Hey, when are you changing the hover text to "A Matthew Yglesias Fansite"?
BTW, I think the waist is between the belly button and hips, which would make Lucy Mangan a Barbie doll, but I think she must think differently.
Ooh, she uses 'comprise' correctly. [swoon]
The waist, mes freres, can be found above the belly button. Ms. Mangan is omitting measurements for what goes above the waist.
I'm confused because I'm finding things that say the waist is about an inch above the hip bone, but my belly button is about an inch (maybe two) above my hip bone.
I think you're to regard the place that the trunk narrows (if it narrows) as the waist -- this is usually somewhere in the region just below the rib-cage. You will often find a person broadening again somewhere below that -- in the case of love handles, in the neighborhood of the navel; in the case of hips, below the belly-button.
Think of empire-waisted dresses, if it helps you imagine the waist being higher.
Anyway, doesn't Lucy Mangan read this blog? She can say for herself.
Those numbers do seem a little... pear-shaped.
Just below the rib-cage? Surely this is madness. Isn't the waist where you bend at?
Slol, that sounds right, but if you look at this safe for work, but not exactly sexy picture, you'll see what most guys are accustomed to thinking of as their waist.
Mebbe not for measurement purposes.
Or maybe boys and girls bend at different places.
Another picture, still lower than Slol says, but this page agrees with slol.
(I don't think Mangan reads the site.)
Or maybe boys and girls bend at different places.
Yep. Boys bend ATM.
Ok, can we just stipulate that this is correct?
(But then I again have no idea what the difference between waist and belly-button is supposed to be.)
can we just stipulate that this is correct?
And hott?
what most guys are accustomed to thinking of as their waist
Well, yes: I think Weiner's right, and the Tannery is right, and Ms. Mangan is not a guy.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that you won't find the waist in Gray's Anatomy; it's not an agreed-upon place like the Islets of Langerhans, but rather a notional region like the doldrums. Only much more interesting.
slol is insane.
And your justification for this slur in this case would be...?
[sigh]
OED:
The portion of the trunk of the human body that is between the ribs and the hip-bones; the middle section of the body, normally slender in comparison with the parts above and below it.
I think he meant you were insane for being about to go to the OED.
Belly button placement on men and women is also different; iirc, relative to the rest of the trunk, it's higher on men.
So I'm imagining that she's rather pear-shaped, but that most of the pear starts down further-- 29'' is rather slim for a waist.
Yes, mine was a predictive diagnosis.
I thought that, for women, the waist was the narrowest point around between the hips and the rib cage.
On me, my waist is about two inches above my belly button.
Yes, I just ran to the mirror and looked.
My roommate in highschool had a 22" waist--that was small. But her hips were wider than mine.
Indeed, that was the well-known sigh-of-recognizing-but-being-unable-to-forestall-an-act-of-insanity.
I guess in this calculation you look at the narrowest spot. But by the bendy criterion, I think of the waist as just above where the hips begin; often the narrowest spot, because it's where I've pulled my belt in. (Note again that boys and girls differ.) Cala, are you going for narrowness or bendiness or both?
Narrowness. If I bend from the waist it's really right above the hips (you can kind of curl higher, but if you touch your toes, it's hip-area motion.) But my 'waist' if I were to measure it for jeans, or to know where a beltline was below my waist, would be the thinnest part.
But I really think women's belly buttons are lower in general. I can wear pants that cover my belly button without looking ridiculous, but most guys would look like Urkel.
Is it Urkel or Erkel? I knew someone who went skiing with the actor and said that he was a very cool un-nerdy guy. Of course, I suppose that most actors are different from their characters, but she felt the need to point that out.
Urkel for the character, Erkel for Hungarians. Who win. Shame!
Balki Bartokomous is a superhero.
Older men's suit styles had the waist at or above the belly button--the waist is a fungible concept.
29-39-41 is still weird, just for the quick jump.
Not so much, it's just someone hourglassy (or pear-shaped, depending on the shoulders and bust) with wide-ish hips. Not even all that wide, depending on how tall she is.
Someone was talking about the waist-to-hip ratio beloved of physical anthropologists recently here: isn' t .7 supposed to be pretty ideal?
Weird indeed. Makes me wonder if Grimace writes columns for the Gaurdian now.
LB: I was assuming that 29 was waists and and 39 was the navel measurement. If she's my height, that means a ten-inch circumference change in a two-inch vertical change. I'm going to go find a tape measure. Maybe it's not so weird.
LizardBreath--it was the link in 30. The way the (female! I must emphasize that) physical anthropologists told it to me, lower is better for women--0.7 is considered extremely good but below is even more hottt. By scientific standards.
Again, if she's hourglassy and her navel is set between her hip-bones, so at the widest point of her torso, that's not all that weird.
Based on those measurements, she's not skinny, but there's a fair chance depending on other factors that she's still teh hott.
So. (One of my very thin friends measures out at 0.69.)
O comrades! (What is it?)
O comrades! (What is it?)
Have your girlfriends large buttocks? (They certainly have!)
36-24-36 is .66. I guess that's considered classic.
29-41 is .7. Lucy Mangan ain't got too much to worry about.
O Cala! You are not, shall we say, rounding off properly. .67 and .71, respectively.
Is your butt-detection such that it can detect a .01 ratio difference?
I think not.
(My tape measure experiments lead me to conclude that I have no hips.)
Here's Lucy's sepia bust. Not inconsistent with teh hott.
Standpipe, why are you trying to steal my thunder?
Standpipe, you and I do not have the same definition of "bust."
Cala, this is important. We need the most accurate numbers we can get.
Was that misleading? Oh dear me. Someone show me to the naughty commenters' box.
Michael—sorry to step on your toes. From my perspective our comments were simultaneous, so probably one of us is traveling at near light speed relative to the other.
I think that could be a mission for you, MW. Take the tape measure with you to a bar. Measure teh hott ones. Publish a paper on vagueness and heap-y midriffs.
And liveblog it, of course.
36-24-36 is .66. I guess that's considered classic.
But not, as you know, ogged's type.
Someone show me to the naughty commenters' box.
That should be "commenter's," and if you can't find your own way there I don't know that we're obliged to help you.
54: Um, yes.
slol: The title of that post is "I am not Ogged".
Matt: There's only one naughty commenter?
Someone show me to the inadequately naughty commenters' box
Yes, but the discussion appended thereto investigates ogged's type with the usual fineness of mind.
Don't have a tape measure on hand, but I am sure that there would be a difference of several inches between measuring at my "waist" (narrowest point) which is probably 2 inches above my belly button.
I think the waist-bellybutton distinction is an hourglassy thing, like LB said.
A straw poll:
How naughty?
[ ] More
[ ] Less
More.
And the idea was, each naughty commenter has at most one box.
I can't invite any other commenters into my box?
I thought you were using a hockey metaphor.
Yeah, I think my surprise was due to my apparent lack of hippage/very straight torso. I have a thin waist, but not an über-defined one.
So when MW goes around the APA with his tape measure, I have nothing to fear.
To sum up: I was using a hockey metaphor, and Matt was not, and when I realized what Matt was on about, I stupidly confused one-to-one and onto in an effort to make a joke about sex.
Cala, I must regretfully say that as I post under my own name it would not be prudent for me to respond to 66.
I'm still trying to work out what happens when you confuse one-to-one and onto....
You pass to the opposite category, is what happens.
35: When my upstairs neighbor got evicted, Balki Bartokomous paid his final rent—true story.
No, no, I am wrong again. Let R relate commenters and boxes. Matt's requirement was that xRy and xRz implies y = z. In other words, R is a partial function. This is manifestly not the same as requiring xRz and yRz to entail x = y, though it does make sense that each commenter would have a distinct box. Whether each box has a commenter is yet another thing entirely.
Ok, just measured myself, for reference. Waist (defined girlishly, as the narrowest part of the torso) 30"; hips 37". Ratio: .81.
defined girlishly
So now the OED is a girl?
Seet mistress OED, she sets me to obsessive thumbing.
I feel like that guy in Proof, only stupider and less dead.
I've never seen a self-flagellating bridge plate before.
We should restore equilibrium by complimenting SB. And without reference to 64....
.76 here. I think I read somewhere once that greater than .8 was baddddd for a woman, in terms of heart disease.
I've never seen a self-flagellating bridge plate before.
Really, never?
Not even once?
I do not need complimented. I need BRANES.
Re: 81
IIRC that's the line between being a 'pear' (good) and an 'apple' (bad) in terms of heart disease. For men it's at 1.0.
Yes, the top hits for WHR all explain it as a health indicator. This is so, so wrong.
(OK, if we're using the 'narrowest point' definition how can you get a 1.0?)
if we're using the 'narrowest point' definition how can you get a 1.0
Narrowest point above the hips.
But if your body is continuous you can't exceed 1.0, in any case. (Refraining from dumb jokes about necks.)
The OED is pretty thick through the middle for a girl.
Here's a guy who is thicker at any point in is torso than he is in his hips.
I think the 'narrowest point' definition should really be 'narrowest point above the hips when the person measured is of normal weight'. If the same person gets fat, their waist doesn't move up or down, it just becomes harder to figure out where it should have been.
Older men's suit styles had the waist at or above the belly button--the waist is a fungible concept.
I don't think "fungible" is the right word here.
I'm not understanding the confusion; if your waist is bigger than your hips, the ratio will be greater than 1.0. You will look like you have no waist, so you measure where your waist would have been if you had one.
"Frangible" is probably also wrong, as is "fungo".
"Funicular" isn't even close.
That's white I mean—I thought guys were exempt from having hips. If it's just white dudes, I'm cool with that.
Surely there's something holding your legs onto your torso? (My apologies if I'm speaking to an amputee-American.)
Armsmasher's old blog banner famously showed him peeing against a wall. I think you need legs for that.
But his new blog banner has...no legs!
Legs? Torso? Your bodies have more than suit-top?
So, first he was pissed, and now he's legless? Smasher, have you considered cutting back on the drinking?
I don't think "fungible" is the right word here.
Fine. You're right. Mutable.
Wait, his new blog banner isn't showing up for me no more. (Clickety click.) Oops, looks like sans-silencio is sans remembering to renew their registratio.
90: But the only sensible place to measure his waistline is at the drawstring of the sweatpants, and that is just that one micron smaller than his hips.
93: Where your waist is in the nearest possible world?
96: Hipless = apple-shaped in this schema. There's no provision for banana shape, or dumbbell shape.
101: If Google Images were any good at all I'm sure a search for "amputee wall peeing" would counterexample that ass.
Am I not morally required to worry about the health and pear-shaped ness of my counterparts?
Can everyone else see the header pictures? I get placeholder page that says, "Welcome to: www.sans-silencio.com. This Web page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com!"
109: Hey, I thought we agreed that was my job.
Oh, counter parts. Nemmine.
I can see them. If you just tell us where you're logging in from, SB, we might be able to help you.
Misprising the antecedent of 'them' in 112,
I see livers, I see hearts,
I see Cala's counterparts
I'm logging in from you-know-where.
Small world, SB. Now put on your pants and let's get some dinner.
I have no clue where all those pictures are stored. But I wasn't peeing in that picture.
Sweet. See you in five.
114-117:
I saw that happen once, in 1989. I was doing some work in an MIT computer cluster, with two other people I knew logged in at other workstations. The both turned around and said "Is that you!?" -- turned out they had, unbeknownst to each other, been playing the same MUD using psuedonyms and had started discussing a mutual acquaintance (who had done some of the programming of the MUD) online. After the conversation went on for a couple of minutes, they realized that they knew each other in real life, and then that they were sitting in the same room. But the internet was smaller then. (What's really sad is that I can tell a story this geeky, and still have basically no computing/programming chops myself.)
SB, I think 119 puts you back in the inadequately naughty commenters' detention area....
If you can't be bothered to wonder why I needed five minutes to put my pants back on, it's not my fault.
OK, pants on. Let's go.
I was wondering, but couldn't manage to wonder funnily, so I kept mum.
Is it something to do with your WHR?
Under the theory of the joke, shouldn't you know?
I need to give ogged a tutorial in complicity.
Even knowing would have to be funny, people.
Note also that I seem to have taken over Ben's role (modulo the fact that SB may not be one of the girls).
Is it something to do with your WHR?
No, with my NUN.
Not to break up the party, but Hurricane Rita looks like it's going to be a bitch.
Yeah. Buzzkill city.
So, I don't actually get 131....
I'm thinking of some steamed mussels with wine, herbs, and linguica, casserole of calf's heart à bonne femme, a light salad, and maybe vanilla ice cream drizzled with ice-cold homemade limoncello.
My crazy-ass mother-in-law from my first marriage was named Rita. I'm very, very frightened by this storm.
Apparently you're either a NUN or a WHR, or yet some third extreme possible in Weinerspace.
w-lfs-n, are you proud that you know the name to be urkel? man, i think you are in need of as much help as ogged.
Ah! Well struck, sir or madam as the case may be. (Thus discharging my obligation in 80.)
Nothing feels better than a discharged obligation, I think. When a hypothetical judgment comes together, I look around too see if anyone's watching, and say, "ahhhhh".
Homemade limoncello?
Is that like the "homemade peppermint schnapps" some fratboys I knew made once? (Open Bottle of Everclear. Chug two swallows. Pour in bottle of peppermint extract. Place thumb over mouth of Everclear bottle. Shake. Reopen. Enjoy.)
I'm thinking of some steamed mussels with wine, herbs, and linguica, casserole of calf's heart à bonne femme, a light salad, and maybe vanilla ice cream drizzled with ice-cold homemade limoncello.I'm thinking of some steamed mussels with wine, herbs, and linguica, casserole of calf's heart à bonne femme, a light salad, and maybe vanilla ice cream drizzled with ice-cold homemade limoncello.
Is that a nice thing to think about while eating your Campbell's Chicken Noodle?
I had miso soup, altered to nice effect by adding a little mushroom broth, a seared swordfish steak in a citrus-ginger-cilantro sauce, and a little side salad.
Is that a nice thing to think about while eating your Campbell's Chicken Noodle?
Actually, today I ate some delicious carnitas tacos in a divey mexican joint near a butcher that claims to be able to special-order calf's heart (though they have pig's on hand), and two great-seeming produce markets. God bless you, people of chowhound!
