at is whether "there" as a subject pronoun in the former instances is distinct from "there" indicating precise location in the latter; and in the latter, is it actually an adverb?
Also, is the lexical marking of "need" as taking "to" before an infinitival a relatively recent convention? Or did "needs be" only ever occur without the infinitival following?
July 10, 2009
npydyuan commented on the word there needs to be
An odd construction that may one day sound as involuted and archaic as certain Shakespearean turns, but that really does make perfect logical (if not literally spatial) sense.
July 10, 2009
npydyuan commented on the user npydyuan
Wow! Thanks for the random treat, guys. Pruduiap. I love it!
October 10, 2008
npydyuan commented on the list olivia
thanks for the additions, bilby!
August 14, 2008
npydyuan commented on the word kerning
see also keming.
February 21, 2008
npydyuan commented on the word pod
Holy propaganda, Rummy man! I want a pods are there t-shirt!
January 25, 2008
npydyuan commented on the word suasion
I understand fully the limits of moral suasion. We have no illusion that changes will come easily or soon. But I also believe that it is a mistake to undervalue the power of words and of the ideas that words embody. In our own history, that power has ranged from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream."
- Jimmy Carter, Notre Dame commencement speech, 5/22/1977
January 8, 2008
npydyuan commented on the word octothorpe
Thanks! :-D
December 14, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word strudel
In Hebrew at sign is colloquially known as shtrudel (שטרודל). The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is krukhit (כרוכית), which is a Hebrew word for strudel.
Thus spaek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%40 .
December 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word octothorpe
Ah, let's give old at sign some strudel as a consolation!
December 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word moment
This is a very momentous bit of information. I must find a way to incorporate it.
:-)
November 7, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word fuzzy wuzzy fallacy
Wow! Thanks for reminding me of Avalon Hill..... Ah, all those coolly thrilling hours at the game table in the basement.
November 1, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word utilize
I'm still hoping/wishing this word could mean "to infuse with utility; to increase the utility of something"
That would, in fact, utilize "utilize."
November 1, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word rochambeau
I like it because it's the name of a nearly perfect little coffee/tea house I used to frequent. :-)
October 27, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list word-guidelines-for-wordie
* Everyone's ass needs
BUTT PASTE!
*(Must check next Tuesday to see if Butt Paste ad appears here....)
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list prosie-the-crisis
I had the thankless task last year of trying to get a roomful of rowdy/bored/apathetic/confused/brilliant/asleep eleventh graders interested in this piece.
Don't know if I succeeded at all, but it sure did get me interested again.
It's so freakin creepy/awesome how themes from all times in history remain so essential to the present.
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word raccoonnookkeeper
At last, I know what I want to be when I grow up!
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list soldier-s-words
>who says "booyah"? And if nobody's *supposed* to say it... How come I keep hearing it?
Maybe you're having a Zyban flashback, c_b!
:•)
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word squoze
It's a very cute word. Especially in umpteen-point Palatino, as it is. Sassy, yet authoritative, yet ridiculous.
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word quitting smoking
Wow! Thanks for the encouragement and discussion, y'all. I'm intrigued by the idea of changing my identity to "someone who doesn't smoke." Maybe I should look into the Zyban thing--oddly, it never occured to me to use drugs to kick the drug. My biggest problem with quitting before has always been the triggers--social or personal rituals that just seem to call out for that little accoutrement, that lagniappe. After the first few days, I don't feel a craving as a physical thing so much, but the psychological pull is sometimes overwhelming. But maybe even that is attributable to the nefarious workings of the nicotine.
Actually, the point about ashmouthing is peculiarly pertinent. Just deciding to quit because I know I should has never worked; nor have reason, nor logic, nor civic responsibility. What tipped me over the edge this time was a little experience I had while washing my hands in the restroom at work. I was making faces at the mirror (of course), and stuck my tongue out hyperfar--and it was yellow. Way in the back, not where anyone else would readily notice it, but. That, I thought to myself, rather horrified, is disgusting. If I should allow that little microvision of Hellish decay to resurface any time I have a craving, I might actually stand a chance!
(Sorry if that's, you know, TMI.)
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word quitting smoking
I am.
If anyone, especially anyone who has succeeded long-term at this, has any sage wordies for me, let 'er rip!
October 26, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word willing suspension of disbelief
Thanks for posting this, reesetee. I've heard and used the phrase for years, but was ignorant of its beautifully-worded origins!
October 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word mehitabel
Hee hee!
"Expression is the need of my soul!"
October 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word jeez
Why is that creepy?
October 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word postpone
A pleasant, drowsy state resulting from the eating of plenty of cornpone.
October 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word thesaurus game
To manoeuvre the onomasticon biz, get hold of any fistula of dramaturgy or poesy, and supervene upon as many lyrics as woos your phantom limb with beef tea from each oeuvre’s (or an ultimate countersign’s) cookbook debut. Can be a well-nigh sempiternal source of deflexion, as well as a way to meliorate ho-hum subdivisions of black music or clerihew.
Bonus: Does anyone know what coaybtete-leranous is? (Extra bonus if you don’t have to Google it!)
October 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pupil
Well said, seanahan.
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word semicolon
And I still like Vonnegut. Especially his nonfiction, like Fates Worse than Death, and his sort of fiction/nonfiction, like Timequake.
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word semicolon
Rule #4: Rules 1 through 3 are spot on, and yet... Conventional books are underrated.
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word nanowrimo
I'm definitely doing it. It's an excuse to write, really, a way to sidestep the usual routines and subroutines of failing to give yourself permission to screw up and enjoy. The other couple of times I did it, I didn't get anything like a real "novel" at the end, but I did get some mighty stacks of words that I still enjoy reading back through and rearranging and playing with.
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word nosestickinery
I used it on ni.
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list phth
phthor
October 18, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word peacock
Interesting--I would love to see
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word utilize
You know what word is nice, though? inutile
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word unicodeworking
It is on my bwowsah.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word utilize
"Utilize" could be "to infuse with utility; to increase the utility of something
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pupil
I read that Leonardo da Vinci said something along the lines of "it is a poor pupil who does not surpass his master." Are we largely then a race of poor pupils? Because if we weren't, wouldn't our progress toward perfection have skyrocketed by now? If everyone always got better as the generations wore on, shouldn't we be enlightened, beautiful, sublime, war-hunger-poverty-hate free by now?
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word bugs
Seems as if there ought to be information on this page about actual insects, too. Or viruses. The various kinds of bugs could interact.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word bmen
Except Qmen, who takes spicy curry dishes over to his apartment sometimes.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word boutique
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word boutique
Don't it always seem to go
that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cold
Remember, the best way to keep warm is not to get cold in the first place.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word semicolon
Yep. Bless him.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pornography
Now that is funny. Maybe having those ads up there is actually an asset, entertainment-wise.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word dusk
How many shades of dusk? A brazillion, I'd say.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pornography
I'm surprised Wordie hasn't had anything to say about this, yet.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word semicolon
Kurt Vonnegut said he hated them; I love them. Most of the time.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word typewriter
Remember when we could say anything? There was no delete key. We made the same typographical mistakes over and over again. There was no pause for thought. There was no need to pause. Fingers thought. Brains listened.
Writing was hammering, and oily, and smelled good too.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word plinth
Wow. What an exquisite image.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word bugs
Anyone else have this problem? If there's a link to a Youtube clip in a comment, no further content gets loaded (Safari, Mac) below that comment on the latest 400 page.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list things-go-better-with-some
You winsome and you losesome.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word wiseacre
Yea, the ea is beautiful!
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list things-go-better-with-some
A winsome and handsome list!
(I see what you mean about the orthographical illusion, though!)
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word features
Here's an interesting cautionary tale from Hopeless Geek.
October 17, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word merch
Oh yeah, I second that one, rt!
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
I think she may have changed some of the words a little bit. My eldest daughter wanted it, so I said okay 'cause I was tired of listening to the Wonder Pets theme song.... There's an animal in trouble! (There's an animal in twouble...)! (Cue 5- and 3-year-old paroxysms.)
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word meatspace
I like to out of the blue in passing call my boss meathead sometimes.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
Yeah, Big Rock Candy Mountain.... but Lisa Loeb does a very pleasantly ethereal version of it, I must say. Got it from iTunes, off some children's album.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word merch
Hey, speaking of that story, I also recommend Terry Bisson's other work. I just read Walking Man a little while ago. Very dreamlike and atmospheric--once you get over the lead girl's always saying "hit" instead of "it," that is.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word labarum
I see. I would have been raised Catholic if either of my parents had kept up with it; as it was, we only went to mass when visiting my grandparents in South Dakota. But I still have a soft spot for Catholic paraphernalia. :-)
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word jeez
Hmm.... still religious, apparently:
"exclamation of surprise, 1803, a disguised oath, probably for Jesu Domine "Jesus Lord." Extended form jiminy cricket is attested from 1848"
(from www.etymonline.com)
That Jesu sure gets around.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word merch
Or maybe just a "meat" shirt.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word merch
Hmmm.... could I get a "purchase this list for use in meatspace" shirt or mug?
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word labarum
Curious: what reasons?
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word relamping
bulblamp bulb lampbulb lampbulblampbulblampbulblamp blamp
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
IN THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*collapses in quivering heap*
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word relamping
Ha ha!
I remember from when I was in charge of "relamping" a big retail space, those fluorescent "bulbs" are technically called lamps.
Still, when you say it that many times in a row, it's just a bit ridiculous.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word vermicelli
My hump. My hump. My hump, my hump, my hump.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
Why? Why is the bear torturing me?
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
Aaaaaaaaighhh!!!! Make it stop!!!!!
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word nattering nabobs of negativity
Yeah... EVERYTHING has a place on this site!
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word malicious afterthought
Oh, ya know I was just playing about that. Unless you were to steal a phrase with, you know, malicious afterthought.
October 16, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
Oh, of course. And now I have in my head a slurry of all these bits of ditties swimming around... like an auditory analog of the miasma from the Kmart receiving room I worked in, long ago, particularly the area where health & beauty aids overlapped with all the candies & gums, which was never quite far enough away from the trash compactor!
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list real-names
I know a guy named Dick Thickens. Really.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word malicious afterthought
A fortuitous inversion of malice aforethought.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
Personal worst earworm song: "Big Rock Candy Mountain" from O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word with malice aforethought
When I was a kid, I misheard this phrase as malicious afterthought--like, Wow! I didn't mean to do it, but now I'm really glad I killed that guy!
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cilia
Thanks, rt!
Hmmm... Some of them I can see, like bed (cool!), but others.... I'm gonna need some help.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cilia
Hmmm.... is there a word for visual onomatopoeia? "Cilia" kinda looks like what it means, at least in the middle....
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word glassanine
"two-way mirror glass when used to humiliate or annoy people on one side of said material"
Hmm. The glass itself could be called television.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cilia
Oh man, I just gave myself a SImon & Garfunkel-related earworm!
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cilia
Cilia! You're breakin my heart! You're shakin my confidence daily....!
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word glassanine
for the behavior, i mean
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word glassanine
glassanism? glassanimism?
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word bugs
Right... all I get is "Comments since your last visit" followed by... nothing!
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word earworm
No. It's still playing.
And playing.
And playing....
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word glassanine
Like, a see-through mezzanine?
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word glassine
Also the slightly brittle, cellophane-like clear part of a windowed business envelope.
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word sialia
Why does this word remind me of Hazelnuts???
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list habitat
Very nice. :-)
October 15, 2007
npydyuan commented on the user john
Speaking of Safari, I still get this when I try to edit my fave word, etc, on my profile page (using Safari 3.0.3 (522.12.1) on Mac OS 10.4.10):
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cholula
Ha! I had to look that one up. I knew it first as hot sauce, and then as the name of one of my little animated subtext people.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word omsatigo
one more smoke and then i go
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word oedilf
Oxford English Dictionary I'd Like to F***
(thanks, c_b)
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list journey-of-a-300-year-old-house
I think you're spot on with the "ordinary" words. Playing with this sort of thing (Wordie) allows the ordinary to interconnect. You can make transcendent weavings with plain old yarns.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word antidisestablishmentarianism
That would be todally awesome, though I don't see it happening any time soon.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word lollygagging
Then my work here is done!
;-)
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word lollygagging
Maybe if you wouldn't try to eat the whole sucker at once....
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word antidisestablishmentarianism
A word used more for example than for its meaning. It looks like a cityscape.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list journey-of-a-300-year-old-house
Wowee zowee. Beautiful.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word wyrd
Whoa--that's cool. I used to call Microsoft Word 5.1a "Ms Wyrd." Seems strangely appropriate.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word recursion
see recursion
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list this-list-is-a-complete-x-of-y
Mound of mustard.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list this-list-is-a-complete-x-of-y
Waste of time? ;-)
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word assume
"How can it be an ass if it doesn't have "ass" in it?"
Nice koan.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word brouhaha
*faking shits*
I have to--
nevermind
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word waxed paper
One time my southern girl friend ordered "ice(d) tea" in a northern clime, and they brought her a glass of champagne... Asti, to be exact.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word professor von schmartzenpanz
Noted chaordic theoretician (nee von Smarty Pants). In later life, advanced lame-ass theory of the non-existence of adjectives; arguing that an adjective is really an adverb modifying an implied verb of existence. The theory rested on some dumb-ass idea that the conventional distinction between "existence" and other "actions" is artificial and misleading; that all verbs are, in their purest state, expressions, like everything else, of pure energy.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
Wha--?
Oh, sorry! Professor von Schmartzenpanz took over my computer for a while.
October 13, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
That's right. I said it! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word tea
Now if they could just get a giant vergerhade to hock the tea, they'd be in business!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list i-need-to-practice-things-i-think-i-already-know-how-to-do
Thanks! It's funny how things you think you've mastered can come back and smack you in the face.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
There's no such thing as adjectives.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word berimbau
Gunga é meu, gunga é meu
Gunga é meu, foi papai que me deu
Gunga é meu, gunga é meu
Gunga é meu eu não dou a ninguem
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
Yeah! It's one of those awesome (in the real sense of the word, not the diluted popular) phenomena that seems so simple--and is--and then turns out to be more complex than you'd dreamed.
I don't know if I'd say the music is like jazz--although that's an interesting thought; hopefully I'll think about it some more. I'd have to reread the Nestor Capoeira book, cuz I don't remember what he says about that. But it does guide the game. It kinda calls in the spirits, I think it's safe to say. Plus, the different rhythms (toques) direct the energy in the roda. Certain toques make you play slow, low, and tigerlike, and some make you play high, flying, and, oh, I don't know, songbird-like?
Playing the berimbau has become one of my favorite things.
Here's the website of the school my Professor is affiliated with. Amen Santo gave me the name Pirata.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word syzygy
That Sturgeon story was my first encounter with syzygy, too!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word synecdoche
See also metonymy.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list words-that-rhyme-with-julia
Nice list! Don't ever let them fool ya!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
Yeah, for some reason, "penned" is less odious to me. I'm not sure why. Maybe cuz it sounds all old-timey and stuff....
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
This guy explains it a lot better than I ever could. I've heard it compared to chess, in that you can execute moves to try and "set up" the person you're playing with, to get them in a vulnerable position. None of the Mestre's I've talked to, or batizados I've been to, have had anything like scorekeeping, time limits, or any claptrap of that sort. But believe me, you know when you've been taken down. Part of the challenge is to be good natured about that. It's simultaneously cooperative and competitive--kinda like some of the wordplay that goes on around here!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word rhythm
They're queueing up by the Ouenouaou, I believe, speaking Uoiauai.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word flickr
I too prefer just the words-n-banter.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
Well, let's see... *wavery flashback effect*
In my twenties, I wanted to take Yoga at the YMCA, but the class was full, so on a whim I took karate instead. That lasted a few years, and served to get me over my fear of martial arts.
*whirring flash forward effect*
Then, barely in my thirties, after a long spell of not enough physical activity or community, I looked to see what the YMCA was offering, and saw the description for Capoeira. Mispronouncing it horrendously, I read that it was a dance, a fight, and a game, set to its own traditional music. "That sounds gay enough," says I to myself, and I went down to check it out.
It proved addictive. It's curvy and improvisational, where some other martial arts are angular and rigid. It has a vast, expanding history, and draws together lots of vibrant, diverse people from all over.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word absinthe
And then drown your eater's remorse with a healthy dose of nepenthe!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
We're not talking about dysplasia, after all!
But seriously, Capoeira doesn't have to be painful. Depends on the tenor of the game you're playing, whom you're playing with, etc. The roda varies as much as conversations do; it can be a game, a tease, an interview, a challenge, a joke, a fight....
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word todal
If it were Grug Maria, maybe!
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word todal
I actually think that blobfish is kind of cute.
October 12, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list gosh-darn-it-to-heck
Shiitake mushrooms! My list is redundant!
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
Capoeira? Or releasing the hips?
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word releasing my hips
Not professionally or skillfully! But I play Capoeira, which is part dance.
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word myrrh
Grrrr...!
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list poetrie-sailing-to-byzantium
Thanks!
I re-stumbled upon it yesterday when looking back through some of my old, slightly embarrassing journals--in one, I told myself I was no longer going to berate myself for reading poems that I didn't really understand!
I won't claim to understand fully all of it now, but diving back into it has proven to be a good example of the benefits of rereading at different life moments.
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word funny
like a clown
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cigarette
Ha! Yeah, always a toss-up between those two.
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list stuffie-poetrie-tunie-listings
Poetrie: Sailing to Byzantium
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cigarette
Is there a word for the words one utters, if one's conversation and urge are intertwined, during the process of lighting the cigarette? The muffled lip, the relaxed remove, the leaning easily to the left, or right, to facilitate digging in the pocket for the lighter.... It is an inbetween moment, a smoker’s favorite kind of moment.
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word aurora borealysis
Beautiful.
I've had the condition twice: once on I70 in Missouri, and once in my backyard in Wisconsin!
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word undisableable
"Surely you can disable something without breaking it?"
Hmm... yes. I'll keep letting this one simmer, though...
:-)
October 11, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word undisableable
Breakproof.
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word clapper
Perrrrhaaaaaps.... But you can't prove a thing!
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word nepenthe
Oh, way to take all the fun out of getting wasted, rocks....
;-)
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word capitalist
And an absurdist is someone who green sandwich in the TV studio under the stairs?
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word ni
Please excuse more nosestickinery. I am not in favor of a time limit on editing/deleting comments. Why throw up an obstacle to someone's rhythm? This is Wordie, after all, not--you know, some other place. Different physical laws may apply. If people want to rewrite history, I say let them.
That's kinda what we're doing here anyway, isn't it? ;-)
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word stoner error
Any mistake—large or small—that you would never have made, had you not been chemically influenced.
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word vergerhade
I love it....
So, what are y'all talking about?
Oh, just what our giant animatronic clippy people are going to wear when our computers become life-sized 3D sentients....
October 10, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word nanowrimo
O boy o boy o boy! It's almost November!
October 9, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word issue
Dude, you got issues!
;-)
October 9, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word vergerhade
Maybe the giant, animatronic clippy-person will be customizable. Mine's definitely going to wear heels. And a corset.
October 9, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word vergerhade
I actually dreamed I was on Wordie last night. I had a slew of words to enter, and I was alternating between Wordie and other applications, looking into the meanings of the words and entering them on my list. By the time I got to vergerhade, my computer had become a wall-sized, 3-dimensional affair, and on entering the word, automatically a life-sized professorial-looking guy popped up in front of an enormous, animated map, and began explaining the history of the word to me. It turns out it's an apocryphal island, somewhere near Australia or maybe Antarctica. Some people claim to have inside knowledge of it, some intimate they have actually seen it. No-one can verify exactly where it is, however, or whether it is submerged, stationary, etc. My brother was watching the giant computer with me. I said, "So they don't even know if it exists?" and he said, "It has nuclear weapons on it," as if that explained everything.
I can't remember the other words in the dream, except for berger.
October 6, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word bagatelle
A game played on a table having a semi-circular end at which are nine holes. The balls used are struck from the opposite end of the board with a cue. The name is sometimes applied to a modified form of billiards known also as semi-billiards.
September 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word sublimity
Or a limerick?
September 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the list words-you-hope-you-won-t-hear-in-your-doctor-s-office-even-though-they-sound-pleasant-enough
How about "oops!"
September 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word parhelion
Isn't it aphelion? :-)
September 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word elves
Because you might get a shock, right? :-P
September 24, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word sun dog
Never heard that (about rain dogs), but it makes sense, and makes the Tom Waits song even better!
September 23, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word sun dog
Any relation to Tom Waits's Rain Dogs?
September 23, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word monster raindrops
Wow. I'd like to see those.
Monster Raindrops... another good band name, too.
September 23, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word elves
"Elves last less than 1/1000th of a second."
Funny, I always thought they were immortal!
September 23, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
You know what's just as irksome as verbing? Nouning. I HATE HATE HATE how everybody on the radio now says, "There's a disconnect...."
That being said, I'm not sure I see the distinction between "sectors of society artificially forcing a change in usage...and the natural evolution of words." I mean, words, like organisms, flourish in certain environments at certain times. How can you pick and choose which sector's influence is "artificial" and which "natural?" It's all natural. (Some of it is just more asinine!)
Oh, and my "favorite" example of verbing: "Authored." Why the #@$! can't you just say "wrote"?
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word poverty
Yes... I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the way the guys harangue and cuss at each other, but it all still sounds so civilised. Anyway, I finished it, so I'll stop inundating all these words with Crane quotations, for a while at least.
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word poverty
"Poverty isn't anything to be ashamed of."
"Great heavens! Have you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. But he was."
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
I guess so, sure. But I have no affiliation with the Wookieepedia!
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
The Language Instinct seems to be available through Amazon.
ps: I usually pronounce it something like "piddy wan."
:-D
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pend
"Later, when the cigarettes had become exhausted, Hawker volunteered to go after a further supply, and as he arose, a question seemed to come to the edge of Florinda's lips and pend there. The moment that the door was closed upon him she demanded, "What is that about the two violets?"
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word meme
Whoops: delayed page refresh. Uselessness beat me to the reference recognition comment.
*cool points demerit*
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word meme
Inconceivable!
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
Even the most bleeding-heart adaptivist among us probably harbors a secret list, longer than he or she might want to admit, of words that "don't and ought not to"! :-)
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cholly
"We'll get some more claret," observed Hawker musingly. "And some cognac for the coffee. And some cigarettes. Do you think of anything more, Splutter?"
As they came from the shop of the illustrious purveyors of potato salad in Second Avenue, Florinda cried anxiously, "Here, Billie, you let me carry that!"
"What infernal nonsense!" said Hawker, flushing. "Certainly not!"
"Well," protested Florinda, "it might soil your gloves somehow."
"In heaven's name, what if it does? Say, young woman, do you think I am one of these cholly boys?"
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word sou
"The door opened, and Miss Florinda O'Connor, the model, dashed into the room like a gale of obstreperous autumn leaves.
"Why, hello, Splutter!" they cried.
"Oh, boys, I've come to dine with you."
It was like a squall striking a fleet of yachts.
Grief spoke first. "Yes, you have?" he said incredulously.
"Why, certainly I have. What's the matter?"
They grinned. "Well, old lady," responded Grief, "you've hit us at the wrong time. We are, in fact, all out of everything. No dinner, to mention, and, what's more, we haven't got a sou."
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word chaordic
AP NEWS. Schmartzenpanz reportedly became apoplectic when asked at a recent press conference about his views on schadenfreude....
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word crisis
That's comforting. Thanks. :-)
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word crisis
Is there a good word for the sociocognitive dissonance that occurs when you suddenly realize that, despite having several identifiable traits in common with someone else, your assumptions about further commonality or compatibility with them are false?
Just asking, 'cuz that's happened to me a few times.
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
That imprecision is why I pointed to chaordic. Our vision is too impaired to parse every wavelength in the spectrum. This "communication" program is insanely vast and complex, but it's all encoded "out there" somewhere, on a universal scale.
Maybe. :-)
(As a non-programmer almost fetishistically enamored of programming analogies, my understanding of what I'm actually talking about is always suspect.)
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word heels over head
Ass over applesauce.
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word heels over head
Parsed or not, I LOVE it!
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the user 82times
Leaving messages for future deep-link readers.... I love that thought! Reminds me of the initials carved in stone the explorers in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth found, shortly before being volcanically puked back up to the outside world.
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
I view language as art supplies AND mathematical equations.... cf. uselessness's excellent "computer physics model" on chaordic
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word misuse
I don't think there's any inherent misuse that's worth worrying about. To me, rules of language are an interpretation of the current situation (a schema?) rather than an authoritarian prescription. I'd say a misuse is more like a bug in one's code. A mismatch between usage and intended audience, or a misapprehension of the mindset of the intended audience, or even a mismatch between intended audience and actual audience, as a result of foreshortened foresight on the part of the developer (author).
September 22, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word impend
"Well, after a while something happened——"
"Oh, no, it didn't. Something impended always, but it never happened."
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
It's always nice to see a word's less common inflections in use. It had never really occurred to me to use this word in any role but the participial!
Aside: Project Gutenberg rocks!
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word schema
Right on. Well said. Open-mindedness is the ability and willingness to treat one's collected schemata as a lego set rather than a monolith.
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word heels over head
"Hollanden surveyed this outburst with a critical eye, and then slapped his knee with emphasis. "You certainly have got it—a million times worse than I thought. Why, you—you—you're heels over head."
Stephen Crane, The Third Violet
When you think about it, this makes more sense than "head over heels," which pretty well describes a normal state of array.
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word malignant
Why is the opposite of malignant "benign" and not "benignant"?
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word digital native
My favorite typewriter ribbons are the half black, half red ones, on real metal spools....
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word vicious circle
Zoiks! How 'bout vicious coicle?
Or if you're a Piers Anthony fan, Viscous Circle....
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word pustoglot
Bookseller's Row in the Haymarket was a grotesque sight—like almost all sights then: destitution and wretchedness were carried to such absurd lengths that they ceased to provoke tears but only decrepit, wise laughter such as the last Romans must have aimed at themselves and the Gauls. Somewhere in the hidden, half-legendary Petersburg cellars precious manuscripts were still being exchanged for equally fabulous, apocryphal things—a pound of butter, a ham; but in the Haymarket they dealt mainly in the literature of the Russian Golden Age, naive literary almanacs in which vulgar quarrels were carried on, with opponents caught in misprints and hidden peccadillos hinted at—so-and-so lost everything at gambling, or had informed on someone, or was a kept man... The public was most picturesque and ill-assorted: here was the beginning of the disintegration of the Petersburg School—zaumniks, "ushkuiniks," pustoglots, nothingists, metaphorists, columbines, going-to-the-peoplists, and the completely enigmatic quasists. Here stood the gnomelike graybeard Trufanov with a bundle of "northern antiquities" transcribed in a decorative style and said to have been collected at the time of the Arkhangelsk rites—in fact they had been taken from a collection of byliny and worked up into a state of complete incomprehensibility; he was seen with his group singing the bawdy songs of No-sow ("My name is because we are not simple peasants: we do not sow nor reap, we are peasants not by calling but by willing").
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/002879.php
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word metonym
Say it again...
September 21, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word metonym
Can somebody clarify how metonymy is different from synecdoche?
September 20, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word gay
Yeah--that's probably the most sane policy.
September 20, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word digital native
I graduated in 88, too!
You probably made a good choice with that Plus... Although, I wouldn't mind having one now.
September 20, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word digital native
My favorite part of the C64 was waiting for the cassette tape drive to find what it was looking for!
September 20, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word gay
re: sprite—Wow! It is heartening to see how non-flamey that potentially volatile discussion remained.
Inspired by one of reesetee's comments there, I feel like volunteering this bit of tangential autobiographica: I am bisexual, and trying to figure out when semi-self-referential ironic gay comments are going to be well received, has often proved a challenging social puzzle.
September 20, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word gay
Well, that's a relief. I was referring to the sense of fag identified by SonofGroucho. My logophilia, I'm afraid, is often matched with juvenilia!
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word gay
Hmmm... no emoticon... have I genuinely offended?
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word cozy
Ineffectual teapot encirclement.
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word gay
sociophobic flail at humor contritely redacted by misshapen author
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word erg
Always makes me think of the board game (from the 80's I think) that was based on Frank Herbert's Dune books. There were lots of ergs in there.
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word negligence
Nyah nyaaahh!!
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word ♥
Woah.... today, it looks like a heart! The utter cuteness of it all musta melted my lead pipe of grief into a Valentine of acceptance!
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word baraka
All thinking people
oppose terrorism
both domestic
& international…
But one should not
be used
To cover the other
Amiri Baraka
September 19, 2007
npydyuan commented on the word clapper
Yup.... I wouldn't mind having a "court walled about, and full of nests" of my own, sometimes to snuggle into.
September 19, 2007
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