Jump to content

Bat Guano

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    787
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Bat Guano

  1. Yeah, I have a prescriptivist tendency too, but there's nothing anyone can do about it. That is, any one person can't change the usage habits of millions; it just doesn't work. Argue all you want about how grammatical or otherwise a particular construction is, it don't make a shit; if people use it that way, over time it will become standard. I was shocked and appalled recently when someone told me that using 'literally' to mean, basically, the opposite of what it really means, i.e. figuratively - the example he gave was something like, 'it was so hot that my face literally melted,' has become an accepted alternate usage. It's literally wrong, but the meaning of the word is changing. Might as well try to hold back the tide.
  2. Language changes. If losing the possessive 's works, that is, it's functional and doesn't confuse people too badly, it'll stick. Seems like it's on its way.
  3. I'll have the lingonberry pancakes.
  4. Damn. Couldn't have come close to one 4:38 mile on my best day when I was running regularly. 26 of them and change? That's just fucking ridiculous.
  5. Another possibility is that it's more pervasive where it's more overt. If someone knows his peer group will largely accept him throwing out the N-bomb, he's more likely to do so. If they're going to call him out or worse, he won't.
  6. Is it my imagination or is the O-line playing better in the second half?
  7. Just don't like bad calls. Sue me.
  8. Sure, game's not over yet, but refs have given us a couple of huge breaks. Changes the game whether it's deciding at the end or not.
  9. What a fucking shitshow. Fucking hate games that are decided by bad calls.
  10. Anyone tried those mouthpieces that advance the lower jaw to open up the airway? They are significantly less expensive and seem like they'd be less annoying to use. They are for mild to moderate apnea, so they may not work for more severe cases. I don't know if OP's case is considered severe or not.
  11. When I first moved to Austin from environs significantly north and east of here, back in the 80s, I read an article in the Statesman sports section about some track guy, I forget his name, who was considered the 'last great white runner.' I was nonplussed; really didn't know what to make of it. It kept on in the same vein, talking about how there were no great white runners since this guy, etc., and comparing him to contemporary track athletes, who happened to be not white. After I finally figured out that, yes, the writer really was drawing a distinction among track athletes based on race, and yes, he was lamenting the fact that blacks had taken over the sport, and yes, the daily paper of the capital city and home of the University of Texas really printed that shit without taking out the in-your-face racism, I had a greater understanding of the place I'd come to. It really brought home to me the casual, pervasive racism that still existed. This was about the same time I saw the signs in some small towns nearby, that they had not gotten around to taking down, designating certain water fountains for whites only. In the 80s. Now I'm sure some of y'all will get your backs up that I'm saying Texas is more racist than the northeast, and you should see the racism up there, it's turrible and all. And yeah, that's part of what I'm saying; it was open, casual racism at the biggest paper in the most enlightened city in Texas. I am 100 percent convinced that a similar piece would never have appeared in any major paper in the northeast, and any writer who submitted such a piece would find himself out of a job within the next hour. You may still be right about the racism in parts of the northeast; it certainly exists, but it's more hidden. In a town near where I grew up there was an annual tradition of some joker burning a cross on a hill overlooking the town; I'm sure a number of people must have known who was behind it, but they kept their mouths shut. Which is worse, the sub-rosa racism or the open racism? I've heard arguments for both sides.
  12. When I was 5 or 6 or thereabouts, I was roasting marshmallows with the family. I lit one on fire, let it burn for a while, and announced I'd created a '(n-word) marshmallow.' My father gently but firmly told me that we don't use that word in our house. So where did I get it from? School, other kids, obviously, but I honestly don't remember any specific instances of hearing it prior to that incident. After that I became attuned to it, and tended to avoid people who used it. But it must have been common enough for me to have absorbed it and to use it casually. Pervasive and ubiquitous, that is.
  13. Nah, that doesn't work.
  14. Bat Guano

    Tax reform

    It's more important to assign blame than to solve the problem. Or understand the problem.
  15. Holy shit. I knew he was stupid, but every day brings new levels of stupidity. I think my cat is smarter than he is. Maybe even my goldfish.
×
×
  • Create New...