Bless your heart! Now you must die.
Surely "You killed my father. Bless your heart! Prepare to die."
Someone has already announced, I assume, that there is NMM to Border Books & Music.
Borders keep out foreigners and that kind of xenophobia has no place in retail.
Also Molly Ivins had a line about how "bless your/his/her heart" usually either expressed love or pointed disdain, depending only on the subtlest difference in intonation.
Thanks to 2, I am now replaying famous movie clips in my head. "You're a funny man, Sully. Bless your heart. That's why I'll kill you last." Or "Then tonight, bless your heart, we dine in hell!"
5: Yeah, I spent the first 22 years of my life in the south, and my feel for the phrase is that more often than not it's used to openly indicate contempt or hostility.
My best deflection for this problem is to pretend to assume the person is joking, i.e. "Susan--you are such a kidder! I know you are much too nice a person to believe in all that racist bs!"
"Bless your heart, we are quite safe here from your pitiful little band. Now witness the true power of this fully armed and operational battle station."
You're far too pretty for the extra 10 pounds that you're carrying!
The only reasonable response to that is "You could stand to gain about 40 pounds without any similar concerns."
||
Get in there, Tom Watson.
>
11: "Fuck you clown, bless your heart."
Bless your heart, you crossed the line. People trusted you and they died. You gotta' go down.
Bless your heart, KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Don't bless my heart, my achy breaky heart.
I see you driving 'round town
With the girl I love and I'm like,
Bless your heart!
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn't enough. I'm like,
Bless your heart!
And bless hers too!
"It's not patriotic to be racist/sexist/intolerant/etc."
Wow. Chalk up another one for the transatlantic divide.
MY LOVE FOR YOU IS A TICKING CLOCK BESERKER I WOULD LIKE TO BE BLESS YOUR HEART BESERKER
I know a guy who's prone to going off about "illegals"... I'd love to have a disarming way of telling him to STFU.
18: You'd just have to say, "Being racist/sexist/intolerant will make the EU come and ban cheese with blue mold."
18: you could argue "it's not patriotic to be sexist. What, are you saying the Queen is doing a shit job? Because she's a woman?"
21: Saying "Actions can be illegal, but people can't" is a really good way to be completely correct yet sound like a tool.
"It's not patriotic to be racist/sexist/intolerant/etc."
Probably even more effective to replace "patriotic" with "Christian". Though, bless your heart, it might not seem wholly authentic coming from a secular Jew.
And pass the bud, and stay low-key
B.G. cause you lost all your homey's love
Now call it what you want to
You blessed my heart, now it's a must that I bless your heart.
"I knew it was you, Fredo, bless your heart."
I'm pretty sure there is no way I could harness the 'bless your heart' add-on and have it sound anything but utterly sarcastic, even to the most simple of addressees. Ditto for the putting on of cheerful enthusiasm. I am quite terrible at disguising disapproval.
If you're havin' girl problems,
I feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems
But a heart ain't one.
Bless me.
18: It wouldn't work in New York City, either.
"Bless your heart, tomatoes don't pick themselves" is probably bad, eh?
32: If you're going for something to offend nearly everybody, and why not, that sounds about right.
33: How about "Bless your heart, that's what happens when you ban abortion?|
How did I misspell "berserker" twice in 20, yet explicitly think to myself "oh, hey, I'm spelling this correctly" as I was writing the comment?
I've had good results with "Racism makes Baby Jesus cry."
36: For the same reason I read it and didn't register berserker as misspelled at all? What is that r doing in there?
Or maybe it's the caps that make it look right
31: Might work just to derail the conversation by being weird -- I don't know how I'd react if I heard someone say "Racism isn't patriotic" but it'd involve a fair amount of checking to make sure I'd heard it straight, and then trying to figure out why it made sense to say.
I'm trying to think of when I've had to confront someone over being racist, and it really doesn't come up much. Older relatives, very occasionally, and they get the mournful hounddog eyes, with the unspoken appeal "Please don't make me make a thing out of this, you know I'm not comfortable listening to that kind of thing" which has worked pretty reliably.
Other than that, I can't really think of an incident recently except for one ebulliently chatty/racist/kind of crazy seeming cabbie last fall, who I didn't confront out of wanting to get where I was going to. I did manage to deflect him off being racist about Dominicans and onto being racist about the Irish and their drinking problems, which was somewhat more comfortable to listen to.
In fact, the effectiveness of the argument from "It's not Christian to..." is not what one would call investment-grade.
To pick an example at random that is certainly not something that one was reminded of every day for eight years, George W. Bush told Bill O'Reilly (who, to be fair, asked, which is more than Frank Bruni or Alexandra Pelosi or even Nicholas Lemann did) that Jesus would have been in favor of capital punishment, as administered by the State of Texas under George W. Bush. To pick another example, there was a (white) activist minister in South Africa who ascribed the birth of his opposition to apartheid to a visit to Karl Barth in Switzerland, during which Barth asked him what he thought Jesus would think of the way South Africa was doing things.
the effectiveness of the argument from "It's not Christian to..." is not what one would call investment-grade.
Sure, but it's certainly no worse on that score than "patriotic".
I know a guy who's prone to going off about "illegals"... I'd love to have a disarming way of telling him to STFU
I've always found "Shut the fuck up" to be an excellent form of words for that purpose. You might want to get an optional "cunt" in there too.
It's not homologous to be racist.
You missed the word "disarming". Probably because it's a Canadian concept.
44: Maybe he meant illegals from Canada, which obviously can't be happening.
Most recently he was talking about not letting the children of "illegal" immigrants go to school. There's a good idea. Don't just drive people underground, make sure their kids are uneducated and unsocialized as well. Win the Future!
I did manage to deflect him off being racist about Dominicans
Can't stand Dominicans myself. Don't like their habits. Or their capes. Or their sandals. Bloody Aquinas-reading scum.
"Who would pick Jesus' tomatoes?"
"Hey, Jesus, there are all these people here, but we've got just five loaves and some tomatoes that Judas got at Whole Foods, even though you said that the farmers' market is cheaper and has better produce--"
"Oh, I got your farmers' market right here, Simon. As a matter of fact, your mom--"
"Who would pick Jesus' tomatoes?"
If someone's armed and banging on angrily about illegal immigrants, you're best off disarming him first and then telling him to shut the fuck up afterwards. Trying to combine the two moves is bound to end up achieving neither satisfactorily.
Somebody has to figure out how to send Piers Morgan back.
Anyway, I take some small comfort in knowing that none of the judges on America's Got Talent are natural citizens of the U.S.
Somebody has to figure out how to send Piers Morgan back.
Do the teabags Britons want him back? Could we force them to take him?
I have one outspoken racist client. I just hum inside my head when goes into one of his rants about the majority ethnicity in his native land, because (1) he's a client and he can fire me, and (2) racism is less unforgiveable from people who were expelled from their native land, lost extremely valuable property to a racist government policy, and witnessed the murders of relatives precisely on account of race. Sitll wrong, but not entirely unforgiveable.
You cut off racists' arms? Harsh, but fair.
Last night I was meeting a friend at a bear bar for his birthday, about which I was kind of nervous because bear bars tend to be kind of woman-negative, and of course the birthday boy didn't show up for two hours, so I just sat there. Anyhow, the bar was totally fine. But there were stand-up comics. When I got there, a transwoman was doing this really dark death humor stuff, pretty funny. And then this super WASPy young woman takes the stage and has an interminable set in which all the punch lines are things like, "So I fucked a black guy, to make my parents mad!" or "Oh you have tattoos! I should take you home to my parents to make them mad!" And no one's laughing because it's not funny and she clearly doesn't know her audience. (Hilariously, after saying, "Oh, you guys are gay, so you know," she infers that going to the gym a lot is "you know, your thing." Not at a bear bar, honey. Biggest laugh of the night.)
Anyhow, it seemed pretty clear that we were supposed to laugh at the absurd incongruity of seeing a rich pretty white lady talk about having sex with a black man? And she got really upset that we didn't think it was funny, and said it sucked that we wouldn't let her "get serious, get racial." It was really uncomfortable.
But one of the most effective things I've found to do when someone is trying to get you to put together some racist joke or inference for them is not to laugh, and just act like you're not clear what this person wants from you. I've done this while teaching, not to shut them up, because it can't be done, but to put the person in a position where they either have to decide it's not important enough to them to explain, or they have to explain in full detail what racist assumption they're making. This is, I realize now, much more effective when you teach at a super-diverse college and the student has to say what he's saying probably to someone implicated in his racism.
because (1) he's a client and he can fire me, and (2) racism is less unforgiveable from people who were expelled from their native land, lost extremely valuable property to a racist government policy, and witnessed the murders of relatives precisely on account of race.
Your client is a hobbit? Cool!
I was kind of nervous because bear bars tend to be kind of woman-negative
Are you assuming the women aren't capable of being really hairy or do bear bars reject even really hairy women?
Frankly, I think it's more that when I used to get dragged along to such places by my best friend in college, he tended to favor the sorts of bars frequented by married men on the DL, who most certainly do not want a woman around. These guys were perfectly nice.
Also, the way I get treated in gay bars has a lot to do with whether I'm perceived as queer or a "fag-hag."
But one of the most effective things I've found to do when someone is trying to get you to put together some racist joke or inference for them is not to laugh, and just act like you're not clear what this person wants from you.
Yes, this can work quite well, depending on the situation.
Sometimes I also take their concern and pivot. This works especially well since so much of racism is innuendo. Someone says, "My daughter's school has a lot of them, you know," and I say, "I know, it's so great! When I was growing up we were kind of sheltered, but now my nieces and nephews are already getting to live in a world where their classmate might be from a totally different part of the world---" blah blah.
Other times, it's better to confront it head-on: "All right then, in the interest of not breaking the law we're not going to be asking people that question." When people know me, I add a little self-deprecation: "Yeah, well, you know I have this tedious attachment to little things like the Civil Rights Act," ha ha totally serious.
I should add that in the playing-dumb scenario, I do often end up getting yelled at by white people who get frustrated when another white person won't act like their racism is normal and natural. I'm kind of OK with that. Then after they yell, I can say, "Huh, that's not a perspective I share."
But there were stand-up comics.
You could have stopped there and still enjoyed the full measure of sympathy, you know.
I'm a tug boat! Toot toot! Who needs a tug?
A comic who hosts The Moth out here did a nice bit about how saying, "That makes me uncomfortable" is a surprisingly effective response to crazy racist talk, because Americans, though blessed with the ability to pretend they are not causing them, really hate unavoidably uncomfortable situations.
Since my tolerance for discomfort is fairly high, I will sometimes wait without laughing, then state the assumption that the punchline is based on. "Oh, so that is funny because _____ people are unusually stupid and only a stupid person would..."
But really, it doesn't come up much.
OT: How do you ask someone if they're trying to screw you professionally? I met someone at a conference, who seemed really nice; we exchanged ideas about our work, and I recommended a program that he then applied for. When he came to town, we spent the day walking around and talking shop. Anyhow, he seems like a decent sort. But his adviser is a well-known snake and snake-breeder who famously encourages his students to bend everyone they meet over and fuck them in the ass, figuratively speaking. I've been attacked by this guy's students before. Anyhow, so the nice-seeming guy proposed some kind of jujitsu about conference scheduling that I can't follow, but I assumed it's in good faith and played along. Now a mutual acquaintance is telling me that this particular form of jujitsu is actually to make sure I don't get to present at this conference. I can't believe anyone would be so evil over something as fucking stupid and petty as a conference. Like, there's not even money involved.
So I just wrote an email to the nice-seeming guy asking if there's some way *he* might be getting screwed, that I heard a rumor about how this jujitsu ends up fucking people in the ass, and it would be really sad if that happened to him. But this may still not result in me finding out what the fuck is going on and why it's happening to me. What should I do?
How do you ask someone if they're trying to screw you professionally?
Start with "Do I look like a Fleshlight?" and take it from there really.
I think the only thing to do is to pick apart the jujitsu until you understand the consequences -- once you're alerted to the possible ramifications, it should be practical to figure out how to stop them from happening.
Talking to the guy about it seems unpromising: either he's a snake who will lie about what's going on, or he's a catspaw who doesn't know what's going on, or he doesn't know anything because there is nothing going on. I don't see a likely option where he's got useful information that he'll share.
Say as little as possible to the con artist, always noncommital. Correspond with a conference organizer separately if that's at all possible, reiterating your interest in having whoever organizes the Tuesday session see your abstract for consideration. Don't tell the con artist about that, or about anything else.
The thing is I don't know if this guy is trying to screw me. I have never been paranoid about things like this because my PhD program is full of humane, decent people who don't try to ruin people's lives for no reason. Why would you want to get a reputation as someone no one wants to be affiliated with? But it's true that I have seen this guy's cohort band together to gang up on grad students from other schools. My paranoia in this case has been stoked by someone I trust who says this shit happens every year, and it's this professor's means of hazing; make the students show loyalty to you by fucking with other people. I am wondering if this is some kind of tall tale, because I don't understand how this prof could have the status he has if he's that big of a rat.
61: Jew/ish in Egypt, fifty years ago.
Just keep the conference organizers in the loop and cc'd on all emails, and if this guy is just a nice guy, then no harm no foul. Sunlight policy.
Very helpful, thank you.
My options at this point, I think, are to find out ahead of time if I'm getting fucked, whether this guy admits to doing it on purpose or not, and try to get on another panel. If he does fuck me, I'm actually the one who has a bit of power right now, due to the jujitsu.
76 is so sweet as to be almost inconceivable. How do you get through the bitter grad student and bitter post-grad days without automatically thinking he worst of your colleagues? Amazing.
Furthermore, you'll probably never know whether he's a slimeball or not, because you'll effectively end any opportunity.
One more time, I would like to propose the "cut and run" alternative. I don't know a thing about the conference, but unless it is a very special one, why not spend your energy on a conference that isn't associated with the snake or his disciples?
Perhaps your email to him should read: I apologize, I've overcommitted and will be unable to do additional organizing on this conference. Let's wrap up the limited tasks we've started. I wish you every success, and I'm sure the conference will be wonderful.
Then you start looking at the other intriguing conferences coming up.
Avoidance is an option! The world is big! Only spend your attention on the parts that reward you. Early scheming and warning signs = go find other fun.
Or is humanities different? In the sciences, there's a nearly linear correlation between status and rathood.
The odds of getting someone to admit they were trying to screw you over are close to zero, I'd think. The decision to screw someone over is not black and white - people leave themselves an out whereby they just might have been being not evil, so they don't have to admit to themselves that they were being jerks. So you'd just get whatever line of defensive answers he has prepared.
Just take steps to protect yourself and yet give him the benefit of the doubt.
This conference is absolutely mandatory for me, the only one all year that I am compelled to attend no matter what. It's very big and very important, which is I guess why there is the hazing and the ass-fucking. I've done some high-profile stuff in the past few years there, and it's possible that this guy is being deployed to shut me up by pretending to be my friend. What I don't get at all is this attitude like someone wins. No one wins. There's not a job at the end of the conference, or a pony or a check or anything. It's only important because we get the very best critical feedback about our work there.
86 to 82. Just take steps to protect yourself and yet give him the benefit of the doubt sounds like walking and chewing gum to me, but I'll try.
80: Seriously, I live in a bubble of nice. I am in a huge PhD program whose guiding principle is that, no matter what, we support one another. If you're jealous or bitter, fucking swallow it, because if good things happen to people you know it's good for you too. We're the doofuses who go to conferences and drink with journal editors and department chairs and other grad students and tell inappropriate stories and give away all the best details from our research. We are totally baffled by people who are shitty or shaming about "how things are done" or whatever.
How can somebody who isn't an organizer keep you from presenting at a conference? And why would an organizer need to befriend you to keep you from presenting?
It's seatbelt logic. Most likely nothing is going on, because human beings are generally inclined to minimize the amount of work they do. But it's still worth buckling up, so that you don't get thrown through the windshield. So treat him like a nice guy, and then take precautions as though they have nothing to do with him personally.
90: It's complicated, and I could explain it, but the jujitsu is so particular that it would be identifying. Let's just say I was asked to do something I didn't want to do, as a favor, that implicates me in the jujitsu and makes it impossible for me to go to the organizers and ask them for clarity. I have a backup plan, but, depending on how badly I get fucked, I can implement it in ways that are extremely destructive to this person if I feel vindictive. I am guessing it won't come to that, and I really couldn't live with myself if it did.
Oh. Don't do whatever it is that would implicate you. That's just not good.
Once you get implicated, you'll be asked to hack voice mail accounts.
Are you currently uncomfortable with the favor you did, as an isolated event? Or only insofar as it opens the door for jujitsu? If it's the former, I'd send a brief email out to conference organizers and this guy and get everything out in the open, but in a very brief dismissible email.
Yes, I am uncomfortable with it. When I did it, I thought there was no harm in it, though I could not for the life of me understand why he was asking me to do it. There's nothing immoral about it; it just implicates me in whatever weird thing is going on. And it also makes it so I can't really complain to the organizers because I'm obviously the dumbest dumbshit of all time.
Send the email today. Being momentarily dumb is usually far easier to fix if you don't get worried about somebody realizing you were momentarily dumb than if you wait to see if you can hide your dumb. That just lets dumb become super-dumb.
I feel like all of the details that would indicate why whatever is happening is a problem (and what might be done about it) are being omitted.
Anyway, I've been working for three days to do something that was supposed to be done two weeks ago because the guy who was doing it kept saying, "It's done" instead of something honest and acceptable like "When the fuck was I supposed to do this? It's not done."
99 is probably true. I should maybe ask my adviser to help.
But it's true that I have seen this guy's cohort band together to gang up on grad students from other schools. My paranoia in this case has been stoked by someone I trust who says this shit happens every year, and it's this professor's means of hazing; make the students show loyalty to you by fucking with other people. I am wondering if this is some kind of tall tale, because I don't understand how this prof could have the status he has if he's that big of a rat.
I have no idea what this could possibly mean in terms of specifics (like, it's literally incomprehensible -- "oh, shit! Team Evil English Grad Students is on the loose" isn't really generating any plausible scenarios for me), but the general rule in negotiations where you can't figure out the extent to which one party is trying to fuck you is to carefully figure out what your leverage is and options are guard your powerful positions carefully, and then force the other side, not you, to reveal information. There's some nonspecific advice!
Also, "plan for the worst while hoping for the best" etc. etc.
Another extreme approach, since no one ever takes my advice on avoidance, is utter transparency. As in, an email to anyone who might be involved saying:
Here the context, here's the dumb thing I did, here are the possible implications, please let me know what the outcomes could be?
If you put everything out there, no one else can hold anything over you.
Or, possibly, a brute force approach. It sounds like the only thing at stake is your opportunity to present. In which case you answer every email with, "Wonderful. Will I be presenting on Thursday or Friday?" "I think sandwiches are a fine lunch option. Let's figure on 15% vegetarians, of whom 4% will be lactose intolerant. Will I be presenting on Thursday or Friday?" Say it every time. Change your tag line.
The thing that can trap you is acceding to convention and politeness. Sidestep those and you're in the clear.
Let's figure on 15% vegetarians, of whom 4% will be lactose intolerant.
There are people being vegan on purpose to consider.
Right. I think I have to stop with the cheery helpful routine. My email was perfectly professional, but definitely clear about the information I need, which is a guarantee that I will be presenting. I have other offers, which I have been turning down on the understanding that I will be presenting on this panel. If I am not presenting, I will shop my wares elsewhere.
You'd think they'd have the decency to also be the gluten-free people, but no.
105: Give a deadline that leaves you plenty of time to get back to the other panel coordinators. This sounds more worser now. You may be kept as a "reserve" until it gets too late.
Megan and Moby are right. Whatever the favor was, if it was innocuous enough for the guy to slip it past you, it's unlikely to implicate you enough to keep you from getting help. Innocently spill whatever it was to anyone who might possibly be interested, and go from there - trying to cover will only get you more enmeshed. (obviously, if I knew the details, this might be all wrong. But from what you've said, it looks right.)
My last crossed with 105. Yeah, requesting confirmation that you're presenting in time to go elsewhere sounds key. I'd start copying anyone who might possibly be interested on the emails as well.
It's only important because we get the very best critical feedback about our work there.
This makes me want to send you a stuffed bunny and a copy of The Prince that you are to behead once you reach the end of book.
I will shop my wares elsewhere
Oh, flame-haired temptress!
I've written my adviser an email about the whole thing. I'm embarrassed to let anyone know that I am such an obvious mark for cunning assholes, but I suppose this could not be more obvious to everyone who knows me. My adviser knows this guy's snake adviser very well, and may be able to offer insight about how to handle this situation, and whether the friend who told me about this setup is paranoid or what.
This makes me want to send you a stuffed bunny and a copy of The Prince that you are to behead once you reach the end of book.
"Today a stuffed bunny was found in two parts in the square of the city of MumblemumbleIdon'tremember; no one knows why this thing was done, except that it has pleased [AWB]."
113: Don't be embarrassed. The suckers are the ones who are so embarrassed to make a little error that they turn it into a big one.
If your profession required a lot of Slytherin in order to get anything done, then that would be harder for you, but where it's possible to do good work without being a snake, you don't need snake-fu in order to defend yourself effectively.
I don't remember if it's The Prince or Discourses (probably the latter), but Machiavelli has plenty to say on the dangers of being a mediocre snake. I'm thinking of the bit about the general who returned to the capital without any soldiers, to make a show of genuine submission to the Senate, vs. Julius Caesar who outright invaded Rome, vs. the general one who brought some soldiers with him due to indecision, and was correctly identified as a threat and killed.
It may not be very effective, but when I've heard people say racist things I frequently start laughing. I have trouble containing myself when I hear stupid things. Like the suggestion that we should just amend the Constitution to deny citizenship to children who were born in this country who have immigrant parents? That's pretty hilarious.
The suckers are the ones who are so embarrassed to make a little error that they turn it into a big one.
This. Admitting a little foolishness is one of the handiest skills ever.
18 Wow. Chalk up another one for the transatlantic divide.
I think maybe it's a Texas/everywhere else divide.
117: About the time when the Tea Parties were gearing up I was stopped on the street by an elderly woman who was distraught over a building that was being demolished for more university parking. I sensed crazy, but couldn't tell what type (preservationist? Yglesian anti-parking zealot?). A few questions later and she blurted out that everything took a wrong turn with desegregation. I involuntarily snorted with laughter and walked away.
I just realized that while technically correct, 115 may have too negative an emotional valence. I'll try to put it in a more encouraging way, I hope it doesn't go too far in the other direction and come across as patronizing (please bear in mind that I am being 100% serious here, don't misconstrue my effusion as sarcasm):
AWB, you figured out something might have been a mistake, after you did it. Good job! In fact, this ability is so rare that it is a fucking superpower, as well as an extremely strong defense against snake-fu. Any idiot with a proper script can avoid making a mistake. It takes the better sort of person to make a mistake once and then stop.
While a lesser mortal might find your situation irremediable and be forever doomed, as a human being with free will, you have mastered the advanced techniques of "stop digging" and "ask for help."
I have actually taken some classes in this stuff, it is hard, and you need to be rewarding yourself for noticing a mistake, not punishing yourself for making one.
I was in line at a store in Queens and saw a black employee slightly bump the shoulder of the white woman in front of me because she refused to budge when he needed to get past. He apologized. Then the woman stares at me, bugs her eyes out really big, purses her lips, and sighs through her nose. I am just standing there, smiling blankly, and she does it more and more insistently. Hhhhhhn! Glance, bug out, glance, bug out. HhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHN. I continue smiling blankly. Then she starts a rant about "You know. You know what that was. You know. Reverse racism!" I say, "Listen, lady, you've got the wrong idea about me." So then she educates me about how black people are so angry at white people that they will snub us every chance they get. I say I'm not too worried about it.
123: Uh, thanks, I think! I walk around with the open-hearted soft face of a stupid slutty farm girl, and so I am a mark for anyone who wants to prey on gullibility. I try not to make exactly the same mistake twice, but I do worry about becoming one of the sour-faced bitter paranoid old cunts (of both genders) who plague my profession.
open-hearted soft face of a stupid slutty farm girl
I'm thinking this sounds like someone with great potential as a con artist.
126: I experimented with lying for fun when I was 15, but I didn't enjoy the feeling of power it gave me.
I'm embarrassed to let anyone know that I am such an obvious mark for cunning assholes, but I suppose this could not be more obvious to everyone who knows me.
Whatever this thing is, I can't imagine that if it were made public it wouldn't reflect worse on cunning-asshold-dude than on you. Using underhanded tactics to get on panels or get other people kicked off panels or whatever is just unseemly.
Underhanded tactics are just the ticket if you want to be an asshold dude.
Using underhanded tactics to get on panels or get other people kicked off panels or whatever is just unseemly.
Isn't it, though? That's why I don't understand why this particular program, in my particular field, works the way it does. They show up at high-profile panels and spread themselves around the room and choose someone to pile on with openly contemptuous questions. They won't associate with students from other programs, which made it feel very weird that he was being nice to me. They've got this weird system of screwing people. It's thuggish and undignified. Who would want to hire someone like that? Then you don't just have a snake in the grass; you've got a snake in your house.
Underhanded tactics are just the ticket corker if you want to be an asshold dude.
127: I just don't get it, AWB. If you weren't interested in power, why did you ever decide to work in academia?
130 -- these guys are the Cobra Kai of your subdiscipline. Awesome.
115: The suckers are the ones who are so embarrassed to make a little error that they turn it into a big one.
Amen to this, and not just in the context of getting conned.
132: You must be joking. You mean all the respect and dignity of making pathetic earnings and being treated like a perpetual child while sitting a lot and being completely romantically unappealing? Oh, the power!
I have heard back now from the dude and am feeling somewhat like maybe this is all legit at my end, but that there are some mysterious handwavings surrounding another session that has nothing to do with me. I'm going to dial back my suspicion and just stay in close contact.
these guys are the Cobra Kai of your subdiscipline. Awesome.
This is awesome. The question now is, who will play AWB in the movie?
Also, what's the English Literature conference equivalent of that Crane kick thing that Ralph Macchio does at the end to win the tournament?
125: Please pretend I didn't say whatever part didn't sound like praise you were happy to hear.
I have a client who didn't want to move somewhere, because there were too many black people in the neighborhood. He can't exactly fire me, but I didn't really challenge him. I mean, he was quite explicit. And he's seriously paranoid, so I didn't think it would be helpful for building a therapeutic relationship.
130: Who would want to hire someone like that?
Well, why are you organizing something together with this dude?
(Not meaning to criticize you, just pointing out the irony. I wouldn't be much different, there are thugs in my field, and yet I'd gladly work with some of them, because they're also very smart.)
AWB, please tell me that's not my former department? I'll want to know much, much more about this whole story...
Megan alert!
Just back from a local municipal meeting with 120+ people, all hot under the collar over a proposed new mandatory program to raise sewer vents to prevent stormwater from overflowing the sanitary sewer system. 90 minutes of bureaucratically technical presentation interspersed with progressively more impassioned public questions.
Observations:
a) I wish my local dude had Megan's office's public-speaking coaching. Never got the hang of repeating the audience member's question, no matter how many times he was asked.
b) Tip: When presenting to an audience of 60-, 70- and 80-somethings, do not attempt to refer to local history. They will always know more than you, no matter how old you are.
c) Holy Toledo did I ever not know that there were 120 people in my little ward that care passionately about water. Even if some of that passion was along the lines of "I don't want to have to pay $180!!" (which they aren't going to pay directly anyway; the municipality is paying it).
d) Good grief is there a massive thicket of history, regulation, and legacy infrastructure in my municipality. We can't do X because we have a written agreement with neighboring muncipality Y which has a written agreement with city entity Q which is all being monitored (= enforced?) by state P.
e) Sometimes when people want to be racist they tell you about OTHER people. Like how "some people" are concerned that immigrants these days don't want to learn English like his dad did. Well, I said, I haven't really run into any of those immigrants myself. The ones I know are pretty determined to learn English.
On the up side, I did get to tell a local EPA guy that I like the lead-paint program. And have the longest conversation I've ever had with my super extreme right-wing neighbor.
Upon further reflection, 141 is a little unkind.
142: No, not your people. I don't know any stories of your people being thugs.
Thanks for talking me through this, guys. My current take, after a lot of correspondence, is that this guy is in a thuggish environment, but is not himself a thug. He feels the need to play the game a bit and feels weird about it, but he isn't a psychopath, just someone who plays his cards close to the chest. And he can't really, now that I've done some basic math, hurt me.
They show up at high-profile panels and spread themselves around the room and choose someone to pile on with openly contemptuous questions.
See also:
The German literature conference was highly eventful. Pelletier, backed by Morini and Espinoza, went on the attack like Napoleon at Jena, assaulting the unsuspecting German Archimboldi scholars... Two days later, Schwarz and his minions counterattacked. They compared Archimboldi to Heinrich Böll. They spoke of suffering. They compared Archimboldi to Günter Grass. They spoke of civic duty. Borchmeyer even compared Archimboldi to Friedrich Dürrenmatt and spoke of humor, which seemed the height of gall. Then Liz Norton appeared, heaven-sent, and demolished the counterattack...
these guys are the Cobra Kai of your subdiscipline. Awesome.
Paper title: "Mercy is for the Weak: The Ideology of Charity in the Late 18th Century"
Fortunately, all those tedious "find the cite" and "wax empirical" drills pay off in the end, as you're able to deflect the disingenuous arguments hiding in the seemingly legitimate text.
And he can't really, now that I've done some basic math, hurt me.
AWB is the nerd Popeye. Beats having to carry around cans of spinach, that's for sure.
149: If they made a cartoon with that premise, I would watch it.
And it would be just as good for kids as the original (which was all "eat your spinach, it makes you big and strong").
Not sure I'd want to encourage my kids to eat canned spinach, to be honest. It would probably put them off spinach for life.
I should clarify that invoking patriotism is supposed to make them chuckle a little. Texas is not so batshit that people invoke patriotism all the time.
I'm a little surprised no one commented on the "diversity is good because those people have tasty food!" approach quoted in the OP. Of course, I can't formulate any comment beyond "gee, no one commented on that."
I thought people would argue about that part, too.
That certainly would have made the conversation more fajited.
155: Have you been to the new People Who Don't Comment restaurant on Devon? It's amazing. I don't know what kind of spices they use to make People Who Don't Comment food so tasty, but I always want to ask the waiter. Isn't it great that we can get so much great People Who Don't Comment food here, without having to go to People Who Don't Commentland?
155. I don't think the OP is arguing that this is the ideal approach, rather that it's a feasible work-around if you're in a position where you're literally not allowed to call people on their racism. (OK, you could argue that the person in question should give up their job rather than be in that position, but it's asking a lot of somebody in the present economy.)
156: Yes, many people that are prejudiced against foreigners also don't like exotic foods.
159: Is it really all that helpful? "Blah blah blah racism blah epithet blah..." "Yes, but have you tried their blah? That stuff is tasty!"
159: Is it really all that helpful? "Blah blah blah racism blah epithet blah..." "Yes, but have you tried their blah? That stuff is tasty!"
Right, like Di, I think it runs the risk of confirming their racism.
161/2 I don't think it's intended to be useful inj the sense of changing anybody's mind. I think it's intended as a dog whistle: "I can't call you a racist arsewipe without losing my job, so here I am making sure you understand that I think you're a racist arsewipe but you can't do a thing about it."
Nobody expects that passive aggressive racist arsewipe namer.
"But they sure can cook!" doesn't, to my ear, even subtly convey "You are a racist arsewipe."
I don't hear the dogwhistle either. To me it's like "Yeah but have you seen black people play sports?"
When I encounter the angry "learn English!" people, I'm inclined to go with a deadpan, "Right. Because your ancestors learned Navajo."
But I can't imagine trying that approach in a work situation, and it's certainly not likely to change any minds. So, I dunno.
Boy howdy can those libertarians dance.
Also, does subtly calling someone racist piss them off less than directly saying so? I mean, if they grasp the point you are trying to dog-whistle, does it make it better that you dog-whistled it? (If they don't grasp the point, well, then what was the point?)
"Right. Because your ancestors learned Navajo."
Does that actually work? The whole uncontrolled immigration without acculturation really and truly sucked for the Navajo and all of the other native inhabitants of this continent. You might be intending to say "Your ancestors were like these immigrants today so you should show them welcome" but the other person might be hearing "Your ancestors were like these immigrants today so obviously we need to stop these immigrants before your descendants are forced to live in the shitty parts of South Dakota."
My mother has a stock response in those situations that's something like: "Please don't mistake my silence for agreement."
168: The correct racist/nativist response: I don't want white people to go the way of the Native Americans.
168: That argument always bugs me because despite the smug superiority with which it is generally made, it doesn't even make sense. Non-Navajo-speaking immigrants did not work out very well for the Navajo. So why, on that basis, should we expect tolerating non-English-speaking immigrants to work out well for us?
If person B does something bad to person C, and then person A tries to do the same thing to B, but B defends emself, is B a hypocrite? I don't think so; just an asshole.
Also, that someone's ancestors arrived when the American Indians were still the dominant dwellers is usually a poor assumption to make. Lots of Irish and German and Italian and Jewish and Nordic immigrants arrived later on and still look "American" by modern standards.
Darn you, 171 and 173. My last paragraph was new, though.
New people came and took my arguments.
170: David Hume says yes (I will find the quote in a few minutes).
Also, that someone's ancestors arrived when the American Indians were still the dominant dwellers is usually a poor assumption to make.
It also depends on where you are. If you go far enough west, but not too far west, the land-forcing-off-of went continued well into the last century.
From Treatise of Human Nature, Book I Part II Section XIII:
Every one knows, there is an indirect manner of insinuating praise or blame, which is much less shocking than the open flattery or censure of any person. However he may communicate his sentiments by such secret insinuations, and make them known with equal certainty as by the open discovery of them, it is certain that their influence is not equally strong and powerful. One who lashes me with concealed strokes of satire, moves not my indignation to such a degree, as if he flatly told me I was a fool and coxcomb; though I equally understand his meaning, as if he did. This difference is to be attributed to the influence of general rules.
Whether a person openly, abuses me, or slyly intimates his contempt, in neither case do I immediately perceive his sentiment or opinion; and it is only by signs, that is, by its effects, I become sensible of it. The only difference, then, betwixt these two cases consists in this, that in the open discovery of his sentiments he makes use of signs, which are general and universal; and in the secret intimation employs such as are more singular and uncommon. The effect of this circumstance is, that the imagination, in running from the present impression to the absent idea, makes the transition with greater facility, and consequently conceives the object with greater force, where the connexion is common and universal, than where it is more rare and particular. Accordingly we may observe, that the open declaration of our sentiments is called the taking off the mask, as the secret intimation of our opinions is said to be the veiling of them. The difference betwixt an idea produced by a general connexion, and that arising from a particular one is here compared to the difference betwixt an impression and an idea. This difference in the imagination has a suitable effect on the passions; and this effect is augmented by another circumstance. A secret intimation of anger or contempt shews that we still have some consideration for the person, and avoid the directly abusing him. This makes a concealed satire less disagreeable; but still this depends on the same principle. For if an idea were not more feeble, when only intimated, it would never be esteemed a mark of greater respect to proceed in this method than in the other.
Nietzsche would have said that by insulting someone indirectly, you show that you fear their power and are reluctant to openly insult them in front of others. But when you insult someone openly you show the world that you hold them in contempt, which is an intolerable affront to pride.
IOW the more open the insult, the more they lose face by not getting angry.
An ancestor of mine learned Narragansett well enough to write a book about it.
173: The other racist / nativist response, of course, is: "White people were perfectly fair to the Native Americans, who are just losers that beg for special treatment."
Stanley's argument in 168 is of course shaky strictly on the merits, but on the plus side it does stick a beautiful fork into the self-conception of the typical anti-immigration bigot. Because they of course do not typically view their ancestors (or at least predecessors) as having done anything wrong at all to the Native Americans, and want it known that [whoever the latest xenophobic panic is about] is the Worst Thing Ever to Happen, Ever, in the History of Things That Happened. They can't really make the argument in 174.2 while preserving that conceit.
The stronger argument against, of course, is that a) multilingual and multiethnic states are quite routine -- cf. Canada, the bulk of Europe, and many other countries besides -- and not the end of the world, and b) unless they have something worthwhile to say in their defense that the Know-Nothings didn't already cover in 1846 when talking about the Irish (and they never do), they can pretty much STFU.
Everybody in Europe understands English if you say it loud enough.
diversity is good because those people have tasty food
Food is as personal as sex anymore, in any case lots of people eat only what is familiar. No traction with this at all, I think.
Tough to know how to respond to hearing "those people." It's easy to pithily say shut up by disagreeing (either explicitly or by saying those people I know are actually trying to learn english or whatever).
But to the extent that there are real concerns behind a stereotype (local crime instead of TV news), disagreeing with the conclusion without acknowledging the problem is just going to create anger.
I think the "Isn't their food great" response is (while a reasonable thing to do under social/professional pressure) meant as wimpier than people are thinking. I don't really think it's intended to convey "You racist asshole" except at a fairly great distance. All it's intended to convey is "You're trying to bond with me over our mutual racism. While I'll continue the conversation as if it were normal, I'm not going to participate in the racist bit." To get to "You racist asshole", you have to add in the assumption that "The only reason not to participate enthusiastically in a racist conversation is that you think racism makes you an asshole."
But to the extent that there are real concerns behind a stereotype... disagreeing with the conclusion without acknowledging the problem is just going to create anger.
Except the "real concern" is the racism that motivates the stereotyping. If you get mugged by an immigrant and are concerned about [i]crime[/i], that's reasonable. If your conclusion from that experience, however -- in the face of those whole complicated history of immigration in North America and the equally-complicated face of modern criminality -- is that white people are law-abiding and "immigrants = bad," then what you are is a bigot, full stop. That's it. That's all of it. I personally have only ever been mugged by white people, and if I went around talking on the strength of that about "the Caucasian problem" I would likewise be a bigot.
Frankly, as much as I admire all the soft-pedaling tactics noted in this thread for their subtlety and creativity, in my experience the only thing that really works to beat back bigotry in daily life is aggressive shaming. Bigots are only comfortable in their bigotry if they feel, or think they feel, everyone else silently agreeing with them. They become insecure, and uncertain, when that is not the case, because like everyone else they generally want to be thought of as good people.
I find that racist xenophobes are not primarily anxious that immigrants won't learn enough English to get along here; they're terrified that they continue to speak their native language to other speakers of their native language. Who knows what those two Indian women were talking about at the mall, or what the waiters at my favorite Mexican restaurant said to each other in the kitchen? What if it was about me?? What if they're racist against me?? It's telling that their anxiety about immigrants is that they might be thinking pretty much exactly the same thing about the xenophobe as the xenophobe thinks about them. Who is that suspicious character? What does he want from me?
I personally have only ever been mugged by white people, and if I went around talking on the strength of that about "the Caucasian problem" I would likewise be a bigot.
If you were Russian, talking about "the Caucasian problem" would mean you were worried about, essentially, non-white people (Chechens and so on, seen by Russians as being prone to violence and organised crime).
Did you want your photos and wallet back?
Speaking of racist/nativist arguments, I was rather amused/bemused by an interview in a recent BBC radio documentary on extremism in America. They interviewed the head of some Aryan separatist group in Idaho or something, and he made the novel claim that Obama is in fact secretly Jewish.
I've never been mugged by a person of color.
Or even better, I've never been mugged twice by a person of color.
187.last: I don't think the shaming necessarily has to be aggressive, it just has to be unmistakable enough that bigots don't feel safe or comfortable being visible as such. But you're right that shaming is the way to go: if they have to stay closeted except in spaces that they know are safe for being bigoted, they have trouble encouraging each other and teaching the next generation, and I think (I hope) it starts dying out.
187.2 is correct. And no, it doesn't help to say "Indian immigrants are great; I love malai kofta!" because "And they eat stinky food" is always very near the top of the list for immigrant complaints. The exception, is, I think, Mexican food, which every anti-Mexican racist I know loves.
189: Yes, that's a curious linguistic quirk, isn't it? I could even double down on it by talking about "the Georgian problem."
190: Nahhh, you earned 'em.
187 is right. Sometimes, though, one has goals short of defeating bigotry. Like just getting through the day without being thought a racist sub silencio.
Yes, that's a curious linguistic quirk, isn't it? I could even double down on it by talking about "the Georgian problem."
Edwardian racist!
196: That's because Mexican food is really good and Indian food doesn't have cheese.
they have trouble encouraging each other and teaching the next generation, and I think (I hope) it starts dying out.
The generational thing is really stunning. I know so many people - and no doubt tons of people here - whose grandparents are completely insanely racist, and it just sounds insane to our ears. Even people my age who never think critically about such things just register that their grandparents are completely tone-deaf as to what's appropriate.
I mean, ffs, it's basically fried potato-cheese balls in creamy tomato sauce, give or take a few tablespoons of other seasonings.
203: Wikipedia says it isn't cheese, but clotted cream. If you can't grate in to a pillowy bed of flavor that melts over your entrée, it isn't the same.
they're terrified that they continue to speak their native language to other speakers of their native language.
I've certainly heard this one: family member with a factory job where many of the other workers are Spanish speaking, complaining about Spanish conversations she can't understand. And I have remonstrated with her about it ("You had high school Spanish, try getting into the conversation. You could learn something.")
But it certainly can be a socially uncomfortable situation, interacting with people who are speaking to each other in a language you can't understand.
Miss Manners sure can carry a metaphor to the bitter end.
Dear Miss Manners:
As the captain of a dinner party, how do I avoid ramming an iceberg when one of my guests suddenly startles everyone by making racist opinions? Naturally, I would prefer as few casualties as possible. (Well, maybe one.)
Gentle Reader:
Miss Manners is afraid that it is the obligation of such a captain to provide life preservers for all, regardless of whether he thinks them worthy to survive.
In this case, the life preserver to be tossed is: "I don't think you realize how that sounds. I can't imagine you really believe that, but in any case, let's talk about something else." If the offending guest does not grab this and paddle madly back to safety, you may firmly move the ship on in another direction.
Business idea: Start a restaurant selling curries that are covered with shredded cheddar.
206: Certainly certainly certainly.
201: Right, and I think that generational change a win for the limited level of social enforcement that open racism is tacky and embarrassing -- it let terribly racist people raise much less racist kids, because they just weren't saying what they thought out loud much.
204: Huh. My recipe uses fresh paneer, so I make my own cheese and use lots and lots of it.
210: That's still not real cheese, just milk curdled was acid.
188 is right, and also reminds me of a broader dynamic I tend to see in movement conservatism, which can routinely be seen accusing its opposition of exactly what the conservatives themselves are doing.
200: Kashmiri food totally has cheese. Cuisinist.
201: I think, though, it's more that coding has changed between generations. A lot of people of our generation and younger generations have learned not to drop N-bombs or rant about "the Jews" or "the abbos" or "the wogs" or what-have-you. But that doesn't necessarily mean their attitudes are all that different. There are plenty of people whose fundamental attitudes run closely parallel to their grandparents', but whose main take-away from the whole racism debate is that since calling someone a racist is fighting words, the best way to go is a) accuse their targets of being the Real Racists and b) blow their stack if anyone has the nerve to call them a racist*. Other than that, they can be seen complaining about basically the same things.
I'm on board with LB's expressed hope, but admit that I don't see it happening anytime soon. Bigotry is much likelier to morph and find different concealing tactics over the coming generations than it is to die out. The price of blah is eternal blah-blah etc...
* This sort of pre-emptive counter-offensive tactic is interesting, admittedly, but has a huge disadvantage in that it would get awfully exhausting to deploy over and over again. OTOH it also makes the party using it exhausting to deal with, so it becomes a question of who loses interest first.
209: For my folks, and I've talked about this here before, this process was totally conscious. Both my parents are totally racist and xenophobic, but they were really grossed out by the prospect of hearing this stuff come out of our mouths, so they moved us up north away from the family and talked about what a great guy Martin Luther King was and stuff. Now that I'm older it's clear that they genuinely are super-racist, but when I was a kid, it was all "study these films about the Holocaust because genocide is the worst thing that can happen" and "let's talk about the contributions black people have made to our country" and stuff. It's weird.
I should probably finish this paper before I plan out my bastardization of South Asian cuisine
I don't understand why paneer isn't cheese.
But it certainly can be a socially uncomfortable situation, interacting with people who are speaking to each other in a language you can't understand.
Not that uncomfortable. For my entire working life, at least 30% of my colleagues have been non-native speakers, if not more. At the moment, I'm sitting next to an Albanian and overhearing a conversation in Russian a few desks down.
If you've never encountered it before, I can imagine it would be slightly unnerving, but, you know, get over yourself. Not every conversation has to include you.
Should've known AWB would be on the cheese comment like... can I say "like white on rice"? Is that racist?
I don't understand why paneer isn't cheese.
Wikipedia says it doesn't have rennet.
But it certainly can be a socially uncomfortable situation, interacting with people who are speaking to each other in a language you can't understand.
For a recent immigrant, this is sometimes every conversation, had by anyone, anywhere outside one's home. If that person has someone else to converse with in their native tongue, the English speakers around them should be able to bear the discomfort themselves for a few minutes I think.
219: What the hell is "rennet"? Speak English, man.
219. A lot of cheese doesn't have rennet, so as to be vegetarian-safe.
So? Ricotta doesn't have rennet. Is it not cheese? Since when is a lack of rennet the defining feature of cheese? You have curds, you wash and salt them, you hang them in a cheesecloth. What more do you want?
197: I could even double down on it by talking about "the Georgian problem."
Coming over here with their knee breeches and their Enlightenment-era faith in the power of rational argument...
(More seriously, if paneer isn't cheese on account of the rennet, then neither is cream cheese.)
Semi-related, a trope I've often heard on the radio from local anti-immigrant bigots is that the problem with Mexican immigration is that it's destroying diversity. Like, you used to be able to get a chiliburger, or soul food, or Chinese takeout, or tacos, but now it's nothing but tacos -- too much of "one thing." Mexicans are killing our precious multiculturalism! It's a nice appropriation if antiracist tropes for racist ends.
214: Exactly. It doesn't always work, you can get crypto-bigots who successfully raise crypto-bigots, but I know a fair number of people with stories like yours, who were raised by parents who didn't openly express racism, ended up not being (particularly) racist, and were shocked as adults to realize their parents were racist.
If you've never encountered it before, I can imagine it would be slightly unnerving, but, you know, get over yourself. Not every conversation has to include you.
It's a real loss of control, though. And feeling of entitlement. Eavesdropping is a pretty big part of our lives.
Mexicans are killing our precious multiculturalism! It's a nice appropriation if antiracist tropes for racist ends.
See also the Dutch anti-immigration argument that Muslim immigrants should be banned because they are destroying the traditional Dutch spirit of tolerance.
222: I thought those were just vegetarian rennet, even if cow guts weren't used. The difference being an enzyme used to make regular cheese vs. an acid used to make paneer. Unless an acid counts as an enzyme in this context, in which case, I guess paneer is cheese.
I'm talking out of my ass because I don't think I've eaten paneer, but I think you should have to do more than throw acid in milk before you've made cheese.
Eavesdropping is a pretty big part of our lives.
YES INDEEDY.
GODDAMMIT, NOT AGAIN.
217, 220: Oh, the answer is generally going to be "Get over yourself and cope." But there's potential for social discomfort there that's not fundamentally about racism.
(More seriously, if paneer isn't cheese on account of the rennet, then neither is cream cheese.)
Cream cheese isn't 'cheese' in the sense that nobody ever says "You want cheese on that?" when they talk about cream cheese. They always say "cream cheese" because "cream cheese" is a name that contains the word "cheese" but it isn't a subset of the class "cheese" when the word is unmodified.
It's a real loss of control, though. And feeling of entitlement. Eavesdropping is a pretty big part of our lives.
And that's not a good thing.
214: Thinking racism is wrong while being racist (either knowingly or un) seems pretty common. To varying degrees, it describes me throughout my life, especially when I was a kid and much less now (I think).
But it certainly can be a socially uncomfortable situation, interacting with people who are speaking to each other in a language you can't understand.
I think I've mentioned before that more than once, strangers have approached me to ask if my (ASL) conversation is about them. They interrupt a conversation between two strangers to ask the strangers "are you talking about me?"
People* seem often to have astonishingly low thresholds for feeling excluded. Buncha spoiled brats!
*Americans?
235: Oh, that's oversimplified. I walk past conversations at work where I hear a couple of exchanges and realize I have something useful or entertaining to add all the time -- that's eavesdropping, but it's not wrong, and not harmful or rude in context.
226: Yep, exactly. This. The latter-day racist is fighting the Real Racism as manifest in Mexican immigrants, just as the European neo-fascist is going forth to do battle with the Real Fascism of Islam (most of whose adherents happen to be North African or Turkish immigrants, admittedly, but that's okay because since the neo-fascist isn't openly talking about race, his doctrine is Not Racism).
And that's not a good thing.
But mostly, eavesdropping isn't good or bad. If you're on a bus, you assume everyone can't help but hear you. If I'm in Spain, and I want to talk shit about someone while I'm on a bus, I most certainly would switch to Pig Latin. Or, you instinctively stage it all the time with small children - praise them to a third party, in their company.
strangers have approached me to ask if my (ASL) conversation is about them.
That is completely bonkers. I can't believe how narcissistic people can be.
PANEER IS SO CHEESE. WHY DON'T YOU MAKE SOME WHILE WE'RE ALL WAITING OVER HERE, MOBY? AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK VEGETARIAN RENNET IS, ANYWAY?
235: At any rate, "loss of eavesdropping" is hardly the issue. I eavesdrop on non-English conversations in languages I can barely even identify all the time, it's far more entertaining than eavesdropping on English-language conversations because I have to try and figure out what's going on from tone and context.
"Loss of reassuring uniformity" is the issue. It's comforting to be in a space where you can understand everything around you and feel more or less reassured that they belong to a familiar world. And if multilingualism isn't part of your familiar world, it will at first seem frightening. (I suspect it makes a difference, for instance, whether you grew up in a household where more than one language was spoken.)
NOW CREAM CHEESE ISN'T EVEN CHEESE ANYMORE? THIS COUNTRY. AND I MADE WHITEFISH SALAD FOR WHAT?
People* seem often to have astonishingly low thresholds for feeling excluded.
Might be Americans, mostly, because we're more used to a monolingual environment than people in lots of other places. But the initial reaction really isn't that weird -- there are a lot of grade-school manners lessons that are about establishing that it's rude to communicate in such a way that third-parties are privy to the fact of the communication but not the content of the communication. Whispering to keep a secret is rude, ostentatiously passing notes is rude, I think that's a big part of what annoys people about public cellphone conversations as well.
Now, it's ridiculous that people don't grow up and realize that that reaction isn't sanely applicable to a situation where two people are talking to each other in the language that's most comfortable for them, and it's not about the eavesdropper at all. But it doesn't seem odd at all to me that they have the initial negative reaction.
241- well, in their defense, the conversation often is about them and what an arrogant jerk they are, after the interruption.
242: Wikipedia treats acid coagulation and the various vegetarian-compliant rennet types as different things. See here..
Yes, but does it say that rennet cheese is cheese while acid-treated milk that separates into curds, which must be washed, drained, and pressed is... something else that is unnameable?
The Dairy Product That Must Not Be Named.
Acid-set cheeses appears to be the technical name.
Wikipedia doesn't seem to help your case, Moby:
A required step in cheesemaking is separating the milk into solid curds and liquid whey. Usually this is done by acidifying (souring) the milk and adding rennet. The acidification can be accomplished directly by the addition of an acid like vinegar in a few cases (paneer, queso fresco), but usually starter bacteria are employed instead.
Yogurt cheese is cheese made from draining yogurt more. There aren't curds.
252: How does that not support my case? If you dump the acid in the milk instead of making the acid in the milk by adding bacteria or an enzyme, you are cheating and don't get to call it "cheese" without a modifier like "acid-set" or "half-assed" or "cream."
253: If "yogurt cheese" is already a term, I withdraw it for consideration in this use.
Yogurt cheese is cheese made from draining yogurt more. There aren't curds.
Silly, that's the fruit on the bottom.
Because that sentence says the key process is coagulation and that either acids or enzymes can lead to that process.
Some acid-set cheeses would probably not be called cheese proper, but being acid-set is not a disqualification. Also from the cheese page:
Acid-set cheeses, including halloumi, paneer, some whey cheeses and many varieties of fresh goat cheese, have a protein structure that remains intact at high temperatures. When cooked, these cheeses just get firmer as water evaporates. (emphasis added)
255 and the lack of first-hand paneer experience makes me think, Moby, and I do mean this as politely as I can mean it, that cheese is not really in the realm of your most expert knowledge. Would that be fair to say? Or cruel? If it's any comfort, I think you are the funniest.
That is completely bonkers. I can't believe how narcissistic people can be.
That's what I was getting at with my "not a good thing" commment.
Are you truly prepared to say, Moby, that many varieties of fresh goat cheese are not true cheese?
Yes, you can often grill, saute, or fry acid-set cheeses, which is fun.
I have to say that I've never heard anyone question that paneer is cheese in my life until now. I really can't get my head round it. Khoya, which is what I think the Bear is talking about in malai kofta, not so much. But paneer is cheese. Cheese, cheese, cheese!!!!
I am reading through the cheese conversation in the dramatic tones of Al Pacino doing a courtroom scene, and it's GREAT. 260 works especially well.
When cooked, these cheeses just get firmer as water evaporates. (emphasis added)
I think this may be the key to Moby's position -- if this is right (and I think it is, offhand) acid-set cheeses don't melt in the way characteristic of other cheeses. If meltiness is what you think of as the key characteristic of cheese, then it'd be hard to accept acid-set cheeses as real cheese.
Fine. Paneer is cheese. But it is, as LB notes, sucky cheese for using the way you use cheese in Mexican food. Which is why Mexican food is far better than Indian food.
But, cream cheese is different because in the store that is usually next to the butter, not the cheese.
266: Are you fucking kidding? Quesito blanco is acid-set! MEXICAN CHEESE IS ACID-SET.
268: If they don't serve it at Taco Bell or Chipotle, it isn't really Mexican.
Remember, Moby lives in Pittsburgh. Mexican food=taco bell's taco wrapped in a burrito wrapped in a hard shell and covered with American cheese and "wild" sauce.
270: I'm waiting for the moment when AWB actually leaps through the internet to shake some sense into you.
It has become clear to me that Moby is a food troll.
272: I think Norton's firewall should stop that.
Are you fucking kidding? Quesito blanco is acid-set! MEXICAN CHEESE IS ACID-SET.
I should point out that the part of AWB in this discussion is played, inside my head, by the voice of Jack Nicholson.
It has become clear to me that Moby is a food troll.
No he's not. Aren't canned beans delicious?
I'm going to reread Plato until I can see how Socrates defined the form for "cheese." I'm still not 100% convinced I'm the one looking at the shadows on the wall of the cave.
I was right. In Plato, there is grated cheese.
Might be Americans, mostly, because
I will be the very first to admit I live in a coastal bubble of dazzling sophisticates who can order food in many languages, but I will stand up for Americans here. When I travel to developing nations, I'm immediately struck by open racism, at the level of the racist grandparents we're talking about. (And a couple other markers of being complete peasants, like giving people nicknames based on body flaws (Stumpy! Gordo!) and thinking of other languages as babble.) That's fine, that's the stage they're in, and they'll get past with with a couple more generations of city living and MTV. But I cannot imagine Americans (or perhaps I mean urban Americans) are unusually bad along these lines.
You don't think we're unusually freaked out by hearing other languages? I suppose I was comparing to Europe, rather than the whole rest of the world, but we do have a really geographically large mostly monolingual area -- hearing communication in not-English has got to be an odder experience for a non-coastal-urban American than hearing non-French is for a French person.
Can I really be the first person in this thread to bust this out?
281: It's silent on the issue under discussion -- I don't see a mention of acid-set cheeses.
268 gets it right. "Mexican cheese" and "Paneer" are basically the exact same thing in my low-end experience.
Relative to whom? I found Thais far worse, and also willing to gape and point at my monstrous size.
Maybe I don't know what non-Californians are like, so my sample of Americans is skewed. But I can't see how the mean American could be worse than the mean person in a developing nation.
Multilingualism definitely does not equal cultural cosmopolitanism. There are plenty of people in, e.g., Switzerland, who can speak three or four languages fluently but have racial politics that would male 80 year old white guys in Alabama blush.
In general, though, I believe that the majority of people in the world are multilingual, a fact that seems almos incomprehensible to US Americans. And, of course, all people in English speaking countries are spared the need to have learning English in school be a big deal.
I mean, I've had crowds form to watch the freakshow of "people talking in a different language", so unless you think Americans would do that, with pointing and side commentary, then we're talking about a different level of sophistication altogether.
I don't mean to imply that Americans are anywhere near enlightenment on this stuff. Just that you may not be thinking of how far down the bottom goes.
This may be more of an urban-rural divide. I know full well that there are international cities all over the world. But I'll still say that your average person in a developing country who doesn't have the means to travel is likely to be even less sophisticated along these lines than a non-coastal American. Or maybe I have no idea what Iowa is like.
There's a good case to be made that California is the most ethnically/nationally cosmopolitan places in the world (it's certainly a contnender), so there's that.
286: agreed. This kind of thing has happened to me even in cities where the spectacle of a foreigner talking to another foreigner in fluent Foreign really shouldn't be that much of a novelty (Kuala Lumpur, frex).
My experience echoes Megan's. I think there is room for progress in the US, but we are fairly close to the point where tolerance runs up against the fact that people reason using heuristics and a fair number of people are just plain dumb. Throw those two facts together and you'll inevitably get racial and cultural stereotyping and associated bigotry. There is a baseline level below which a society cannot go, where the best we can reasonably hope for is to keep racism from manifesting itself in especially harmful ways.
Everyone told me that when I went to Germany I could just start spouting English at everyone because everyone speaks English. IME, this is 100% true of Dutch people; absolutely every single person, even in rural gas stations in the Netherlands, can offer you a menu of languages they speak perfectly. But Lower Saxony proved to be much more difficult. Those who do speak English roll their eyes and groan when you approach them in English. I started off approaching people in German, because that seemed nicer, but when we hit the limits of my German, very quickly, I got nasty sneers. And plenty of people there spoke no English. (Luckily, when I desperately needed to communicate with an older lady on a bus, we figured out that we do both speak fluent Spanish. Hooray!)
Or maybe I have no idea what Iowa is like.
You should really expand your horizons. You can start planning your trip here. If you decide you're more interested in Western Iowa, you probably want to book a flight to Omaha. For Eastern Iowa, book to the Quad Cities. Otherwise, Des Moines.
Also, Iowa is the home of Maytag Blue Cheese.
It's not cheese, unless it's orange and each slice is individually wrapped in plastic.
234: So you'd be completely unsurprised if, having said yes to "you want cheese on that?", you got some crumbled gorgonzola on your sandwich?
The fact that in some contexts "cheese" means a proper subset of cheese does not mean that other cheeses are not really cheese.
267: In my grocery store the mozzarella, cheddar, and jack cheeses are all between the cream cheese and the butter. Are they even less cheese than cream cheese is?
295.1: I'd be intrigued, not surprised.
295.2: You have a stupid grocer. Give him or her a copy of The Republic.
This is more of a side topic, but my impression from about 10 years ago is that while officially multi-lingual countries in Europe have lots of signage in all the official languages, you're less likely to see the kind of dual English/Spanish signs/menus that are common in stores/restaurants in parts of the US. Of course this is somewhat complicated by the fact that the US has no official language (though a lot of states passed xenophobic English only laws).
ATMs were always an exception. I always loved trying to guess the demographics of the areas I was staying by the available languages on the ATMs.
Heh. The ATM's in Sac offer Hmoob as an option.
296: But shocked if you got farmer's cheese or goat cheese?
I didn't think it had a lot of plot, myself.
Is there a particular story about adding Hmong?
I find it intriguing how the Hmong writing system expresses tones with syllable-final consonants, so the 'b' in 'Hmoob' means it's a high tone.
Sorry, I find the spelling convention humorous. It doesn't have much of a plot.
299: Farmer's cheese that isn't paneer is made with rennet or bacterial fermentation, not this acid-washed stuff. I would not be shocked at all if I got regular farmer's cheese.
Goat cheese can be made with rennet, which seems a reasonable enough compromise for the goats to make before hopping up and saying, "Put my udder-squeezings on your sandwich."
Why are you mad at acid-set cheese, Moby? It wants to be frieeeeends.
When traveling in Europe, I generally tried to start in whatever the local language was, but usually the first question I had was whether the person I was talking to spoke English. There were surprisingly few times when this resulted in a noticeably negative reaction, relative to what I've heard others say about their experiences. On the other hand, there were also a number of times when people appeared not to think English was my native language.
Also, I had some ability to get by in French, German, Italian, Spanish beyond "do you speak English" and while this was still extremely limited, it probably showed a good faith effort to communicate. I never personally ran into rudeness in France, but French-speakers in Switzerland and Belgium were another story, although the Belgium part was really my fault for starting in English. It was Brussels, shortly after I got some "just start in English advice" and the person spoke French and probably Flemish, but no English. Also, I was at the post office. Apparently, France's post offices are much kinder to people without permanent addresses in Europe.
On the other hand, a couple of times I took the advice some people gave in northwestern Europe that I should just start with English, and outside of the front desk of a hostel, this never went well. On the phone when calling for a reservation, I did use "hello" instead of "hi" to signal English, and if it seemed to work, we just went with English. Otherwise, I asked. I decided I'd rather hear someone say "of course" (which happened more than once) than get off on the wrong foot.
305: I think I understand the confusion now. You thought that the animal pulls the rennet from its own stomach to make the cheese? If that were true, such products really would be different in kind from the ones where the animal retains structural integrity.
308: Goat cheese is made by goats from goat milk. Cheese made by people from goats' milk is called goat milk cheese.
307: Huh, Brussels was really comfortable for me, compared to German Forest Town. But it's probably that my French is way better than my German and all I had to do there was buy coffee, beer, postcards, and stamps.
Following that, Brussels was more or less fine. But I went back to my usual asking about English, or if I didn't need to go that far, just went with French.
Switzerland was different. My French accent is poor, especially around the r's, and people kept insisting on switching to English when it was clear to me that their English was a whole lot worse than my French. It was like they preferred mutual incomprehension to asymmetric understanding.
The second hit if you Google "hmoob" is for "hmoob hotties"
Just as further evidence in support of Megan's original point, there's this from Wikipedia:
As of 2005, 57.6% of California residents age five and older spoke English as a first language at home, while 28.2% spoke Spanish. In addition to English and Spanish, 2.0% spoke Filipino, 1.6% spoke Chinese (which included Cantonese [0.6%] and Mandarin [0.4%]), 1.4% spoke Vietnamese, and 1.1% spoke Korean as their mother tongue. In total, 42.4% of the population spoke languages other than English . . . the California Department of Motor Vehicles offers the written exam for the standard C Class driver's license in 31 languages along with English, and the audio exam in 11 languages. . . .
According to estimates from 2008, California has the largest minority population in the United States by numbers, making up 57% of the state population. In 2000, Hispanics comprised 32% of the population; that number grew to 37% in 2008. Non-Hispanic whites decreased from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 42% in 2008.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find that level of ethnic/racial diversity in any similar-sized entity in the world.
Mexico has a much higher proportion of Hispanic people.
I wonder what the Spanish language wikipedia says about all this.
Moby is blowing my mind.
I now think of him as Hmooby.
people kept insisting on switching to English when it was clear to me that their English was a whole lot worse than my French
A friend of mine has a theory, which I at least partially buy, that people who speak English are way more used to hearing their language spoken non-fluently than are speakers of other languages, and that is why you hear so many stories like this. You do sometimes get someone who sincerely just wants to practice their English, but I at least have found it's more often an impatience with hearing their language spoken inexpertly.
I think similar-sized entity is doing a lot of work there. London is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, but while London is pretty fucking big, it's still massively smaller than California.
I used to get really annoyed when I first went to the Czech Republic how often people were total dicks to me when I spoke Czech (badly). At the, 'people fucking stab people where I come from for that' level.
319 -- London's not really comparably diverse, I think, if Wikipedia is to be believed:
According to the Office for National Statistics, based on 2006 estimates, 69.4 percent of the 7.5 million inhabitants of London were White, with 58 percent White British, 2.5 percent White Irish and 8.9 percent classified as Other White. Some 13.1 percent are of South Asian descent, with Indians making up 6.5 percent of London's population, followed by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis at 2.3 percent each. 2 percent are categorised as "Other Asian". 10.7 percent of London's population are Black, with around 5.5 percent being Black African, 4.3 percent as Black Caribbean and 0.7 percent as "Other Black". 3.5 percent of Londoners are of mixed race; 1.5 percent are Chinese; and 1.9 percent belong to another ethnic group.[5] In January 2005, a survey of London's ethnic and religious diversity claimed that there were more than 300 languages spoken and 50 non-indigenous communities with a population of more than 10,000 in London.[6]
The 58.4% white british figure is not really comparable to California as a whole (or to LA in particular if you want to break it down on a city-to-city level).
318: Supporting anecdote: My Spanish vocabulary was always very limited and I'm guessing my grammar was iffy. However, my attempts at speaking Spanish were always well received in Spain. Also, people kept telling me kept telling me my accent was very good. On pressing further, apparently a good accent means "Not Mexican" to a Spaniard.
320. Prague or countryside? Prazaci are not known for their warmth to strangers.
313. Does not work.
318 is interesting. I do think it's true that the globalization of English means that, unless you're pretty isolated, if you're an English speaker, you can at least understand a wide variety of accents and grammatical oddities. I find it surprising that speakers of many other languages seem not to be able to understand a single word you say unless everything about it is perfect. (Imagine me yelling the name of the town I'm trying to get to--which I've never heard said aloud--over and over to the station agent, who keeps yelling WHAT? WHAT? back at me before finally saying it with just slightly more emphasis on the third syllable. I missed the train.)
Also annoying (though in the fluent-but-not-native language category, rather than beginning) is when you are talking with someone, conversation is going along, and then you make one small mistake and the person reacts like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD SAY THAT IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. And you can say oops, sorry, I meant to say [x], but somehow things are all off after that. Did they have me in the 'knows German' category before, and now have shifted me to the 'can't talk don't bother' category? Or did they really think I meant to say whatever nonsensical thing it was, and now assume I'm loony?
This may be a particularly German thing. It hasn't happened with friends (the 'OMG what did you just say' happens, but then explaining that it was a language problem puts all right again), mostly with salespeople or officials or some more distant coworkers.
325: Ha! Yes! I am more at the level of fluently ordering breakfast off the menu, but make one tiny error, and suddenly what are you doing speaking German to me you fraud?
before finally saying it with just slightly more emphasis on the third syllable
You'd also think that Genova should be recognizable as a city name ("In Italien! Geburtsort von Christoph Kolumbus!") but it sure wasn't to the agent I was talking to in the Hamburg train station. Finally the guy behind me in line broke in and said "Genua!" The German version is pronounced with a hard g, so it is different, but still!
before finally saying it with just slightly more emphasis on the third syllable
You'd also think that Genova should be recognizable as a city name ("In Italien! Geburtsort von Christoph Kolumbus!") but it sure wasn't to the agent I was talking to in the Hamburg train station. Finally the guy behind me in line broke in and said "Genua!" The German version is pronounced with a hard g, so it is different, but still!
My problem with having a passable Spanish-language accent and very little memory of the Spanish I learned while forming that accent, was that I couldn't understand the sometimes detailed answers I'd get from people who thought I could understand them.
I think 318 is probably right, but it didn't happen to me all that often. It could be that I just usually ran into people who spoke enough English for that to work.
The last time I was in Europe, about six years ago, I had a flight route from Paris to Dublin to the US. There was some confusion over the gates for the Paris-Dublin flight and one of the guys at the counter told me that my English accent was too odd for him to understand. I guess it wasn't Irish enough. I ended up getting a bit more information by talking to someone else in broken French.
Imagine me yelling the name of the town I'm trying to get to--which I've never heard said aloud--over and over to the station agent, who keeps yelling WHAT? WHAT? back at me before finally saying it with just slightly more emphasis on the third syllable.
Totally understandable, AFAIAC. I recall being baffled by an Israeli telling me that he lived in PeebahDEEterAHS, until he wrote down "Peabody Terrace".
The pronunciation of the 'u' in "menu" in French makes a surprisingly large difference in contexts where it's very likely that you're trying to say "menu." Or so it seemed to me.
Of my two immigrant roommates, I find it kind of funny that the Colombiano, who has been in the US for over 20 years, has a pretty thick accent and issues with conjugation, asks for words frequently, etc., while the Serbian, here for 12 years, speaks almost perfectly unaccented and flawless American English. I don't mind the Spanish-language errors at all, but the Serbian, who has also mastered Spanish, corrects him openly. She's earned it.
The trick, she says, is you just pay really close attention to what the people around you sound like when they speak their language and you try to sound like that. Her theory about why French and Spanish-speaking people have such thick accents in English is that they really think English spoken by English-language natives sounds dumb, and they refuse to sound dumb.
An Israeli teenager once asked my why I didn't have an American accent. I was bursting with pride until I understood he was referring to my English not my Hebrew.
332.2: Or the people on TV if you happen to be learning English in someplace where everybody around you has a stupid accent.
re: 323
Prague was the worst, yeah. I spend basically all my time when I'm there either in Prague or in my wife's village [which is north of Prague near Mělník]. On a couple of occasions I absolutely knew my Czech was good -- buying metro tickets and cigarettes, that sort of thing -- but some prick was affecting not to understand.
I've had the opposite, too. My pronunciation is variable, but when I'm there are lot I can sound superficially much more fluent than I really am. So I've ended up having to stop people -- 'No, no, I don't really speak Czech'.
328: The fact that Genoa / Genova / Gênes is close to Geneva / Genève / Ginevra / Genf makes it a particular minefield for Eurailers.
Further to 336: Not to mention Genovia.
"In Italien! Geburtsort von Christoph Kolumbus!"
I suspect, Blume, that this clue, obvious as it is to you, was as hopeless as my attempt to find bicarbonate of soda (Hausnatron, if you must know) by telling the grocery store clerk the chemical formula NaHCO3.
I've been in the opposite circumstance. In my wife's family, nearly everyone in her parents' generation does not speak English. My German is good enough that people speak High German (not exactly a native language to Saarlaender) to me as if I was a very simple 5 year old, they are confident of being understood. Rightly. Speaking, I make at least 3 grammatical errors per sentence, and often slide into Saarlaendisch-like forms.
So, the aunt-in-law hands me a childrens book to read to her whiny grandson. I read aloud in grammatically correct perfect unaccented Hochdeutsch.
What a fraud, all this time we thought you didn't speak German.
Figuring out which store can be a trip when traveling, worse in specialized economies. Batteries, socks, and handcuffs, just try finding all three in less than a day.
318, 324: I've had the same thought, and wondered if the sort of creole-ish-ness (basically Germanic language with thick overlay of French and so on) of English has something to do with it -- it's got more redundancy or something, so screwed-up English is actually more comprehensible than screwed-up other languages. But I don't have the linguistic knowledge to know if that makes any sense at all.
My theory on why foreigners might prefer English is much simpler: a lot of people think they speak English better than they actually do. They hear my bad French, and simply cannot believe that their English could be that bad. It is, but it's probably because I'm a stupid American who can't seem to understand pretty much anything.
screwed-up English is actually more comprehensible than screwed-up other languages
Sounds plausible to me. The fact that English doesn't have distractions like grammatical gender and case declensions makes for a more mistake-tolerant language. In much the same way that Dutch speakers can understand Afrikaans much better than the inverse.
341. I don't think so; Both French and Czech in very thick African or Vietnamese accents and nearly no syntax are common experiences in big cities. If people want to communicate with each other, a few nouns and a verb with repetition for confirming understanding are enough for rudimentary interaction.
I think that language choice between imperfect speakers is complicated by courtesy-- choosing a language or wilfullly misunderstanding are not just exchanges of information, but also of status.
My theory on why foreigners might prefer English is much simpler: a lot of people think they speak English better than they actually do.
That isn't just foreigners, BTW.
as hopeless as my attempt to find bicarbonate of soda
Ha: this, crossed with my friend looking for Sodbrennen cures, and being given baking soda pills at the pharmacy.
My perception of the English-learning population is that people who speak quite well are constantly apologizing for not speaking or writing perfectly, and are really embarrassed when they catch themselves making errors, while people who probably should speak better than they do think they speak perfectly.
So... Not that I'm suggestible or anything, but I've decided to get takeout for dinner from a nice Indian restaurant up the road. Probably with some paneer. We have a lot of South Asian immigrants in my area.
My perception of the English-learning population is that people who speak quite well are constantly apologizing for not speaking or writing perfectly, and are really embarrassed when they catch themselves making errors,
Huh. Haven't seen much of this. Are you talking about your students or in general?
318, 324 - I've been very frustrated by this, since my ear is decent. I know I'm not saying it perfectly but I'm pretty close, and if you'd work with me here, you could direct me to the nearby major street I'm naming. I would be able to direct you if you sent your vowels off in a funny way and on a good day, I could do that without blinking while it registered, nor saying the street aloud in confirmation. Because I'm not a peasant.
The English-learning population in my life includes students, friends, and colleagues. People who are known to me are, of course, likely to be the kinds of people who might be concerned about language, sure.
332.last seems correct to me. Doing the accent as well as just the pronunciation makes a huge difference but sometimes feels very silly.
347, 349: I think there is a humanities/science difference here. A guy from Spain I knew in philosophy grad school was embarrassed because used "which" when he should have used "that" in spoken English. OTOH, I've seen many science grad students who live up to the incomprehensible TA stereotype.
My theory is that non-English speaking students who come to this country to study anything humanistic already have really excellent language skills and need to hone them to learn what they want to learn. Non-English speaking students who come to study math/science/engineering don't have those skills and don't need them to do the stuff that they care about and is emphasized in their program.
I've been the one interjecting to try to help interpret accented conversations in English by people for whom that seems to be the most common language they have.
I'd wonder if a combination of multiple foreign language classes and growing up hearing accented/partial English spoken within my family helps me, if I didn't also sometimes have a lot of trouble understanding people who are talking directly to me. Some of that may just be hearing, though. As I've gotten older, I seem to have a lot more problems hearing people in busy places, like train stations, loud restauraunts, busy supermarket checkout lanes, etc. Something about the din.
English is, I think, fairly unique among languages in that you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to pronunciation, in terms of vowel articulation, omitted consonants, etc. In Spanish, where spelling is phonetic, a mispronounced word will usually be parsed as either another word altogether, or something that is not a word. I particularly have problem with the articulation part, since this is absolutely crucial to diction in Spanish, while in English it's often a matter of accent, and there are very few words that I can think of where two words only differ by the openness of a vowel.
(Now watch the thread turn into people trying to find counterexamples to that.)
I think 347 is universally true about everything. Those who are perceptive enough to do well are also perceptive enough to know they are not perfect. And those who are not perceptive enough don't know they're terrible. It's just the Dunning-Kruger effect writ large.
Rapidly clicking on the symbols in this chart in no particular order and in quick succession creates a weirdly compelling vowel chant.
When I was in college, there was an African-American professor of German whose daughter was at the same college and whose other daughter was at a New England prep school. He was driving them back for Christmas and agreed to give me a ride. I spoke no German at the time. Except when they were speaking directly to me, they spent the entire 7-hour drive speaking German. It was a horrible experience, so I have a tiny bit of sympathy for those people who get upset about the language issue.
358: That's different -- it's completely rude to sit in a car with someone you know and knowingly exclude that person from the conversation for seven hours.
But if you weren't taking German, how did you know him well enough that he'd offer to drive you for seven hours? Just curious!
Presumably BG knew the daughter who was at the same college.
Why do the nativists hate America?
Travel Strengthens America! Montana is at its most beautiful at 35 MPH.
Non-English speaking students who come to study math/science/engineering don't have those skills and don't need them to do the stuff that they care about and is emphasized in their program.
And yet they are tasked with teaching "discussion" sections of the larger classes.
362, 363: Isn't that actually sort of a See America First kind of poster? I would guess that the State Highways Commission was promoting domestic more than foreign travel.
366 -- The exact mechanism by which travel strengthens America is not specified. Maybe people are supposed to go work in factories. Or the mines. Workers in which were immigrants or sons of immigrants.
re: 355
You'd be surprised how often native speakers of English can't understand other native speakers of English. This can be annoying if you are the one facing someone else's blank incomprehension.
353 Non-English speaking students who come to study math/science/engineering don't have those skills and don't need them to do the stuff that they care about
I don't find it plausible that anyone studying in the US doesn't need English skills to do the stuff that they care about.
Maybe what they care about is annoying xenophobes.
370: How are you going to be sure you've annoyed them if you lack the English skills to understand their bitching?
Isn't Scots technically a different language than English?
368: I'm not surprised you'd say that because 75% of the time it has happened it me I was in Scotland. I've spend maybe 100 hours of my life in Scotland.
(I think they understood me, in all of these cases.)
Re 372
That's a matter of debate. There are certainly dialects of Scots that aren't readily comprehended by English speakers.
But I've been surprised at incomprehension when not using dialect words, and my accent isn't, I don't think, especially strong. I expect some people either have difficulty or are just lazy about accents other than their own. I've seen the same with other accents; Geordie, various rural 'northern' dialects, etc.
Re 372
That's a matter of debate. There are certainly dialects of Scots that aren't readily comprehended by English speakers.
But I've been surprised at incomprehension when not using dialect words, and my accent isn't, I don't think, especially strong. I expect some people either have difficulty or are just lazy about accents other than their own. I've seen the same with other accents; Geordie, various rural 'northern' dialects, etc.
I've just read the thread - skimmed it -- but it's occurring to me that animosity toward immigrants using non-English in one's presence (in the US) can be partly a class thing.
The thought goes like this: most of us are willing to entertain the notion that lower SES people in particular can be invested in feeling that they're in some position of relative power over some others/Others, those lower on the food chain, as it were. It may come to seem important that such people *show* their inferiority, by speaking faulty English perhaps. If and when they reveal -- brazenly! -- that in fact, no, they are quite fluent and articulate (at least a far as one can tell from hearing a language one doesn't understand), it's a sheer affront, and a challenge to one's own standing in the hierarchy.
This seems fairly straightforward now that I spell it out.
I understood you the first time.
370: In addition to being a German professor in small college town, he was also an assistant priest at the church we went to (who sort of, it turned out, drove out the older, less than dynamic, not great priest, but nice man.) My Dad asked him as a favor when he found out that he was going to pick his daughters up.
That's odd. My comment disappeared. It showed up after I posted it, and now it's not here.
363: Who is that towering female figure with the cape and sword? She looks like she's ready for gladiatorial combat (on behalf of America? or the State Highway Commission?!).
Now it's here. Weird.
383: She is supposed to be Athena? Wonder Woman? The statue of liberty? Mother liberty protecting our young while the young mens build things (this is 1942: I'm actually not sure what the gender and mothering related gestalt was then).
||
What on earth is going on with Brad DeLong vs. the CT post/thread on neoliberalism? The latter topic -- good work, Henry! -- has been picked up and expanded upon by at least LGM and Kevin Drum so far (that I've noticed). I had no idea there was a big fight with DeLong.
|>
Here's the whole map, including promotional text:
On the note that "Travel Strengthens America," Montana, the Treasure State, lifts her song of invitation to the tourist who may be planning a "See America First" trip for 1942.
It's a patriotic duty to take time off from working for national defense, so why not come to Montana?
I doesn't seem to explain who the woman is, however. There's a mention of Mother Nature, but that's probably not supposed to be her.
384.last: Not unless Mother Nature is being radically refigured. Which is not beyond the realm of possibility.
I doesn't seem to explain who the woman is, however.
Based on what you've cited, I now assume the woman is the state of Montana itself (or herself, perhaps).
And I think the idea is that travel will strengthen America by instilling pride in its mountains, rivers, clouds and gorgeous scenery; and by creating the need for more jobs (surveying, road building) for men in nifty-looking hats.
383: Yeah, I don't get it either. There seems to be some sort of back-story, which I don't feel like searching through the archives to find. But I thought DeLong and CT had always been on the best of terms?
387: It would not seem so, from the CT thread in which Chris Bertram complains of cyber-stalking. I'm not particularly surprised; I'd just had the idea that there was some kind of truce in place between/among DeLong and, uh, a lot of the rest of us.
All the serious people are tense right now just because the economy is going to collapse and destroy the world.
China's even putting up fake Apple stores, just in case the real ones go under.
Does the real Apple need somebody with a baseball bat and a bus pass to keep that kind of thing out of Pittsburgh?
363, 384: Speaking of historical Montana images, came across this arresting one the other day when looking up information on manual switchboards.
363, 384: Speaking of historical Montana images, came across this arresting one the other day when looking up information on manual switchboards.
Speaking of comments 392 and 393 I have to admit they were both me.
I think that woman is Armed America, but why is the storm cloud full of trucks and boats and guns? A storm of hardware is about to fall and smash your majestic mountains? What is the connection between domestic travel and a cloud full of artillery?
387: There was some mention of an offline backstory between DeLong and Chris Bertram, so reading archives wouldn't explain what was going on there.
