Those squirrels were doing work for hire.
You see this kind of shit all the time with appropriation of native identity. Apparently there's a whole cottage industry of white ladies writing books of spiritual tales claiming to be in some particular tribal tradition (of the "Old Bear visited the Great Star and asked for water for Little Hen" type). The tribe is like wha? And the white lady cries and says she just wants to honor their beautiful traditions; what's wrong with bringing awareness of native ways?
This is far worse because the jokes are all mean and the "joke" is that ASL is like not a real language so it's fun.
Fuck her. I totally get that maybe she made a video and was unaware of how shitty it was to do what she's doing, but people have called her on it and she's all "whatever bitches."
Wait, how is "die in a fire" smutty? Because you get ashes on you? That seems too literal a reading.
The foundry near my house asploded last night. So if there wasn't enough smuts around before, there sure are now!
"Fair use" for squirrels in ancient Edo consisted of taking the other guy's acorns if they'd remained uneaten for 3 months.
Hey Heebie the "pissed off" link is broken. Is that my fault or yours?
She seems to have started off with "smutty" and moved on to "generally objectionable". Many of the other videos are related to graphic descriptions of sex acts and/or body parts. (e.g. your vagina's so big, fucking you is like throwing a hot dog down a hallway).
4: YOURS but let me actually go look.
The foundry near my house asploded last night.
Goodness. That sounds dangerous and dramatic. Don't get any smuts in your eyes!
9 to 8. No foundry asplosion can withstand heebie.
taking the other guy's acorns
to be used as Tops
Emperor Nummo patented "all profound things spinning on an axis perpendicular to the ground" in 600 CE.
Lawsuits are pending
Wouldn't it be easier just to carry a notepad? Then you could write grocery lists and insult those with impaired hearing.
Wouldn't it be easier just to carry a notepad?
There's one of Westlake's novels where two members of a silent religious order have a furious argument flinging a note pad (paper in those days) back and forth across the table. The problem is that it needs both hands, leaving you vulnerable to retaliation from the insultee while you're composing your next barb.
Someone gave her a book deal for that shiz?
It was fine as a disposable YouTube amusement -- less amusing when one found out she didn't actually know what she was doing -- but the deaf community is right to be pissed. I've not worked through how all the various misogynies and privileges and mmmglayvens line up, but just the fact of her lack of competence alone would be reason to look at the whole thing askance.
(Well, after consulting the "pissed off" link, some of the objection there are a tad prissy/prudish/over-the-top/humorless. But still, overall, I don't blame them for being pissed.)
@15
I'm sort of ambivalent on the cultural appropriation issue. On the one hand what's described here (as well as the "white euro-americans pretending to be tribal shamans" thing described by AWB) is indeed obnoxious.
On the other hand pearl clutching over supposed cultural appropriation is a favorite pass time for a certain subspecies of overzealous progressive. "OMG!! You're cooking curry?! That's appropriating Indian culture you privileged person you!"
Also, taken to it's logical extreme it leads to a sort of Museum Multiculturalism that that I don't have much use for.
Needs to be judged on a case by case basis I suppose.
16: Yeah, I have the same ambivalence. (I'm also still not sold on the idea of "deaf culture" to begin with.)
I don't think anyone really cared when it was just a bunch of youtube videos. Hearing people post/say/do random shit about "sign language" (they never specify which sign language) all the time. Teach signs to their babies, make their class of 6 year olds do a song in it, ask me to teach them pickup lines at a bar, lecture me about how much easier it would be if all deaf people used the same sign language, whatever.
Publishing a book (and getting money for the book), when you really don't know what you're doing, seems quite a bit different to me. Partly because of the money, and partly because of the authority we give authors in our society. If somebody is going to get the money and authority and whatnot, it'd be nice if it were a member of the historically oppressed community whose language it is, rather than a random outsider who thinks it's funny but can't be bothered to actually learn the language.
I'm also still not sold on the idea of "deaf culture" to begin with.
I'm sure all the other deaf people will be as devastated as I am when they find out.
19: Just as long as the knowledge of my disapproval robs you of all hope the future and all motivation to positive action, that's all I really ask.
Seriously, though, I think 18.2 is pretty much right; that she's not just an outsider, but an incompetent outsider, who's misrepresenting sign is the most basic problem.
This seems pretty much like when all the advocates for people with blindness got upset about me wearing dark glasses and hitting people with a red and whited striped cane.
Or like the one time I got a book deal from HarperCollins for poking random holes in a bunch of sheets of paper and claiming I'd just translated The Story of O into Braille.
I hadn't seen her videos or known of her before. So I imagined a jokey book, to give her the benefit of the doubt. Like, what if it were "How to Swear in Swedish" and it was obviously Swedish-Chefisms. I think I've seen such books before and chuckled at them if they were clever.
But she's not jokey! She's didactic and kinda grating! So, it's pretty dumb she has a book deal. But lots of dumb book deals happen. I don't think I think that anyone owns a language and that it's therefore wrong for others to profit off it. I guess because a linguistic community is theoretically open - it's possible to join it through enough study (which often has an economic aspect).
(Also, English As She Is Spoke comes to mind. Sort of the flip side of some coin.)
The methodology seems to be similar (to EASIS), but the politics and power dynamics make the contexts pretty different.
There is a deaf lesbian badass who has started coming to the gym. 100 70lb kettlebell swings, unbroken! I suggest that if the deaf community wants an enforcer, they should pick her.
Of course deaf folks should be pissed. What a moron. How is this different from "50 Hilarious Ebonics Phrases, by your You Tube Host, Whitey McBigot." OTOH a deaf person doing creative, obscene sign language swearing in actual sign language would be great.
lecture me about how much easier it would be if all deaf people used the same sign language
Are they speaking Esperanto when they tell you this?
No, but you don't understand, think about how much easier it would be! You guys should just pick one and have everybody use that!
I don't know why you'd waste your time doing that instead of just learning to hear instead.
I can see why people would find rude words/signs fascinating, though. It's great learning new swear words. Maybe there's a market for someone to do a competent/intelligent sensitive-to-deaf-culture version.
The competent version of this would have been the one that would really be possible to have a fight about. Though the reaction to that wouldn't be quite as offended, I think, there would still be people objecting to it on the grounds of cultural appropriation generally, and more specifically on the grounds that this outsider is profiting from "their language" and using "their language" to say naughty words (both of which turn up at Heebie's link). And of themselves, those wouldn't necessarily be convincing objections.
17: How many linguistic communities do you know that don't have their own culture?
Or is it just sign languages that don't get to have their own culture?
I'm not "sold" on the idea that someone in a dominant culture gets to decide whether someone else "has" a culture.
32: Just sign languages, yup. Basically, a phenomenon that sprang up to compensate for a pathology does not necessarily a "culture" make. And the desire to use the rhetoric of "culture" -- while understandable given the history of paternalistic, denigrating or merely indifferent attitudes that have attended some versions of the "pathological" viewpoint -- doesn't necessarily come without costs and risks of its own.
Basically, a phenomenon that sprang up to compensate for a pathology does not necessarily a "culture" make.
Oh? So, what does necessarily a culture make?
(I'm twitting UPETGI a bit in the opening sentence of 34 there. Actually the idea of "linguistic communities" having "their own culture" is in itself a very unstable and fuzzy notion. That two people speak English, or French, or Ebonics or Johannesburg street slang, does not in fact guarantee that they belong to a common culture despite their belonging to a "linguistic community." Alternatively, the existence of different linguistic communities does not necessarily mean that those communities don't have substantial cultural commonalities. The reification of "linguistic community" as "culture" in the larger sense is itself not a very good idea.
35 Remember any worthwhile definition must include Orcas.
35: The baseline definition in sociology is that culture is "the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior."
The reification of "linguistic community" as "culture" in the larger sense is itself not a very good idea.
This is not what people (well, except for you, maybe) mean when they talk about deaf culture.
If you want to make a claim that the culture of deaf Americans and the culture of (some subset of?) hearing Americans are substantially the same, and so they shouldn't get separate labels, I'd be willing to argue about it. But that would require you to know what the culture of deaf Americans is like, and I'm not getting the impression that you do, really.
39: Ummm, it's clearly what UPETGI meant, whom I was responding to. And the argument-from-linguistic community is quite commonplace.
(There are larger arguments, too, about "culture" as derived from shared experience beyond just language, but I don't agree with those either. There are many people with whom I share a broad set of experiences of being Black in a predominantly white country, for example, and together we form a community capable of recognizing those common experiences. That does not mean we form a culture.)
I'll admit to some agnosticism: there are deaf people in every culture. How many are actually involved in what one would call deaf culture, rather than being deaf in, say, southern Yemeni culture?
Maybe, though, it would be much more proper to speak of deaf cultures, which surely exist, but not as a single thing. Beyond the commonality of ASL users, are there not numerous subcultures, with features linked to age and class?
What about a "nation." DEAF NATION WHOOOOO.
Anyhow, I have no idea why it conceivably would be important to police the boundaries of the word "culture." Surely deaf americans have a whole set of shared experiences (and language!) that the rest of us don't, so why not call that a culture without freaking out about it.
When I wrote 42, I had no idea that this existed.
I am about to go do things away from a computer, but (1) many audiologically deaf people are not culturally deaf (2) yes, there are multiple deaf cultures, although they tend to share some important characteristics related to conversational norms and oral traditions (3) Deaf Nation. Capitalism ruins everything.
41 retracted.
Bleg: I'm at the Sears looking at gas grills. Anyone have a favorite?
No, but we're supposed to have been getting a grill this weekend. We decided it was too hot.
errr ... oh god ... this might kind of be my fault. I pitched the idea of "Swearing in Sign Language" to a publisher five years ago and had a contract and an advance and everything; I had even got to the stage of finding a deaf illustrator to do the work. Then my nephew was born deaf, and I kind of had a think about whether the whole project was a bit crass and tasteless and didn't do it. The publisher was pissed off, and to kind of mollify her I said she could have the idea for free (it's not like I would really be able to stop anyone else writing a swearing in sign language book). I thought they would do the book with my illustrator but apparently she didn't really want to. And then time passed and it is now.
What AWB said in 33, basically. I understand people's occasional resistance to claims of special-cultural-flower-ness,* but this doesn't really seem an appropriate target for that kind of ire.
* I've certainly felt that impulse myself at times.
48: Wasn't rigging the LIBOR enough damage for one industry's people.
16: On the other hand pearl clutching over supposed cultural appropriation is a favorite pass time for a certain subspecies of overzealous progressive. "OMG!! You're cooking curry?! That's appropriating Indian culture you privileged person you!"
Yes. Fuck 'em. Before some silly twit thought of "cultural appropriation" we just said, "Hey, that looks/tastes/sounds good, let's try it."
43: Well, the specific rhetoric of "culture" has a pretty definite impact on medical controversies: if one accepts the premise of a deaf culture, then arguably attempts to cure deafness become easy to view as attempts at a kind of cultural genocide. Cf. the often bitter and divisive polemic over cochlear implants for children and infants, which became a hot-button issue in part because, to many culturally-deaf parties, wanting to "cure" infants without their choice and consent was audism. There will be more of these controversies in the coming decade, because more sophisticated cures for deafness appear to be on the near horizon of medicine.
If it weren't for that sort of thing, it probably wouldn't be that important. It doesn't change the intrinsic beauty of sign, for instance, nor does it matter to me whether one is talking about a "culture" or a "community" in talking about the achievement of establishing ASL (a history of which I know only the barest minimum but is surely fascinating and inspiring).
Cochlear implants are one thing, but I draw the line at circumcision for religious reasons.
Of course there are languages where there are many separate cultural groups speaking the same language, but what I was claiming was that what doesn't happen is separate linguistic groups that don't also have noticeably different cultures.
At any rate, I remember much preferring deaf culture to hearing culture as a small kid. Much different norms about the proper role of children in public, and very different norms around when and whether directness is polite.
46, 52: Don't know how crazy you want to go--anything I would be willing to buy is considered total shit by the cognoscenti--but Weber makes both reasonably-priced ones and enters the low end of the top end (which runs $2,000 to $6,000).
Like, what if it were "How to Swear in Swedish" and it was obviously Swedish-Chefisms. I think I've seen such books before and chuckled at them if they were clever.
Really? I mean, I'd be all for a proper swearing in ASL or Swedish book, but what's the appeal of one that's just gibberish?
48: Wasn't rigging the LIBOR enough damage for one industry's people.
You just don't understand banker culture.
56: what doesn't happen is separate linguistic groups that don't also have noticeably different cultures.
Okay, but I think that's a questionable claim, actually. Although a lot depends on what you count as "separate" linguistic groups. (Defining a dialect as opposed to a language is a fuzzy business, and of course there's multilingualism frequently mucking up the picture.)
At any rate, I remember much preferring deaf culture to hearing culture as a small kid. Much different norms about the proper role of children in public, and very different norms around when and whether directness is polite.
I'm curious about the second point - different to American hearing norms or British hearing norms. Because they are very different.
58
Really? I mean, I'd be all for a proper swearing in ASL or Swedish book, but what's the appeal of one that's just gibberish?
I think such books are primarily intended to be funny so nitpicking their accuracy is missing the point.
58: Like say it was funny gibberish? There are many ways this can occur! But E Messily is right in 24, it might be ok to joke "German is hilarious, you just stick a bunch of German sounding words together," but it's something else to attempt that of a sign language.
I know very little about british culture, whether deaf or hearing, and was talking about america. (Important point: ASL is in the French sign language family, and is unrelated to BSL.)
Though, I assume hearing british norms are to be less direct than american hearing culture, which in turn is less direct than american deaf culture.
I think such books are primarily intended to be funny so nitpicking their accuracy is missing the point.
I was questioning the funniness. The funniness of a swearing in a foreign language book is, for me, anyway, directly proportional to my ability to offend prudish speakers/signers of said language having read it. I'd quite like to be able to call someone a cock-juggling thundercunt in American Sign Language - it would be very funny. If I want Swedish chef pseudo-foreign, I'll watch Sesame Street.
I remember seeing at some point that someone who actually knew ASL had done something similar to this on YouTube. This isn't the one I was thinking of but it's pretty entertaining. I'm sure there are others.
... The funniness of a swearing in a foreign language book is, for me, anyway, directly proportional to my ability to offend prudish speakers/signers of said language having read it. ...
I don't think you are the primary audience.
On the general topic of deaf culture, this webcomic is good.
2-6k! I'm wondering how different a $300 model is from a $400 model.
Anyone have a favorite [grill]?
I really regret not buying a Weber. They're expensive as all get out but really seem to last. The Kenmore thing I bought from Sears is kinda falling apart already after a few years, despite being covered year-round.
On FB, one of my many local friends without power due to last night's crazy windstorm reports that he's making beer on his gas grill. Presumably using a burner.
71: For when you have deaf people all up in your grill?
According to English friends, there's less of a cultural divide in England than the U.S. between deaf and hearing people. American deaf people often say their primary cultural affiliation is "deaf" (rather than "American" or "black" or "Catholic" or "goth" or whatever). Apparently this is less common in England. There are some differences still, but they seem less salient. According to my sources.
Also I think this is changing in the US too, due to technological advances and laws about access and inclusion. There are still enough differences that if you only know one culture and you want to hang out in the other one, you need some instruction about mores and taboos.
there's less of a cultural divide in England than the U.S. between deaf and hearing people
That's interesting. Does anyone hazard a guess as to why? Messily mentions technological advances and laws about access and inclusion ... which makes me wonder whether the US's sheer size, and the slow, indeed resistant, pace at which people in the US actually mix with those unlike themselves, has something to do with it.
only know one culture and you want to hang out in the other one, you need some instruction about mores and taboos
What sorts of "hearing" mores and taboos are the deaf-acculturated unaware of? Not trying to be difficult--actually curious.
The obvious candidate to explain why there'd be more or less deaf/hearing culture divide would be significant differences in the schooling system. E.g. what percentage of deaf kids went to residential schools, were their deaf adults involved in the schools, etc.
77: The communicative/communicational (not a word) cues would be different, right?
Example, very bare bones: in a loud nightclub, a hearing person might shout to another who just said (spoke) something slightly nuanced, "Oh, please, not now." That means for a hearing set of people that obviously one can barely hear a thing. A deaf person wouldn't particularly see what the problem was, and would have to learn what an "Oh, please" in that circumstance was supposed to mean.
I don't know if that ascends to the level of what we might call an actual more or taboo. It's more a matter of remembering at all times that most other people are hearing and are shaped by that.
I'm uncomfortable speaking when I'd rather hear Messily explain further.
77- deaf adults, none, probably. Because they're taught them as children, often explicitly.
I'd bet the experience of farting in public is very different.
E, could you be more explicit?
"Deaf adults, fucking none, probably. Asshole."
69: I'm wondering how different a $300 model is from a $400 model.
OK. So you're me. I think you can get a small-ish Weber at the top end of that range. Yes, here. Unless you need mongo grilling area, I'd go with that.
82: again, not trying to be difficult, but what kinds of instructions would you specifically be giving deaf kids you wanted to send out into the uncaring world?
79: parsi, that's a fair one, but I'm not sure that rises to the level of either more or taboo.
Thanks, guys. The Kenmores looked pretty good, but this was just the first scouting expedition. I won't need to buy until Tuesday.
Being out in the weather is a big deal: our new house does not have a covered deck, like the old one did. (I used that one year round -- not so sure about the new set up.
85.2: I know.
I really don't want to be an annoying hearing person asking cluelessly of E. Messily "What do you mean?", but I would like to hear more about the taboos. I sort of want to guess that the deaf community is more open than the hearing one, but I'm not deaf, and the few times I've had ear infections significant enough that I couldn't really hear much at all, I was, honestly, a lot more open. I'd just blurt things out; but that might have been because I wasn't used to the other people not realizing that I couldn't really hear them.
87: I also don't want to be an entitled pain-in-the-ass about it, but this is very interesting!
Maybe if we annoy E. Messily enough, she'll say what she means.
When I was 3/4 deaf (as a hearing person), I'd say to people -- vocally -- "Let me know if I'm shouting. I can't hear very well. Please don't come up to me unexpectedly without signalling your presence, I don't know, wave your arms or something, because otherwise I have a shock, since I didn't even know you were in the house."
Speaking so plainly was kind of nice, actually. I had occasion to speak so plainly to my bookpartner the other day, because he's been throwing books across the room. Slam! Slam! After a couple of hours I had to say, "Can I ask you something? Can you not slam books across the room?"
89: I emailed another person who grew up in a deaf household. Just because it is such an interesting thing!
90: Well, maybe your friend will explain something.
It seems clear to me that the subject of the original post is obnoxious. I don't think that's in dispute.
Formerly, in Ireland, deaf men and deaf women grew up learning different sign languages because they were in segregated boarding schools run by two different religious orders, the orders having different international connections and thusly their personnel having been trained in different sign languages. There may have been a deliberate attempt to discourage marriages between deaf people. At some point the schools must have been amalgamated. This all comes from some interview with old lady, who remarked with amused exasperation that the men refused to learn the women's language so the women had to learn the men's. Irish sign language is therefore based on whatever one was taught In the boys' school. I understand it has some unusual features including a heavy reliance on spelling out words and I wonder vaguely if this is an artifact of some kind of pidginism or creolisation or whatever the term is, resulting from a generation of women learning it as adults.
Formerly, in Ireland, deaf men and deaf women grew up learning different sign languages because they were in segregated boarding schools run by two different religious orders
Despite what people say about celibacy making it impossible for the clergy to understand marriage, I'd say they pretty much nailed that one.
Can I be the most humorless person in the world if I don't particularly think it's funny when people make "ha ha that language sounds dumb/mean/crazy" jokes? Someone posted to Facebook some joke about how "I love you" sounds totally insane if you scream it at everyone in German. I think it sounds totally insane if you scream it in English too. And you'd have to be pretty ignorant of German as a language outside of Nazi movies to think it's a necessarily harsh or angry language. Yes, it has interesting linguistic features, but it's not a "mean" language.
I'm not going to go around posting this on everyone's FB wall, because Germans aren't exactly oppressed, but I still don't get what's funny about it.
And when people make these jokes about languages that are under pressure, erasure, etc., yeah, I'm pretty humorless about them. The joke here is that some people talk with their hands, right? Because they can't hear, ha ha?
94: Most of the time it's not funny, no, so you're not humorless. In very specific circumstances, it can be, though.
German is hilarious, but Mark Twain already told that joke. Does ASL have an equivalent to ending a sentence with haben werden geworden sein?
German is hilarious, but Mark Twain already told that joke.
Was it someone here who told the story of teaching English to a group of German students and using that Twain essay as a text, with the result that the students found it very offensive and not at all funny?
Students always find the wrong things offensive and the wrong things funny.
With this Kristin person, though, I'm not really sure what she means the joke to be or even if she's in on it. From the clip indirectly linked in the OP it seems like she actually thinks she knows ASL well enough to teach this stuff, but the consensus among actual deaf people seems to be that she doesn't. So it's not clear to me if she's being intentionally or unintentionally offensive. Either way I don't see why anyone would want to give her a book deal based on this.
That is, she's clearly being offensive; I just can't tell if she's intending to or not.
I think this Dave Barry column from 1990 is literally what I was thinking of that I have chuckled at (there's a bit about Fahrvergnugen). I was 13, ect.
12: Wouldn't it be easier just to carry a notepad?
On my recent re-read of the Snopes trilogy, I was struck--much more than when I first read it 35 years ago--by a notepad being used to communicate to the female character who had gone deaf as an adult. The relative lack of communication in that direction (she speaks in a "duck voice") was a plot point but the possibility of using sign language was never mentioned. Made me wonder whether it was something Faulkner even considered.
I was 13, ect.
Sure, blame it on the electroshock therapy... (that's what I do).
92: That's amazing!
Yeah 92 is super interesting. I wonder if the teachers were really fluent in the sign languages they taught or if the kids had to invent a lot themselves.
This looks to be the website of a researcher studying the differences. Has links to a couple of short videos illustrating differences in the sign.s
105: given the location and timing the probably "no" and "yes" resepectively. Which is usually how it goes until there's a decent population on the whole age spectrum
The Ethnologue isn't very informative, but it does describe the gendered systems as "informal" and suggests that British and French Sign Languages were influential in development of the system.
97 the traditional humorlessness of Germans is part of the fun.
Know what you get when you combine Chinese food with German food?
I don't know, but you want to invade Poland again an hour later.
Sorry, I was off drinking drinks and talking to people in real life and couldn't (politely) type lots of stuff on my phone. But now I'm back, just in time for everyone else to have already gone to sleep.
Charley, I'm sure you're set on gas, but a model in that price range probably won't get hot enough to properly sear a steak, plus you don't really get any flavor from cooking with gas. If you would consider charcoal, this grill, and especially the smoker attachment, is fantastic.
Anyway, I have two sorts of knowledge about what cultural norms get taught to deaf people and how. One is from working in a deaf school, where I was doing some of the teaching. The other is from being friends with deaf adults and asking them questions about things. (the second goes two ways, generally, with them also being curious about what/how is interesting and weird to outsiders confronted with deaf culture)
Generally, there is a bunch of stuff related to sounds. Maybe this is obvious and boring, but if you can't hear, you don't know what the rules are. Farting and other bathroom type activities are absolutely included. There are strong social norms in hearing cultures about what kinds of noises you can make with your body, when, and what you do afterwards. Deaf people often have to practice and worry about this a lot more than hearing people do, if they want to fit in in a hearing environment. In a deaf environment, it's not an issue at all. "Sounds" includes farting, knowing whether someone else can hear you taking a shit, burping, chewing, accidentally vocalizing, laughing, being too loud while washing dishes, and many more.
More actual culture stuff is related to discourse, both conversation analysis stuff like how to take turns, how to get the floor, when/whether/how to interrupt, etc, and also content- what stories are expected to include, what information to say when introducing or excusing yourself, etc. These things are quite different in American deaf and hearing cultures. For example, in a hearing conversation it is generally considered polite to excuse yourself quietly to go do whatever (bathroom, phone, smoke, dunno) without making a fuss and without interrupting the flow of conversation. In deaf culture this is really rude; you should never leave a conversation without telling the other participants where you are going and whether or not you will be back. Hearing people think it is very weird if you follow the deaf norms. Deaf people think it is really irritating if you don't.
By "taboos" I meant more related to appropriate topics of conversation, which are different. Hearing people think it's great to tell deaf people in great detail about what exactly sounds they can hear at the moment, and who can hear what, and whose voice sounds just like normal, and whose English is really great. Deaf people do not talk about any of these things, ever, even if they can hear things or talk better or whatever.
Meanwhile, Deaf* people will often talk about money, physical health and/or deterioration, politics, and religion, in ways that are pretty unacceptable for a standard hearing social event.
*I'm using a convention here of capital D Deaf meaning "culturally deaf" as opposed to small d deaf meaning "audiologically deaf", ignoring Castock's verdict that there is no such thing and also ignoring to some extent the fact that Deaf adults are biculturally competent and so the behavior I'm describing doesn't typically happen when any hearing** people are around.
**I'm using "hearing" here to refer to culturally hearing people, which includes some audiologically deaf people and does not include many audiologically hearing people who are active members of deaf culture.
96: That kind of joke about German is funny! But if your joke is that you've only heard German spoken by Nazis in movies, it's probably not funny.
112 is unhelpful "what you really need is a Mac" style advice. Sorry. (Anyone who actually is in the market for a charcoal grill should consider that one, though.)
94: The joke here is that some people talk with their hands, right? Because they can't hear, ha ha?
Far as I can tell, there isn't a "joke." Kristin is simply trading on the fact that one of the enjoyable novelties about an unfamiliar language that will first attract people is how to curse in it; couple that with the visual niftiness of sign, her own girl-next-door cuteness, and (it would appear) the corrupt back-room machinations of the Bankster, et voila. Book deal. So I guess you could say the "joke" is the eternal one that it is fun to say dirty words. It's crass insofar as saying dirty words is, in the wrong circumstances, crass.
Like I said earlier, if she had done it all competently there would still be people slagging her off, but it would actually have been harder to find convincing reasons for that.
It occurs to me the "potty-signing" concept may carry an added frisson of naughtiness by its contrast with the relatively bloodless presentation of ASL in popular media. But my knowledge of that aspect of things isn't nearly comprehensive enough for that to be much more than speculation.
There are certainly people who can't tell a joke, in any language, and, as EM explains, Deaf people. Nearly anyone else ought to be able to get a laugh with a properly set up Vee Haff Vays.
Speaking of Germans, my son met his dorm roommate at orientation this week and the roommate's mother. He's a Black football player from Western Washington. She's a white Bavarian. What, exactly, are the odds of two American kids with undisclosed German mothers getting randomly paired? (Of course, one would render this in German as the dormroommatemsmothersnationalityoddsquestion.)
We've been grilling with natural gas the last 3 years -- you could probably count on one hand the times in that period we've cooked meat indoors, and we have some kind of meat 9 meals out of 10. Maybe 3 of four, and maybe you'd need both hands: 3 years is a long time. But I think the picture would be dramatically different if we were using charcoal.
Thanks very much for elaborating E.M.C.!
The least important part of all of this is the part that's got me stuck: how on earth does this shtick translate into a full-length book? I'm sure it's difficult to learn signs from a book, and that there is cumbersome-at-first notation that actual deaf people use, which is not going to appear here. I get that it's a gimmick book and not something that people sit down to read, but still. It's not a hollow storage place for your valuables.
121- Most ASL books use line drawings (like this or this) which is relatively ineffective as a way to demonstrate what the signs should actually look like. I'm guessing Kristin's would use still photographs (more like this) but generally videos (or live people) work way better.
Farting and other bathroom type activities are absolutely included.
I was mostly thinking that no matter how crowded the elevator, you'd never feel safe about letting go. I'd need a new hobby.
Not if it's an elevator at Gallaudet...
I've also forgotten whether and how much noise a lot of things make. And how far away people can be and still hear different things. This mostly comes up when I want to talk shit about someone else and have to spend a few minutes in a warm-up conversation about whether or not anyone else can hear me now? What about now? Okay if I talk like this can Molly hear it? All right so anyway...
"how much noise a lot of things make"
i'm going to buy earplugs when i'll move into a studio, the smaller the space the more impact it would have any unwanted noise i guess
for now i utilize the aircon noise to mask theirs tv sounds in the evenings
113.lastish: In deaf culture this is really rude; you should never leave a conversation without telling the other participants where you are going and whether or not you will be back. Hearing people think it is very weird if you follow the deaf norms. Deaf people think it is really irritating if you don't.
I hope I'm not being obnoxious in referring again to the period during which I was kind of deaf, but I learned/realized so much during that time; it was very interesting.
Among the things realized was that yes, hearing people hear almost-inaudible sounds that indicate to them (even if subconsciously) that other people are around, and roughly where they are. You hear your housemate going into the bathroom, or putting the kettle on the stove for tea, or going upstairs or outdoors, and you keep track of the general whereabouts of these other people in your vicinity, whether you realize it or not. It is very different not to hear or be aware of that, and I certainly see that explaining one's intentions ('I'm going over there for half an hour or so') is the civilized thing to do.
125: I'm amazed at how very noisy the world has gotten since I got the hearing aid. There's all sorts of high frequency stuff all around that's incredibly annoying. Computers have fans, there's traffic a block away, and news/paparazzi helicopters are enraging.
there are, i learnt, hearing aids that use some kind of wifi mode to cut the noise, i'm looking for one for my father he doesn't use his hearing aid too complaining of the general noisiness, though he hears well when we talk on the phone, must be the same principle works for the hearing amplifiers as in the phones, the frequencies maybe are the same i guess
the period during which I was kind of deaf
But you weren't kind of in a deaf cultural situation. You were still hanging out with hearing people. You didn't magically learn new cultural norms all by yourself.
I'm not trying to be obnoxious either, but having an ear infection (or only being able to hear in one ear, or having gone to too many loud rock shows, or going on a trip to France and not understanding anyone) is really not equivalent to being unable to understand speech sounds, which in turn doesn't have anything to do with belonging to a minority culture that uses a minority language.
131 was grumpy. Sorry. You're right that sensitivity about lack of information is where many of the different norms originated. I do get bored of being told about how other people know just what I am going through when the hospital won't hire an interpreter because of that time they went to a foreign country and it was so frustrating not to know what everyone was saying! It's not the same thing.
"I'm not trying to be obnoxious either"
it's not about being obnoxious either ways i think, it's about self-acceptance, one can be different without perceiving self a' victim' of the fate, i guess
so the people who seem are insensitive and thoughtless about others' any kind of impairment could be perceived maybe less rude than the people "overly" paying attention to the differences, at least there is no any intention or thought to be rude or not in there
131, 132: I understand. It's not the same thing, and I don't at all think that I know what members of the deaf community go through. Still, my understanding of some small portion is a bit expanded now, for which I'm grateful.
131: belonging to a minority culture that uses a minority language.
Sometimes I think deaf culture is better, anyway. Even though I don't know it.
But now I'm worried that that will sound patronizing. It's not.
Well, I think it's weird to say one culture is better than another, generally, but also if you don't know it how could you possibly make that determination?
I guess the people who want to learn to swear in ASL without learning anything else of the language are the same people who went into some tattoo shop and said "Can you put this on my inner thigh? It means 'carpe diem' in Chinese!" They now have an inner thigh that is telling its privileged viewers "craunch a marmoset!" and, in subtext, "I am a moron." That someone is making money off of it is, yeah, gross, and unsurprising.
I just think it's nicer to be more attentive to one another. I might be being a hippie (of the type I know and love). I should stop now, because I think I'm digging myself a hole here.
Sometimes it's nice. Sometimes it's intrusive and controlling. Sometimes it leads to pressure to conform no matter what. As with any of the many other characteristics of any culture, there are positive and negative aspects and the whole is a lot more complex than "this one is better because people are more attentive".
"it's weird to say one culture is better than another"
agree with that, how it can be measured objectively, and people's judgements about how this or other thing especially some sort of art is better or worse seem to me strange too, somebody put into the whatever it is their efforts, so it deserves to be out there, liking it or not is individual of course
if it doesn't harm anybody actively i guess, to object to the harm is the matter of the perceived harmed side then, but any kind of pre-censorship seems like strange
and being attentiove also has its boundaries, to not becoming that, 'patronizing' on its excess
139: You are of course right. The fishbowl effect in attentiveness can be a horror.
hoho, it seems such a pretty wall of skipping/ignoring is building around here, it looks like kinda embarrassing even
maa, i can live with that, not the first time, to break the wind is what counts, for 'trolling' too i guess
137- one of my high school friends got the hanzi for "Szechuan shrimp" (or something) on her neck, on purpose. I always thought it would be extra hilarious if the characters turned out to actually mean "peace and enlightenment" instead.
"craunch a marmoset!" made me giggle until I cried.
English as She is Spoke, n'est-ce-pas?
140 -- i don't have any trouble getting all judgmental on cultures out at an extreme: antebellum Southern planters, SS guards, Rwandan genocidaires, etc.
I was just joking with my brother who is moving from Kansas City to North Carolina about the new BBQ norms.
I should say Charlotte NC which might, so far as I know, have a completely different BBQ culture from R/D. Not that they would go so far as to call any preparation of beef BBQ; I'm sure.
Is there an emerging consensus on whether tattoos gotten in the blush of ... something ... are regrettable or not? It may be too soon in the decades for that. There's a guy I see at the local small grocery I frequent who is the delivery guy for the regional potato chip company (Utz). He's recognizable for his entire-calf leg tattoo, since he always wears shorts, and he's muscularly attractive, and when I see him later in the day driving his Utz delivery truck -- which is kind of like a UPS truck in that it has no door on the driver side, so you can see him in full -- I always think, "Dude, did you ever think you'd be driving the Utz truck? Carry on."
Ah, yes. "Idiotisms and Proverbs", page 47.
Southern planters, SS guards, Rwandan genocidal government are culture? it seems to me they are something different
but one who is pro-censorship for whatever can become perhaps pretty easily a member of such organized "cultures", hypothetically speaking, given the right period for that, that will be just a matter of what the majority during that time thinks right, as if like one is susceptible to giving in to that, peer pressure or something to decide what is right or wrong and go along with that
Have you not seen Gone with the Wind?
And I may have this wrong, but I think the Rwandan genocide was much bigger than any government.
Anyway, law firms often talk about their culture, and one would certainly say that there's a biglaw culture in the US. I'm also willing to condemn aspects of such cultures.
maybe those can be considered not as cultures, but systems, organizations often not voluntary for their members
anyway the comment was about minority cultures, not majority organized powers
Hee hee, yes. To craunch a marmoset is a valuable phrase from English as She is Spoke, mentioned upthread.
I can think of one genuinely funny joke about sign language: the scene in Airplane where someone is doing an ASL simultaneous translation while some windbag bloviates on television. When he says something particularly ignorant, she switches to pantomiming jerking off.
Airplane also had a funny running joke -- speaking of rude humour about language -- with two Black guys on the plane who were monolingual Jive speakers. It turns out the only available interpreter is an old white lady. Sort of an early precursor of the now-cliche "rapping granny" gag.
156: I remember that. Maybe I should rewatch Airplane.
My hovercraft is full of eels. My nipples explode with delight.
Since today is Canada's high holiday, it is worth mentioning that Airplane! is based on an older movie called Zero Hour! which was in turn based on a CBC show called Flight into Danger. I happened to see Zero Hour! on late night TV once. The script was pretty much the same except that Airplane added the "And don't call me Shirley" stuff.
Didn't Ken Finkelman write Airplane 2?
(I am in Canadia right now semi-celebrating Canadia Day in a province that mostly doesn't give a shit.)
Airplane 2 wasn't in the same league as the first.
The best part of that joke in Airplane is that it's Barbara Billingsly.
The kids today don't know who that is.
Zero Hour! and the the CBC show were written by the then relatively unknown Arthur Hailey who was an RAF pilot in WWII. He later became a blockbuster novelist in the '60s and wrote Airport which had a lot of the same elements in it but reworked for a plot with a bomb. I may have linked its trailer here a while ago, but here it is again.
Grills: A friend of mine got a good gas one that Consumer Reports rated as superior to Weber. I think that it was made by a company called Blue Ember. He likes it a lot. (Apparently there are people on the internet complaining who say that they bought it solely because of the CR review.)
164: And by "the kids today," you mean me.
Oh. Right, "June Cleaver" makes sense to me, I just didn't remember who played her.
In the 60s, they understood June Cleaver in ways we can no longer understand.
Oh. Right, "June Cleaver" makes sense to me, I just didn't remember who played her.
And don't Call Me MaybeShirley?
Hey, I know you! You're Kareem Abdul Jabbar!
I knew Barbara Billingsley as the voice of "Nanny" on Muppet Babies but have never seen that Beaver show.
There was an episode that AWB would have really hated. The Beaver had a friend from a Spanish-speaking country and he wanted to give a greeting in Spanish. Eddie Haskel gave him the wrong phrase and the Spanish kid knifed the Beaver in retaliation.
A friend of mine, when he was young (about 8), met a native German speaker and decided to avail himself of the opportunity to learn a sentence in German. The sentence he chose was, of course:
There is an angry monkey in my pants; it bites and scratches.
In German, I think he learned it as:
Das ist eine böse affen in meiner hosen, sie beißt und kratzt.
which he carefully memorized and can repeat to this day, which I had occasion to confirm today.
He was unable to avoid the temptation, while seeing a lady in Germany, to use the one German sentence he knew.
Also, I assume you've all heard the Butterfly joke?
Probably there is some cultural bias implicit in the joke, that I can't perceive - but I found it funny, even though personally I dislike the sound of (and the mouthfeel of speaking) French much more that German.
I suppose you might like it because Eddie does get punished in the end. Or at least ostracized.
There's a really funny set of jokes in Spanish that doesn't really translate well to English. The protagonist is always a little boy, who's precocious and speaks in a high-pitched voice. An example:
[Kid runs into the kitchen after school] "Mamá, in school they call me Cabezón (big head)."
[Mom reaches out to hug the child, making a large circular motion of rubbing a huge head.] "Ay, pobrecito..."
This is hilarious in Spanish, I assure you.
176: He was just demonstrating that he knew the word "cleaver."
Vaguely related: what is the advantage, to a deaf person, of having TV with someone hand-signing in the corner, vs. having TV with subtitles? I would have thought subtitles would be less intrusive and would take less time to read (as well as being cheaper to do): am I wrong here?
Do they ever do hand-signing in the corner thing anymore?
When I was in training to be a rape crisis counselor, I was told not to expect that I could communicate with deaf clients via notepad because many people who are fluent in ASL aren't equally fluent in English. So that's my guess about the advantage of hand-signing, but of course I defer to Messily.
re: 184
In the UK, yes, there are lots of late night repeats on the BBC with signing.
185: well, I suppose that goes for non-deaf people as well; lots of people are functionally illiterate. Good point.
Also, I assume you've all heard the Butterfly joke?
Yeah, that is stupid. The -ling ending in Schmetterling is related to diminutives in English such as duckling and gosling. It can sound rather sweet, like in Liebling.
I mostly agree about with Benquo about French versus German, though there are some German accents that I find appalling.
187: It's harder for deaf people, because written English is essentially something they have to memorize wholesale, one word at a time. So it's much more common than functionally illiterate hearing people. From what I understand/I'm no expert.
Huh. Good point. If there are a lot of deaf people who can't communicate with the hearing world through speech or writing, no wonder they are developing a different culture...
So are there still U.S. tv shows with signing instead of closed captioning? I can't recall seeing anybody signing on TV since that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry was dating Marlee Matlin.
Literacy is an ongoing, serious problem in deaf education but I don't think that has much to do with the captioning/interpreter thing. (I don't think literacy is a worse problem in the UK than the US, for instance).
I don't actually know what drives this decision. I'm guessing money and infrastructure- live captioning can be done remotely with less prep time than live interpreting?
The French government has been dumping a ton of money into developing machine translation via avatar, with the goal of having avatars be able to sign news broadcasts etc. I have a friend who just finished a PhD funded by this, and he says that French deaf people have expressed almost no interest in the whole thing, are happy with captions, and would much rather have live interpreters anyway (not that they're anywhere near having functional avatars).
I'm guessing money and infrastructure- live captioning can be done remotely with less prep time than live interpreting?
And you don't need to hire someone who knows sign language; anyone can type out captions.
are there still U.S. tv shows with signing instead of closed captioning?
No
I can't recall seeing anybody signing on TV since that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry was dating Marlee Matlin.
You obviously don't watch enough TV.
193- well, not live. People talk far far faster than anyone can type; captioners use the same "computer assisted real time" technology (referred to as CART, usually) that court reporters use, with the sound-based steno machines and stuff. CART captioners make a ton of money, if anyone is interested in an exciting new career.
I watch mostly little kid TV and reruns of Columbo.
The great but also hilarious thing about CART is that the "computer assisted" part involves telling your machine ahead of time which words you think you will be using. (because tons of strings of English syllables could be parsed as multiple different strings of words). Then if anyone says anything unexpected you get very strange substitutions of things that sound sort of similar but aren't, at all.
I mean, Marlee Matlin has been on other TV shows. Including Blue's Clues. And I saw an episode of a cartoon on PBS that had people signing in it but you couldn't actually really understand the animations very well.
I just finished watching the entire first season of "Switched at Birth" on Hulu. (shut up, I'm on summer vacation). It is not that great of a show, sort of sappy high school family drama, but it is by far the best TV I've ever seen for dealing with deafness. There are a lot of deaf characters, played by actual real live deaf actors, and they have other deaf people doing consulting and training about ASL, and even more deaf people doing some of the writing.
I'm pretty sure she hasn't been on any reruns of Columbo though.
After Steve died of a heroin overdose, I had to quit watching Blue's Clues.
My job that I try not to discuss online is basically CART and it's interesting to see what the computer thinks I say but often incredibly frustrating too.
Well, I have some good news for you! Unless you hate Blue's Clues.
I do hate Blue's Clues. Plus, the boy is now six.
201: If possible, could you somehow arrange it so when the local news guy says "And now for our Action Weather Team," the caption says "Next up, the Storm Fuckers."
204: What is good programming for a six-year-old? So far Nia likes Phineas & Ferb and they'll probably both want to watch My Little Pony since they play with the toys. Probably Doc McStuffins if I can find it, because black female protagonist is a plus....
205: I don't do tv captioning, which presumably pays better than what I do. What I do cover is specific enough to my company and our competitor that I don't feel comfortable talking about it, which is kind of stupid since I'm fb friends with half of unfogged and it's not as if this is a secret. But not talking about what I produce has been a rule of the internet for a long time for me and I haven't quite overcome it yet.
We watch a Phineas and Ferb and Avatar (the cartoon). We also watch, thanks to Netflix, a whole bunch of really horrible kid shows from the 90s. I had no idea there were like seven different version of the Power Rangers.
207: 205 wasn't the most serious request ever.
not talking about what I produce has been a rule of the internet for a long time for me
Now if only someone would explain that rule to Andrew Sullivan
I don't particularly like My Little Pony, but it has one gigantic advantage over almost every other cartoon. Since almost every character of significance is a girl, you have girl modeling a range of different behaviors, rather than a single girl character who has to be the examplar of Girlness, i.e. The Chick.
211: Mara's watched a few episodes and I do think the stuff about friend dynamics is good enough to make it useful, especially once the girls start having more difficulty getting along. I absolutely agree about the girl aspect, too.
The only thing all three of us liked was Shaun the Sheep and we haven't started Nia on that yet but should soon. They girls really don't watch much tv but since Lee's watching it all the time, I feel like it's only fair to let them have a little screen time when they want it.
I don't particularly like My Little Pony, but it has one gigantic advantage over almost every other cartoon. Since almost every character of significance is a girl, you have girl modeling a range of different behaviors, rather than a single girl character who has to be the examplar of Girlness, i.e. The Chick.
You really need to get your kid(s) watching Powerpuff Girls. That show was great.
213: At this point, I'm trying to keep Nia away from anything that involves too much punching and I think I had a kneejerk pacifist response to the Powerpuff Girls when they first came out. I'll keep it in mind, though.
Quick - good gift for a high-energy kid turning four?
Not a real one. The toy ones are great. Technology has really improved since 1977.
215: Mara got a scooter for her birthday and that was a huge hit. She's really been eyeing the pogo stick the boys next door have, but I'm trying to delay that.
What about book recs? I know I said he was high energy but ignore that.
Dr. Seuss's "Oh the people who you'll ignore after you get to the top" is good. Also, Dahl's stuff.
I may be thinking of things for a slightly older kid.
Lego Duplo. It's not a book, though.
She's really been eyeing the pogo stick the boys next door have, but I'm trying to delay that.
Thorn lives in Perfection, NV.
223: Lego actually makes (commissions? shits out?) comic books based on its pieces. Not perhaps the Duplo ones.
Berenstein Bears? I can't think of what books target 4 year old boys. Dahl seems too old.
Danny and the Dinosaur is good for boys that age. They all like dinosaurs.
You can also find novelizations of Thomas the Tank Engine shows.
226: The Berenstain Bears suck. Alex liked Stop That Pickle, Go Away, Big Green Monster!, and those Bug in a Box books we talked about the other day. (Bugs in Space is a big hit right now with both Mara and Nia.) Pop-out books are good. Jan Pienkowski's are incredible, but sometimes a little scary. Both Dinner Time and Little Monsters are scary/awesome for that age.
But mostly mine just demanded Batman comics (there's a kiddie version).
229 should have had an exclamation mark in Stop That Pickle! but didn't.
For a first chapter book, we've always gone with My Father's Dragon.
Plus the parents are super-judgmental and the decision is stupidly fraught because inevitably whatever I do will feed their opinion of my flaws. I found a batman book and went with it.
Everybody loves Batman.
What am I, chopped liver?
The Berenst[e]in Bears suck.
I'm curious to know if anyone has fond memories of them. They seemed so completely bland when I was a kid that I couldn't tell you a thing about them.
I have no memories of them at all.
Jammies' sister loved the hell out of them and bought us a ton. Hawaii likes them, especially the ones about going to the doctor or dentist. I tolerate them.
A book series I DO NOT recommend is Ivy & Bean. (An unlikely choice for boys, but I will take this opportunity anyway.) Although the protagonists are 7, the books have been a big hit with several 4-year-olds I know. Bean is a pale imitation of Ramona and the books are tedious, long, and not terribly well written.
Everybody loves Batman.
It's like the Turkish equivalent of Midland, TX.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman,_Turkey
Everybody loves Batman
Wherein Bruce Wayne gets married and settles down in a mansion across the street from his in-laws.
228
You can also find novelizations of Thomas the Tank Engine shows
I think this is supposed to be a joke, but what with this being the internet I can't tell.
Not a real one. The toy ones are great. Technology has really improved since 1977.
The Berenst[e]in Bears suck.
They seemed so completely bland when I was a kid that I couldn't tell you a thing about them.
I assure you it's spelled Berenstain, because one thing about them is they sure aren't Jewish.
243: They could be Jews for Jesus. It's a free country.
241 seems to be implying that Thomas The Tank Engine was a book before it was a show, but this being the internet I can't tell.
243: Yeah I was just puzzling over that spelling lately... and so, wikipedia. It looks like Stan Berenstain was in fact Jewish, and Jan was Episcopalian (and I guess wore the spiritual authorial pants).
IN TODAY'S WORLD OF TED TALKS AND TEDDY BEARS BANGING PROSTITUTES ON THE BIG SCREEN HEEBIE YOUR FRIEND"S CHILD NEEDS SPIRITUALLY POSITIVE BEAR ROLE MODELS NOW MORE THAN EVER
Babar, of course. Also useful for introducing the ideal of a well ordered socialist monarchy.
BABAR PRESENTS OLD-FASHIONED COLONIALISM AND PATERNALISM IN LORD RATAXES A RACIST PORTRAYAL OF OUR MENTALLY SIMPLISTIC AND OSTENTATIOUS PUPPET DESPORTS
That shows me for presuming to correct someone else's comments. Up until now, I was unaware that a -stain surname existed.
241 seems to be implying that Thomas The Tank Engine was a book before it was a show, but this being the internet I can't tell.
They were indeed. We had them growing up, but I think they were sent to us from English friends.
Yes, they were books first. I wasn't being sarcastic or anything. I couldn't tell if Moby was being serious or not about them being novelisations. They were and are very popular children's books in the UK, but it's possible they're not very well known as books across the pond.
Thomas appeared in book form in 1946, according to the pedia thing. Certainly I remember him well from childhood. Incidentally, Wilbert Awdrey (his author), is a name to conjour with.
250: And I showed you my sports bra and everything.
My kids had the original Thomas books. Very attractive little objects -- interestingly proportioned, little bits of marginal art, and so on.
250: I wasn't offended and was just spelling it as I remembered it, for whatever it's worth.
Incidentally, Wilbert Awdrey (his author), is a name to conjour with.
Not trying to BALB, honest, but is "conjour" a typo or the British spelling of "conjure"?
259: I wonder how those are handled in Deaf culture.
241: There are the old books, but there are new ones that are clearly taken from the TV show (i.e. instead of drawn images they are stills from the show). But, mostly it was a joke.
213: Not surprisingly, the showrunner for My Little Pony also worked on the Powerpuff Girls (and is married to their creator).
CODE 741 -- KNOWLEDGE REFERENCE INDICATES POTENTIAL BRONY, REF. COMMENT 262.
I think one of my brothers might be a brony. My stepdad was appalled a few weeks ago to find him sprawled across the couch watching the tv show (he's 23). Are there any other signifiers I should be looking for?
I think one of my brothers might be a brony. My stepdad was appalled a few weeks ago to find him sprawled across the couch watching the tv show (he's 23). Are there any other signifiers I should be looking for?
You mean, other than the fact that he watches My Little Pony? I think you can stop looking for signifiers, given that you've found the signified.
Well, maybe that time was just an accident.
(this is way better ASL than most of the "ASL version of Pop Song" things that are out there)
but it is by far the best TV I've ever seen for dealing with deafness.
I'm glad to know this (though I'm guessing it's a relatively low bar to clear); I'm fairly addicted to it (I'm a sucker for teenage drama/romance) and was wondering how it played to a deaf person.
I'm curious to know if anyone has fond memories of them.
Me. I particularly loved the Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room and I can still recall the illustrations from it. I envied them their pegboard to hang their toys from, oh, how I envied them. (So, maybe the obsession with putting things away has a deeper source than just Montessori.)
(Also, I never got a chance to comment again on this thread but I do think obsessive tidiness is a way of compensating for a shitty memory of where you put things - or at least, it is in my case.)
Also, I just looked them up on Amazon and am currently happily remembering them all. The time they watched too much tv! The time they ate too many sweets! Oh, man. Good stuff. (Or, incredibly didactic moral lessons that for some reason I loved as a kid.)
I also loved the the Berenstains books as a kid. I think as much as anything it was that they got to live in a treehouse.
A different take on Thomas the Tank Engine.
Henry is kind of whiny in general.
(this is way better ASL than most of the "ASL version of Pop Song" things that are out there)
What's your take on this one?
Mediocre. It's pretty good for students, but they are obviously students, not fluent signers.
I might have linked this one before but it's my favorite so I'll link it again.
It's fun to watch good CART being done. (Bad CART is not fun to watch at all.) My experience is that they are happy when someone gives them the correctly spelled names of all participants, odd acronyms to watch for, or (and I am sure this thrills them) an advance copy of a speech.
The best CART I have seen has been, unsurprisingly, at meetings of the US Access Board. I often use it myself to check what I have just heard.
