Re: Some gentle reminders

1

I understand exactly what you mean about wanting to kill inconvenient people, but dude, only sociopaths don't like dogs.


Posted by: JSM | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:17 AM
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You're totally right. I love dogs, but I have friends who hate to run when there are unleashed dogs around.


Posted by: FL | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:18 AM
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Few things have engendered borderline homocidal rages in me more often than people with their stupid fucking cell phones. I sure hope they cause brain tumors.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:23 AM
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One of the few exceptions, I guess.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:26 AM
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It is one of the exceptions, yes. I hate those things.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:29 AM
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One of the few things that brings on homicidal rages in me is seeing people mistreat animals. At the same time, I don't much like dogs (as in an "I don't want to own one" sense, not that I object to other people having them). So I guess I am still a sociopath.


Posted by: silvana | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:30 AM
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c) If you own a dog, it should be leash-trained. This does not, I should point out, mean that you put it on one of those 100 foot measuring-tape-like retractable leashes and let it dart all over the path where it can trip up bicyclists, rollerbladers, and joggers. It means you train the dog to heel.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:30 AM
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I can heartily recommend the sentence "Excuse me; I have to tell you that if your dog comes too close to my son I will kill it" as a way of starting the most interesting conversations.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:36 AM
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I'll go you one further - if you love your dog you will keep it restrained for the same reason we teach our kids not to dart out in traffic.

As the supposed responsible adult in the situation one must do the responsible thing.

A local private "zoo" had an albino tiger that got loose and bit a little girl. The poor animal was put down to check for rabies (negative), and some people blamed the girl!

Screw that. If someone is going to keep a tiger then that someone takes complete responsibility for the care of the tiger.


Posted by: Tripp | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:37 AM
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We had to put my family's dog down a year ago after it bit my mom (non-seriously on the hand) because it was becoming possessive and aggressive and as sad as it was to send the dog away, it would have been nothing compared to how awful it would have been had the dog lashed out at someone else. A hundred-twenty pound dog that cannot be trusted is a liability.

Responsibility is a bitch sometimes.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:52 AM
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I am with dsquared, I used to live next to a de facto dog park and those dogs were always scaring my kids. I was always getting mentally prepared to kill a dog if things took a turn for the worse.


Posted by: Joe O | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:04 AM
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For two years after I graduated from college, I rented a farmhouse with a long driveway way the hell out in the country. Neighbors were distant enough that we never really saw each other except at the mailbox. The neighbor, coincidentally, had two big dogs that ran free all the time. One of them, the only unfriendly black lab I'd ever met, would charge out at me any time I walked to the mailbox, teeth bared and barking. He never got any closer than about five or six feet, and I was confident that he wouldn't, but it was pretty annoying all the same.

This was a dirt road, and a big rut had formed in front of the mailbox, prompting the mailman to leave a note saying he wouldn't continue delivering our mail if I didn't fill it in. So one Saturday afternoon, I'm out with a shovel, filling in the rut, and that dog comes charging out again.

I snapped. Two years this had been going on, and this was the time I was going to kill it. I settled into a batter's stance with the shovel, preparing to knock that dog's brains out the side of its head. About that time, I heard a truck start coming down the road, so I lowered the shovel. It was the folks who owned the dog.

Had they been two minutes later turning onto the road, I'd have been beating their dog into an unrecognizable puddle as they crested the hill.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:15 AM
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Just another one of those exceptions.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:17 AM
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Jesus.


Posted by: Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:19 AM
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I've mellowed as I've aged, Ogged.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:21 AM
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Just admit that you're very laid back, for a homicidal maniac.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:22 AM
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That's what they tell me at the weekly meetings.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:35 AM
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When I was a youngling, early twenties, I drove over a cat in my neighborhood. I felt terrible. I knocked on a few doors until I found the owner.

I apologized, of course, and gave them 20 bucks for a new cat, knowing it could never replace the cat they had.

When I got back in my car the bastards had called the cops on me and I got arrested. Some trumped up charge about selling pussy for twenty bucks.


Posted by: Tripp | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 11:59 AM
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Hmph.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 12:26 PM
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That's a heartbreakingly sad story, apostropher.

Dogs are servile, shit-eating, emotional cripples. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 12:34 PM
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just to clear up a rather aggressive comment of mine above; I love dogs and would be highly unlikely to kill one. but I also enjoy making highly dramatised statements to antisocial people in order to clarify important but vague social norms.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 2:21 PM
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22

So collapsing in tears saying "Please, mister, don't kill my dog?" would be an inappropriate response?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 2:28 PM
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Here in London, where commuting hell was, I think born, aparticularly heinous bit of behavior involves talking at length and at an excessive volume while on a crowded train. A few weeks ago, some twat was blabbing away about how he was going to be late for some meeting, but he thought he'd call because it's the professional thing to do... And he repeats this over the course of four or five phone calls.

Everyone in my coach was getting annoyed,sighing loudly, etc., then one guy pipes up, in a voice that made it sound like he gargled with shards of glass (the Glasgow accent helped, too): "Would ye ever put the bloody phone in yer pocket and maybe play with yer other wee thing? The rrrest of us might not find that so fuckin' offensive."

You could all but hear the guys balls retreating into his abdomen. I doubt they've been seen since.


Posted by: peter snees | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 3:47 PM
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My vision is that perhaps a century from now, people like D^2 and apostropher will no longer feel required to unnaturally restrain their quite valid canicidal impulses. The abolition of slavery took generations, and so shall it be for the world I envision, within which Hitler's attitudes toward dogs and Jews are properly reversed.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 3:52 PM
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People will talk on their cell phones while seated in the quiet coach, in which there are, Lord help us, signs saying not to talk on your cell phones. Some such people are honestly oblivious; others, not.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 3:58 PM
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quite valid canicidal impulses

I should say that I love dogs and enjoy their company, particularly large dogs. I play with them the way I play with children and my friends' dogs are always happy to see me visit, as I give them more attention than most humans that don't live in the same house. However, when one exhibits unprovoked aggression, I think it only right and proper to remind it, with whatever force is required, of its proper place in the food chain.

I've not yet decided whether it is inappropriate to brain humans with a shovel for blatantly offensive cell phone misuse. So, don't force my decision prematurely, people. On a bad enough day, it's just possible that I will cook and eat you.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 4:11 PM
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[So collapsing in tears saying "Please, mister, don't kill my dog?" would be an inappropriate response?]

depends on the situation; in context it could be powerfully erotic.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 4:14 PM
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Mine is, as I said, a lonely position.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 4:35 PM
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I love dogs.

I love them as dogs, which means that I respect them as predators that are not very bright and that require a lot of attention and care and strict limits on what they are and are not allowed to do. I would say that the only thing worse that actively abusing a dog is failing to realise that it is a dog and behaving like you have a soppy four-year-old child with fur that all the world will adore no matter what it does.

People who cannot train and control their animal should not own one. It is sad to me that people who should own dogs are such a small percentage of the people who actually own dogs.


Posted by: winna | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 5:58 PM
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30

Proudly Dogfree threadjack in 5... 4... 3...


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 6:10 PM
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I yam prowd too say thta I haff no dogs and I yam sic of all thossse peepul saying I shoood get some. Catz rool! Doggs drool!


Posted by: watt meaner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 6:18 PM
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32

Sorry.

I didn't mean to be obnoxious.


Posted by: winna | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 6:52 PM
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33

Yeah, winna, we can't have obnoxiousness 'round here.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 6:58 PM
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34

Oh god no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean you to take this as a personal attack. It just reminded me of old fun times, so I took the opportunity to be silly about it. If I was making fun of anyone it was the PC people who were all posting from the same basement.

I mean, obviously you are not Proudly Dogfree yourself (and I don't have a dog--I in fact do think that cats rule and dogs drool) and I'm sympathetic to the idea that if you have a dog you should be able to control it. Dogs aren't like children in that way.


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 7:00 PM
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35

The thing that makes me homicidal is when people who are younger than I am call me "buddy." The bitch of the situation is that part of what makes me homicidal about this is the fact that the guy doing it is invariably a lot bigger than I am and in fact seems to be acting on the theory that when a size differential is big enough it becomes a de facto age and status differential as well. But it's precisely for that reason that I can't get homicidal on him. Life is so tough sometimes.

Also, cats rule.


Posted by: pjs | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 7:34 PM
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The thing that makes me homicidal is when people who are younger than I am call me "buddy."

I routinely address my peers as "kids". "Hey, kids", I'll say. Or even "howdy, children". I'm very well-liked.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 7:46 PM
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36: Crap, I do that too. Then I realize that most of my friends are older than I am. But yet, I'm still doing it...


Posted by: silvana | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:02 PM
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38

One of my bosses calls me "kid".

I h8 it.


Posted by: Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:08 PM
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At a restaurant today, the waiter was calling me "boss." That's also no good.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:10 PM
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pjs, you might try saying, "Buddy? Like, 'buttbuddy'?" Then they'll wonder if there's a secret "I'm gay" message in the use of "buddy" that they haven't heard about, and they'll never call you buddy again.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:12 PM
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I wish somebody viewed me as young enough to call kid. Not even retirees do now. I was watching the game Monday night and when I realized I'm a year older than Brett Favre, I felt very old indeed.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:14 PM
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42

chief. teh hate.


Posted by: tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:14 PM
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43

36: me, too.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:24 PM
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44

Stop whining, boys. "Boss" and "chief" are better than "sweetie" or "hon".


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:27 PM
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45

Are you kidding? I'm a big fan of being called "sweetie" and "hon" by waitresses.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:28 PM
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I don't mind it from waitresses. I was thinking of the coffee guy in my building who keeps telling me to quit my job and have lots of babies.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:30 PM
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47

"Hon" and "sweetie" are OK under certain circumstances: from diner waitresses, most Southerners, and nice dirty old men (minimum age 65).


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:32 PM
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I'm sensing a consensus that I should stop addressing people whose names I don't know as "Sport" and "Ace". This bothers people?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:32 PM
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49

Unsolicited life advice is almost always not ok.

You don't really do that, do you LB?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:33 PM
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50

Nah. Pretty much only people whose names I do know, but am choosing not to use at the time.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:36 PM
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51

"Sweetcheeks" for a secretary is still OK, right?


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:43 PM
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sport and ace are ok. they're from the 50's. boss and chief are from the 1850's, and therefore, not ok.

not ok: hon, sweetie, sugar

ok: sugarpie, honeychild, sweetlips

not ok: chief, boss, buddy

ok: sport, ace, tiger


Posted by: tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:45 PM
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Really, sticking with "babycakes" is safer, Mac.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:46 PM
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I'm sensing a consensus that I should stop addressing people whose names I don't know as "Sport" and "Ace".

You can continue to address strangers as "Sport" and "Ace," but only when dressed as a plucky street urchin or a chimney sweep. Which isn't to say more people shouldn't go around dressed as plucky street urchins and chimney sweeps.


Posted by: Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:50 PM
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I really have no use for names like this. Either you warrant a "babe" or you don't. This rule applies equally to men and women.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:52 PM
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56

I believe plucky street urchins and chimney sweeps are required by law to address strangers as "guv'nor".


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:54 PM
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Meiner Meinung nach, being from the 1850s is more ok-making than being from the 1950s. Also doesn't Jay Gatz call a bunch of people "sport"? My dim recollection is that he predates the 1950s.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:54 PM
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You can continue to address strangers as "Sport" and "Ace," but only when dressed as a plucky street urchin or a chimney sweep.

Shouldn't have to cramp my style at all, then.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:55 PM
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I thought the appropriateness of "Sport" and "Ace" depended entirely on haberdashery.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:57 PM
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And then burst into song after picking your pocket.


Posted by: Matt F | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:57 PM
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Also, I would like to declare a moratoriaum on "Big Guy." This is only used by stupid people in positions of authority to patronize those under their power in moments of duress. Ex: "Easy there, Big Guy! If it was THAT important it wouldn'ta been flammable, right?"


Posted by: Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:57 PM
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that's to 56


Posted by: Matt F | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 8:58 PM
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I believe plucky street urchins and chimney sweeps are required by law to address strangers as "guv'nor".

This will be a problem for Gavroche.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:00 PM
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At least we don't have a President who talks to people like this. There's some solace in that.


Posted by: pjs | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:02 PM
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"Big Guy" is doubly cruel because, as a result of our heightist society, most of its targets are short.


Posted by: Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:11 PM
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I just call everybody bitch. Nobody's complained yet.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:13 PM
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I call everyone shortie, cause that's how i roll, bitch.


Posted by: tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:16 PM
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I would like there to be a rule that, if what you know about a person is limited to what you can read off their credit card receipt, you are not allowed to call them by their first name, ever.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:26 PM
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And especially not a nickname, like "Pipette."


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:29 PM
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or "crutches"


Posted by: Matt F | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:31 PM
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Also doesn't Jay Gatz call a bunch of people "sport"?

Sort of. I think if you want to call him Gatz you have to call him James Gatz. And it was "old sport."


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:35 PM
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Or Jimmy Gatz, and he isn't Jewish. </hobbyhorse>


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:36 PM
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Did anyone say he was Jewish?


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:39 PM
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GROVER: Hello Harry, old chap, old bean!

HARRY: Hello Grover, old chap, old chum!


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:41 PM
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73: No, but it's a hobbyhorse.


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:43 PM
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Fyvush Finkel is Jewish.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:43 PM
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Right, ok. Jay Gatsby, James Gatz.

I know it was "old sport".


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:45 PM
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Anti-Semite!


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:46 PM
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That page refers to Cookie Monster as a "pseudo-intellectual."


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:48 PM
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Pseudo my foot. Cookie Monster lives the life of the mind.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:50 PM
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Quite. I recall him defending the use of "Cowabunga" thus:

Prairie Dawn: That isn't even a word!

Cookie: Sure it is. It esoteric, but it word.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:52 PM
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I'm pretty sure that fucker Wolfsheim was Druish.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 9:59 PM
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Funny, he doesn't look Druish.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:01 PM
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Nah, Wolfsheim was a Scientologist.


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:06 PM
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Oh, I wish I had seen this in time for the Dylan thread:

We have a video, Ernie Counts or something like that, which shows clips of old episodes. One of my favorites has a Dylan-like folk singer singing, "How many elephants will fit in a room, before they fall through the floor. The answer my friend is… thump… one. One elephant falls through the floor."


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:10 PM
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But Weiner, since your denials are the most common mention of this particular hobbyhorse, might it be that people mis-remembering what you've said is the cause of exactly that which you are trying to prevent?


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:19 PM
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Actually, one would be funnier; in the version I've seen it's four.


Posted by: slolernr | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:19 PM
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It may be that that misconception is not as common as I'd thought. But I will stamp it out, even if I have to engender it first!

Oh, the top hit here is brilliant.


Posted by: Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 10- 5-05 10:33 PM
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I've tended to find that around the dealing floor, "cunt" is a useful generic and inoffensive term of address. As in

"oy, cunt! give me a price on the sevens!"

"one and a half to two, you cunt"

"not you, you cunt, I was talking to that cunt over there. CUNT!"

Women are in general addressed as "love", although this is pretty much hypothetical, as women tend to steer clear of such environments for some reason. I think it has to do with the right tail of the probability distribution.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:05 AM
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Why is it that no American can ever, under any circumstances, pull off the word "cunt," while the English are perfectly capable of doing so? Is it as simply as the fact that, in America, the word is almost exclusively directed toward women, whereas the English tend to direct it toward men? Or is there something more subtle going on?


Posted by: pjs | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:15 AM
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I don't think the English can pull it off; the Irish (e.g., Colin Farrell) can pull it off and the English, as per their custom, appropriated that ability.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:28 AM
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"cunt" is a useful generic and inoffensive term of address

Not on this side of the Atlantic it isn't.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:31 AM
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I wonder if there can ever be anything subtle about 'cunt'.


Posted by: annie | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:35 AM
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Why is it that no American can ever, under any circumstances, pull off the word "cunt," while the English are perfectly capable of doing so?

English? Who said anything about Englishmen using the word "cunt"?


Posted by: Le Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 10- 6-05 7:36 AM
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