I once followed a woman that appeared she was going to make a quick getaway on the elevator, but instead, she ended up holding it. When I got on she said, "I only held it because I heard your heels. I wouldn't do it for a man."
I have determined the need for two additional elevator buttons. The additional elevator buttons can be used when the the elevator is full but a potential passenger still wants to go up/down. The potential passenger can press one of these buttons and it will not hold or reopen the elevator door but will dispach a new elevator.
Do not hate people who take the elevator one floor and are wearing heels, even if there are accessible stairs.
Also, I would like it publicly recorded that the Door Open and Closed buttons in the Curtin Hall elevators are in odd spots and difficult to find in a hurry.
Only one of these statements is directly relevant to my personal life.
I'm confused about the relevance of the difficulty in finding the Door Close button in a hurry, assuming that you are indirectly apologizing to anyone whom you shut out of an elevator. Also, if door open is so hard to find, stick your arm out. Also also, I'm failing to come up with an Austinian analysis of your second sentence as to what act you're performing (is it apologizing? it also looks like excuse-making, though I don't know if that counts as a performative).
I think it's excuse-making, and I think that counts as a performative, although a lot of the cool kids seem to call it an 'exercitive'. (Another area where you shouldn't necessarily trust me on what the cool kids say--ordinarily I would claim to know what I'm talking about on this, but I'm feeling intimidated today.)
The Door Close button really isn't relevant, except insofar as it's relevant to the Door Open button which itself is relevant.
Actually, I'd rather claim that that was an apology to the person who made it onto the elevator with me one step after the guy with the axe.
I'll tell you if you give a straight answer to the 'he or she' question.... (Or alternatively if you point out that it's none o' my damn business. Or if I feel like it, mostly likely tom'w.)
Do people really want to know? I have no personal or political reason for leaving the answer undisclosed. Rather, I've enjoyed not having certain rhetorical avenues foreclosed to me. But if my silence strikes you all as irritatingly coy, I'll go ahead and spill the gender beans.
I was going to say something about the virtues of managing to not work in offices (major points for not offering the distraction of former work in the WTC), but then I forgot my point. (Possibly it's that while poverty totally sucks, it's not without benefits; also, please give me more money.)
I think Standpipe Bridgeplate is a polymath. S/he has demonstrated deep knowledge in math, poetry, writing, philosophy...if his/her skills with the bo staff are pretty good, s/he would be the perfect wo/man.
I thought so, Chopper, and that is what it means. It was just an odd juxtaposition. Ogged: "Does anyone really think SB is a woman?" Chopper: "I think Standpipe Bridgeplate is a polymath." You know, as opposed to being either a woman or a man.
Chopper, thanks for the kind words, but please don't mistake a smattering of clever blog-droppings for superior anything. Seriously.
Gentlemen, the topic is elevator etiquette. Thank you.
Ogged has a point. As much as I enjoy all the attention, the name of the blog is "Unfogged", not "Standfoggedplate". Not until that check goes through, anyway.
That's not how I meant it. Please, feel free to speculate about Standpipe Bridgeplate's gender, training, and abilities. Also, be sure to censure him for saying "blog-droppings."
I find myself speculating about the backstory. Maybe she always used to hold the elevator for people, and doors, and help mothers trying to carry strollers downstairs, and people asked her for directions ten times a day and she helped them all, and she's the sort of person that children and old people turn to when they're lost, and she realized that all this helpfulness had taken at least a year out of her life and it got so bad she needed to take assertiveness training to get some kind of control. And what they said to her was, "When someone's coming toward the elevator, figure it's a race."
Since I assume the question wasn't rhetorical, I for awhile thought SB was a Commenter-With-Ovaries. Now I'm uncertain. I had assumed the referrent "he"'s were around because of an unveiling in a comment thread I didn't read.
It just never seemed important to anything I wanted to say.
Perhaps it has no bearing on your actions, but how is Ogged going to know whether to wear the Tom Jones outfit or the leather chaps on your date? (When he finally woos you, that is. Which he will. 'Cause Ogged has G-A-M-E.)
I apologize for bringing up the SB gender thing again--it really is none of our business.
About performative/exercitives, read the first few paragraphs here.
"I promise" is the paradigmatic performative--because when you say "I promise" you actually are promising by saying it. Some people call acts like that exercitives rather than performatives. The authors of the most harmful book of the century call exercitives declaratives (from 'I declare'), which is a really stupid usage given that 'declarative' is already a grammatical term meaning something different; and they hive promises etc. off as commissives. (It may be that most people don't count promising as an exercitive--brain's all cloudy.) This post begins with an exercitive, I'm pretty sure.
I remembered that I've had twoposts somewhat on the subject--with bonus heavy-handed comment regulation! The view I've expressed there is somewhat eccentric.
My understanding is that promises are paradigmatic but extra-complex. Coceptually easy performatives are things like christening (a ship or a person). I'm through the first nine lectures in Austin's "How to do things with words," and so far so good.
Carp, even Austin separated exercitives from commissives. Mary Kate McGowan (article probably only available to academics) quotes Austin as defining exercitives as conferring or taking away rights and privileges, which is not so far from what I'm saying, in some ways. I'd better leave it at that.
I seem to be unable to do a traditional search through How to do things with words because my copy's at home, I think.
Ah, christening, good. I especially like Austin's example about the guy who sneaks in, smashes the bottle on the hull, shout's "I name this ship the Joseph Stalin," and kicks it off the blocks.
"Suppose, for example, I see a vessel on the stocks, walk up and smash the bottle hung at the stem, proclaim 'I name this ship the Mr. Stalin' and for good measure kick away the chocks: but the trouble is, I was not the person chosen to name it (whether or not--an additional complication--Mr. Stalin was the destined name; perhaps in a way it is even more of a shame if it was). We can all agree
The ugly face of social Darwinism:
"I figured it was race: if you made it you made it, if you didn't you didn't."
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 9:07 AM
The 14th Amendment (of the elevator code of conduct) does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer's Social Statics.
Also, if this really happened, is it an example of Ogged replacing the IRL you?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 9:11 AM
"If this really happened?" No, this is pretty standard IRL me; IRL me just never talks about sex or bodily functions.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 9:15 AM
I once followed a woman that appeared she was going to make a quick getaway on the elevator, but instead, she ended up holding it. When I got on she said, "I only held it because I heard your heels. I wouldn't do it for a man."
Posted by susan | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 9:55 AM
Was that first line delibered in a booming baritone with shoulders back and chest thrust out?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:00 AM
What about a man in heels?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:00 AM
I didn't check her policy on trannies or similar.
Posted by susan | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:01 AM
I wouldn't do it for a man
I guess it's good to know some people think like this. You, of course, should have gotten off at the next floor, in protest.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:08 AM
I hate people who take the elevator only one floor.
Which means that, since lots of buildings don't have non-emergency stairs, I'm a very hate-filled person.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:10 AM
You should do some disintermediation and just hate people.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:11 AM
I have determined the need for two additional elevator buttons. The additional elevator buttons can be used when the the elevator is full but a potential passenger still wants to go up/down. The potential passenger can press one of these buttons and it will not hold or reopen the elevator door but will dispach a new elevator.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:15 AM
Misanthropy has its own rewards.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:16 AM
Elevators are unnatural. If god had meant for us to go up, and then down, he would have given us up-and-then-downicles.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:25 AM
Bwahahah! SB doesn't have up-and-then-downicles! Avoid! Avoid!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:29 AM
If your comeback sounds perfunctory and forced, maybe you should reconsider it.
Bitch.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:30 AM
A "comeback" is a reply to an insult or challenge, Benji.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:33 AM
Being courted by ogged has its ups and downs.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 10:33 AM
Do not hate people who take the elevator one floor and are wearing heels, even if there are accessible stairs.
Also, I would like it publicly recorded that the Door Open and Closed buttons in the Curtin Hall elevators are in odd spots and difficult to find in a hurry.
Only one of these statements is directly relevant to my personal life.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 11:48 AM
I'm confused about the relevance of the difficulty in finding the Door Close button in a hurry, assuming that you are indirectly apologizing to anyone whom you shut out of an elevator. Also, if door open is so hard to find, stick your arm out. Also also, I'm failing to come up with an Austinian analysis of your second sentence as to what act you're performing (is it apologizing? it also looks like excuse-making, though I don't know if that counts as a performative).
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 11:56 AM
I hate people who take the elevator only one floor.
The world awaits the benign ascendancy of Wolfson Chutes that take a single person any number of floors without inconveniencing anyone else.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:02 PM
I think it's excuse-making, and I think that counts as a performative, although a lot of the cool kids seem to call it an 'exercitive'. (Another area where you shouldn't necessarily trust me on what the cool kids say--ordinarily I would claim to know what I'm talking about on this, but I'm feeling intimidated today.)
The Door Close button really isn't relevant, except insofar as it's relevant to the Door Open button which itself is relevant.
Actually, I'd rather claim that that was an apology to the person who made it onto the elevator with me one step after the guy with the axe.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:04 PM
"I almost lost my arm" redux.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:07 PM
Heh. Hehe. He said "Wolfson Chutes." Hehe.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:17 PM
What's an Austinian analysis? They seem to be pretty popular around here.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:18 PM
I'll tell you if you give a straight answer to the 'he or she' question.... (Or alternatively if you point out that it's none o' my damn business. Or if I feel like it, mostly likely tom'w.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:23 PM
John Austin
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:27 PM
I think it's excuse-making, and I think that counts as a performative, although a lot of the cool kids seem to call it an 'exercitive'.
Exercitives are a type of illocutionary act, IIRC.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:27 PM
Apostropher-
Wolfsonian trolling, or did you not look at your link?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 12:52 PM
That is ever the question, now, isn't it?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:00 PM
a straight answer to the 'he or she' question
Do people really want to know? I have no personal or political reason for leaving the answer undisclosed. Rather, I've enjoyed not having certain rhetorical avenues foreclosed to me. But if my silence strikes you all as irritatingly coy, I'll go ahead and spill the gender beans.
Huh. All of a sudden I'm hungry for a burrito.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:08 PM
I was going to say something about the virtues of managing to not work in offices (major points for not offering the distraction of former work in the WTC), but then I forgot my point. (Possibly it's that while poverty totally sucks, it's not without benefits; also, please give me more money.)
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:09 PM
Qui est-ce?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:10 PM
There's a difference between managing to not work in offices—we can all do that—and managing to work in not-offices.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:10 PM
To arrive at a better understanding of Austinian analysis, though, one must determine which Steve Austin is performing the analysis.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 1:12 PM
I've enjoyed not having certain rhetorical avenues foreclosed to me.
Strike that, it sounds opportunistic. I guess I don't have a good reason. It just never seemed important to anything I wanted to say.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:06 PM
Does anyone really think SB is a woman?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:13 PM
I think Standpipe Bridgeplate is a polymath. S/he has demonstrated deep knowledge in math, poetry, writing, philosophy...if his/her skills with the bo staff are pretty good, s/he would be the perfect wo/man.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:19 PM
I don't think "polymath" means what you seem to think it means, El Chopperino.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:21 PM
wo/man
wombman
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:21 PM
Oh, and French! S/he knows another language. And linguistics! Shit. I am so feeling inferior right now...
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:21 PM
Polymath, n: polymath
a person of great and varied learning.
That's what I meant.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:23 PM
Gentlemen, the topic is elevator etiquette. Thank you.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:25 PM
Ogged is banned!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:28 PM
Does anyone really think SB is a woman?
Do as he says, not as he does.
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:28 PM
I thought so, Chopper, and that is what it means. It was just an odd juxtaposition. Ogged: "Does anyone really think SB is a woman?" Chopper: "I think Standpipe Bridgeplate is a polymath." You know, as opposed to being either a woman or a man.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:28 PM
I am so feeling inferior right now...
Chopper, thanks for the kind words, but please don't mistake a smattering of clever blog-droppings for superior anything. Seriously.
Gentlemen, the topic is elevator etiquette. Thank you.
Ogged has a point. As much as I enjoy all the attention, the name of the blog is "Unfogged", not "Standfoggedplate". Not until that check goes through, anyway.
Right, that's quite enough from me.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:38 PM
That's not how I meant it. Please, feel free to speculate about Standpipe Bridgeplate's gender, training, and abilities. Also, be sure to censure him for saying "blog-droppings."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:40 PM
Ogged: "Does anyone really think SB is a woman?" Chopper: "I think Standpipe Bridgeplate is a polymath."
Ah, but when you've determined that someone is a holy sage, does gender matter?
please don't mistake a smattering of clever blog-droppings for superior anything.
Don't sell yourself short. I fancy myself a clever lad*(1, 2) and I do like to think I can bon the occasional mot, but you leave me gasping sometimes.
*1 When the wife isn't looking, and one passes by, wink wink.
*2 I was seriously bummed that this didn't get me any reaction whatsoever--I thought it was about the funniest thing I'd written here.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:49 PM
Pardon the oversight. Chopper is banned!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:51 PM
Chopper, I noticed it and thought it was funny.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 2:52 PM
Same here.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:01 PM
Yep. Just couldn't come up with a worthy follow-up.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:08 PM
Ok, enough with the love-in.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:10 PM
Chopper is banned!
At last! Oh, at last!
Thanks, all.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:10 PM
you leave me gasping sometimes
All together now: at The Mineshaft.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:14 PM
I got a mental image of the showers and the huffing...
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 3:20 PM
I find myself speculating about the backstory. Maybe she always used to hold the elevator for people, and doors, and help mothers trying to carry strollers downstairs, and people asked her for directions ten times a day and she helped them all, and she's the sort of person that children and old people turn to when they're lost, and she realized that all this helpfulness had taken at least a year out of her life and it got so bad she needed to take assertiveness training to get some kind of control. And what they said to her was, "When someone's coming toward the elevator, figure it's a race."
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 4:49 PM
I think she was just a Republican.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 4:51 PM
Since I assume the question wasn't rhetorical, I for awhile thought SB was a Commenter-With-Ovaries. Now I'm uncertain. I had assumed the referrent "he"'s were around because of an unveiling in a comment thread I didn't read.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 4:53 PM
It just never seemed important to anything I wanted to say.
Perhaps it has no bearing on your actions, but how is Ogged going to know whether to wear the Tom Jones outfit or the leather chaps on your date? (When he finally woos you, that is. Which he will. 'Cause Ogged has G-A-M-E.)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06- 7-05 6:40 PM
Chopper,
*2 I was seriously bummed that this didn't get me any reaction whatsoever--I thought it was about the funniest thing I'd written here.
It was funny, but with this crowd I think it takes that extra little spelling air to ensure a response.
Especially after you came along. You are raising the curve, dude!
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 8:56 AM
I apologize for bringing up the SB gender thing again--it really is none of our business.
About performative/exercitives, read the first few paragraphs here.
"I promise" is the paradigmatic performative--because when you say "I promise" you actually are promising by saying it. Some people call acts like that exercitives rather than performatives. The authors of the most harmful book of the century call exercitives declaratives (from 'I declare'), which is a really stupid usage given that 'declarative' is already a grammatical term meaning something different; and they hive promises etc. off as commissives. (It may be that most people don't count promising as an exercitive--brain's all cloudy.) This post begins with an exercitive, I'm pretty sure.
I remembered that I've had two posts somewhat on the subject--with bonus heavy-handed comment regulation! The view I've expressed there is somewhat eccentric.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:32 AM
Neither google print nor amazon will let me search the text of "How to Do Things with Words". Boo.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:36 AM
But this will support my recollection of exercitives being a subtype of illocutions.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:37 AM
My understanding is that promises are paradigmatic but extra-complex. Coceptually easy performatives are things like christening (a ship or a person). I'm through the first nine lectures in Austin's "How to do things with words," and so far so good.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:41 AM
Carp, even Austin separated exercitives from commissives. Mary Kate McGowan (article probably only available to academics) quotes Austin as defining exercitives as conferring or taking away rights and privileges, which is not so far from what I'm saying, in some ways. I'd better leave it at that.
I seem to be unable to do a traditional search through How to do things with words because my copy's at home, I think.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:48 AM
Ah, christening, good. I especially like Austin's example about the guy who sneaks in, smashes the bottle on the hull, shout's "I name this ship the Joseph Stalin," and kicks it off the blocks.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:49 AM
What does he say about that? Something like "it's a damn shame" or some such, but—better.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 10:50 AM
"Suppose, for example, I see a vessel on the stocks, walk up and smash the bottle hung at the stem, proclaim 'I name this ship the Mr. Stalin' and for good measure kick away the chocks: but the trouble is, I was not the person chosen to name it (whether or not--an additional complication--Mr. Stalin was the destined name; perhaps in a way it is even more of a shame if it was). We can all agree
(1) that the ship was not thereby named;
(2) that it is an infernal shame."
Posted by J.L Austin | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 11:06 AM
"shout's"? Good Lord! I don't think I'm drunk.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06- 8-05 11:09 AM
Bwahahah! SB doesn't have up-and-then-downicles!
Two days ago I woke myself up laughing. The next night I dreamt I had cancer.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 9:50 PM