I just registered. Haven't added any words yet.
Why is this so much fun? Oh right, because words are so delicious.
Manymore has been added to the list.
Count me with the TechCrunch folks (minus the "addicting" descriptor). I don't see the point.
Oooh, words! Proprioception. Tertiary. Subsumed. Mmmmm....
Does anyone else here find that the hardest part of learning a foreign language is how impoverished your vocabulary is? Climbin to the first plateau of basic proficiency gets you to stupid stuff like "I walked down the street." The climb to the second plateau seems to take forever, and meantime you don't have the richness of amble/stroll/meander/strut/hasten, etc.
Or do other people learn vocabulary more easily than, say, verb conjugations?
I agree with Witt. I can memorize grammars easily and quickly, but I have a tough time remembering vocabulary.
Richard Burton on his method for learning new languages:
I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely necessary, and learnt them by heart by carrying them in my pocket and looking over them at spare moments during the day. I never worked for more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the brain lost its freshness. After learning some three hundred words, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy bookwork (one of the Gospels is the most come-atable), and underlined every word that I wished to recollect, in order to read over my pencillings at least once a day. Having finished my volume, I then carefully worked up the grammar minutiae, and I then chose some other book whose subject most interested me. The neck of the language was now broken, and progress was rapid ... When I read, I invariably read out loud ... whenever I conversed with anybody in a language that I was learning, I took the trouble to repeat their words inaudibly after them, and so to learn the trick of pronunciation and emphasis.
According to Fawn Brodie (The Devil Drives), Burton got to the point of being able to acquire a new language in two months.
I didn't think Brodie's book was supposed to be that accurate? But Burton spoke what, thirty-something languages and dialects, so he must have had a pretty impressive method. Word I learned yesterday: "lanugo".
Proprioception. Tertiary. Subsumed.
Crampon! Penetralia! Retromingent!
worth pointing out that this is *not* Richard Burton former husband of Liz Taylor?
Instead, this is Richard Burton the victorian adventurer, the ultra-chameleon, the first non-muslim to impersonate a muslim pilgrim and get up to the kaaba.
So his methods with languages may be of no use to mere mortals. It would be like hearing how Jim Thorpe approached a new sport.
I am trying now to learn Mandarin, the grammar of which takes about an hour to master, the vocabulary of which I am finding totally intimidating. Things I can say: "I love my father/mother/brother sister." "What is your name?" "My name is..." "Are you Chinese?" "No I am American." "I have a small dog." "She has two large dogs." etc. I am at the stage where having a conversation in Mandarin is not something I can imagine.
Also: "The [red balloon|[small|large] bird] flew away. Fly away, [red balloon|[small|large] bird]!" I love not having to worry about verb tenses or moods.
11: I say go for it. What's the worst that could happen?
Fasciculation
13: Is it all in the word order, then?
Also I think particles can affect verb meaning. But I don't know very much about that yet.
11: You left off "failed diplomat, discoverer of Lake Tanganyika, translator of The Thousand and One Nights, co-translator of the Kama Sutra, and rumored pedarest". Quite a career he had -- Isabel did the twentieth century wrong by burning his diaries.
17: Are up, down and sideways available in terms of word order?
18: To my mind, the diary burning can only be because he wrote about what they did in bed.
There are, apparently. some people who are 'super-linguists'. They just find it incredibly easy to learn a new language. There's even some evidence this may be a heritable trait.
Also, some people are just smart arses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_P._Ramsey#Ramsey_and_Wittgenstein
Notice, Ramsey's method is much like Burton's.
I can read Heidegger in German, but I wouldn't know where to begin with a take-out menu. In fact, I wouldn't be able to understand someone's directions to the bathroom unless they were just "fort" or "da."
This seems somehow symbolic of my life as a whole.
Crampon! Penetralia! Retromingent!
I continue to abide in awe of teh hero.
Schliemann was one of those people who pick up languages really fast. One of the things he used to do was write in his diary every day, exclusively using the language he was then learning.
20: Yes, they're annoying. I'm married to one. At this point, only 13 languages -- including Provencal but not old and middle English and the like -- with reading knowledge of a slew of others. Really, really annoying to language dolts like me.
As to the original topic, that's an incredible site. Already added my favorite odd word ("axial") and the first one I ran across this morning ("calenture"). Then again, I'm the target audience for this sort of thing.
A friend of mine in high school picked up langauges Burton-style. (Though didn't they say that Burton could pick up a dialect after walking through a market? Maybe not that fast.) He started, one year, his first semester in French 1, finished in French 4, and took the AP test, and got either a 4 or a 5.
His name, happily, was "Sprecher".
He knew how to spell "languages", too.
This comment is not for critics.
I'd like to criticize it, but I can't. It's not for me.
Uh, my performances aren't for critics either?
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
Two comments and not a single "milk-eyed mender" joke? What is this blog coming to!
You waited six minutes on a weekend, and then didn't make the joke yourself?
w-lfs-n is not strictly a drupe
Our institutional preference is for cow-eyes. Milk-eyes, meh.
I made the joke I intended to make, Ben.
But then I'm not strictly a poetaster, so I guess we're even.
I don't know that many languages, but if I had the time I could learn them fairly quickly.
I read in The Education that Henry Adams learned German--as an adult--by going to primary school classes with German children.
I have a method for learning German that I would liek to test. I haven't figured out how much attention should be devoted to each portion, but there are three parts: (1) study at the Goethe Institute; (2.) go to grade school with German children; and (3.) talk to a professor of historical German linguistics.
I don't know that 3 would help most people, but I find learnign languages much easier when I understand why some verb is teh way it is.
I guess it still counts as having learned a language even if you still can't spell it.
42: That reminds me of the story about the small-town reporter who went to interview the area's oldest resident, a woman who had just turned 101. "What do you credit with allowing you to reach such an advanced age?" he asked. "Well," said the old woman, "I've never drank, never smoked, never been married and never been sick a day in my life." "Do you mean to say that in a hundred and one years," asked the flabbergasted reporter, "you've never been bedridden?" "Noooo," said the old lady, brightening, "but once in a carriage!"
"carriage" s/b "buggy" I think
43: Typing and spelling are not the same thing, dear Ben.
I joined and added Mnemosyne to my list of words. Now I'll probably never think to use the site again.
There's a bookmarklet which should make it more automatic to use again.
This site really is neat. Now I will never forget "martinet" again!
49: Nor will your hapless underlings
Looks like someone lacks the courage of his convictions
I used to pick up languages very quickly. I really wish I'd had more direction as a kid, because now I look back and remember that if I was teaching myself Italian and Russian out of library beginner texts, I really should have been in more language classes.
I suspect minneapolitan of basing his/her additions on whatever Poe lies to hand.
Well, I like tintinnabulation more because of the Phil Ochs song version of the Poe piece than the Poe itself. And I suppose Poe probably uses fo'c's'le somewhere in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, but I haven't read that. I don't imagine Poe wrote much about velodromes or gobshites though.
w-lfs-n's list looks like the delirious rantings of Neal Stephenson after taking ayahuasca.
Has anyone else seen Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story?
Also "crepuscule", "nepenthe", "verdure" and more, min.
hey, i happening to be listening to Ys!
1) she's my age! I thought she sounded older.
2) I'm not paying that close attention, but it seems really pretentious. Y'alls impressions?
There is no verdure without ordure, ben.
How come I am the only "wordie" (so to speak) listing "dawning" among my faves?
Off-topic: On my first Nerve meet-up (lunch, so it seems overkill to call it a date), I failed to secure a second meeting with the person.
I blame God. I've taken a quick mental inventory, and I don't think I did anything to overtly sabotage the encounter -- I just wasn't what she was looking for. I guess I'm just more open-minded than most people, because I would've stuck around for a second date.
Adam, your bad mojo killed the thread.
to return to Joanna...I just got to Sawdust and Diamonds. Into the trash she goes.
stuck around for a second date
For there to be a second date, I think you both have to go home and then meet again. If you and she just stuck around, you would simply be extending your first date.
(and condolences on the not-being-favored-by-God thing.)
You know, maybe I screwed it up by suggesting we go to a coffee shop after we finished lunch. She sensed I was trying to cheat and count it as two dates!
Yeah, what can you do? Running, chasing, back-on-the-horse, fish-in-the-sea, etc.
Maybe she's still learning English and thought "go to a coffee shop" was a crude American euphemism for coitus.
I'm tempted to think 61 is insane, but I haven't listened to Y's yet, just her earlier stuff.
(It would have to be a crude American euphemism for anal sex. -- the coffee shop, get it?...)
can't be helped, soub. Sawdust and Diamonds was earnest in the worst sort of way. If it had come up on shuffle when other people were around, it would have been disasterous. Preventative measures had to be taken.
Soubz, her earlier stuff sucked too.
I would never ask for anal sex on the first date. Especially a lunch date!
77. If you just go on a large enough number of dates, the law of averages will be on your side.
Your best course is probably to contact her and let her know that's not what you meant.
79: Phrasing it, of course, with a delicacy that leaves an opening for anal sex.
60: Adam, would it be rude to suggest that asking for a second date during the first date was a sub-optimal move? Your call, obviously.
Speaking of which, I was desperately idly flicking through some online listings today and noticed that every single woman on teh internets is into travelling. Is this now a religious observance or something? Listen up, girls: you get your four weeks of paid holiday every year just like everyone else. Please do not unthinkingly blow it on Thailand and / or skiing and then put the sodding photographs up while claiming to be in love with life in all its magnificent diversity. Also, could we have less use of the word 'curled'? As in: 'equally happy sailing round New Zealand or curled up on the sofa with a glass of red wine and a good book'.
Hmm. Blood sugar dipping, probably.
81. If you go on a lunch-date with one girl, and ask her to play the back nine, chances are you'll get turned down. But, if you go out with 100 girls, your chances will be much improved.
It was at the end -- I asked if there was any interest in getting together again. She said probably not. I was glad it was straightforward at least. Is this really considered a non-standard thing?
A lunch date with 100 girls is much more expensive, though.
Don't listen to charlie. Always make plans for a second date.
Actually, now that I think of it, I asked her what she was doing later in the day, and that may have given her the (false) impression that I was trying to draw her into spending the whole day with me. But since that would be insane, she probably didn't think that.
"traveling" along with "reading" are code for "I think I'm really smart/worldly, but am obviously not, if this is the best way I can come up with to indicate it."
Oh so what would you suggest, Mr. Worldly-wise?
If you guys work hard at this, you can probably convince me that I totally blew it and this woman was supposed to be my soul-mate and now I'll never be happy.
Adam: it just wasn't clicking for her. That's ok. Lunch/coffee dates are an easy way to figure that out. Try again!
Um, that's kind of the opposite direction of what I envisioned.
the idea of a single soulmate is silly, adam.
Perhaps you blog-related entities can help me with my personals ad.
you will never be happy, though. But that's not because of your date. that's the just the way things are.
First you ask for a second date; if she says "yes," great, if she says "no," then you ask for anal.
Codpiece, feel free to sprinkle in such phrases as: "an ass you could bounch a coin off of"; "lips so hot they smoke"; and "bosoms so ripe you want to pick them"
besides, there is `no', and there is `no, but if you want we can go back to my place and have mad sex'
seems like a good thread to express my beef at quixotic being pronounced in a non-spanishy way. wtf"
A wordie-based game: how many words added consecutively to your list get put on the main page of words that hadn't previously been in the system? I just got three ("suppurate", "purulent", and "puellile").
96: Add the following emoticon:
^-^
I don't know what it means but somehow it implies cute femininity.
Four, if you count "quinquina" which I added just because I thought no one else would have added it, which contravenes the spirit of things.
... that may have given her the (false) impression that I was trying to draw her into spending the whole day with me ...
This is a euphemism, isn't it?
Actually, now that I think about it, a daytime date, even a first date, that lazily segues from one venue to another can be a very natural and lovely thing. So, wrong girl, possibly.
106: The "^" means F. Winston's breasts are still perky.
Seven: nixie, catamite, and pathic. This is too easy.
Adam, at least she told you straight. She could have hemmed and hawed and played you along.
108: you can't push these things; if they happen they happen. I once had a morning coffee date turn into a long weekend that was wonderful. The dynamic has to be right, though.
a delicacy that leaves an opening for anal sex
How would you take away somebody's anal sex opening?
111: I think that was what she was planning on doing, so I asked just to make sure.
I'm not upset about this, just so everyone knows.
I'm up to 6. Maybe I'm cheating, b/c I'm using foreign culinary terms but they have no english equivalents, so I think it's fair.
I would never ask for anal sex on the first date.
My grandma always said a proper lady never takes it up the butt on the first date.
You wouldn't believe how many dates I had to take her on.
How would you take away somebody's anal sex opening?
Needle and thread.
118: I suppose that would indeed be indelicate.
Plus you'd need to clamp down the cheeks.
Maybe I'm just humorless, but this is awfully close to shit that really happens.
I'll ban myself on the way out.
Wow, bridgeplate has been on some really bad dates.
105 -- I was not playing your game at the time but my two most recently-added words, "backside" and "cochise", were both unique to yours truly.
Also: if you use ligatures you are (until I posted this comment) almost guaranteed to get a word no-one else has claimed.
Yeah, but y'all are trying to find odd words. I can pull down the OED and do that. The point is to run across them, right? Right?
Hah. It only took me eight words to come up with a unique one (no one else had listed 'trinitarian'.) I win.
125: I wasn't, which is why I said "quinquina" didn't really count.
I am putting up interesting words, which is I have, for instance, "surmount" rather than "insurmountable"—the former is by far the better. (Would you rather describe something saying it is surmounted by x or saying it has an x on top? I thought so.)
Well, if you want to play strict rules ... I claim ferrule. First try.
I've got trinitarian and palolo, but the latter doesn't really count.
Michael: I thought Ys picked up halfway through. The first tracks have a lackadaisacal feeling, like they're musical accompaniments to some fairly boring stories. Things start turning into actual songs in the second half. But it's definitely pretentious.
And preprandial. There must not be all that many people on this thing.
Things that are currently annoying me:
Hans Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law
My (professing*) roommate, who is reading Dawkins' God Delusion, trying to make me defend Dawkins' claims when I haven't read the book. He's actually doing this in a nice way, but it's still annoying me.
*Neither "professing" nor "profess" were in wordie.
A lot of my words appear only to be on my list (there's a name for words that only have one appearance or appear only in one source, but, typically, I've forgotten it). I'm not bragging or anything, I just wanted to brag a little.
People should ignore Dawkins more.
And noggings, obviously. You can't go too far wrong with trade specific terms. Mandrel. Ogive.
There must not be all that many people on this thing.
It's only been up for a couple of weeks.
And I call shenanigans on puellile. It's clear what it means, but it's a neologism.
Insufflator? This is what Professor Dawkins is, right?
Come on! It's been sighted in the wild.
Hypercompetitive wordnerdery, god bless America.
Given that the temporally first of those cites is you, and the second is someone who saw you post it the first time, I contest your characterization of that as 'the wild'. But I'm just being a little bitch about it.
You'll probably be down on "uffish" and "humument" (an earthen monument, that is, a statue*), too.
*yes, I know that's not the original use of "humument"
("ciscontinental" is also a neologism, but it, too, has a life of its own.)
People, there are only 1600 people signed up for the site. This is like celebrating before the other team takes the field.
125. I did use words I came accross recently, before I knew about wordie.
126. You don't think much of your competition. My first try was a unique. As were the following 12.
(which is the point at which i got bored)
Strabismus (and penetralia is still a onesie).
I was bummed that one person beat me to coprophage.
152: You could have added nystagmus while you were at it.
I can't believe I snagged armigerous before LB got it.
Easy enough to come up with words that don't appear already on the site.
135: "hapax legomena" is the Greek phrase for words that only appear once; usually used in reference to the Homeric corpus (e.g., "polyphloisboios")
This thread is missing a necessary reference to Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary.
Much more interesting than simply hunting rarities are the inclusion of words for their idiosyncratic value to the poster (e.g., "wholly").
Glomerule and callosum. Sadly second on fustilugs.
161: I didn't need another website to know that, dude.
I have to go play Christmas music now.
I have to go play Christmas music now.
"figgy" was untaken.
Ok, I took "supervene" so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of some analytic philospher.
Entente, vidalia, and pig picking.
"Pig picking" is *a* word?
Also, does it preserve the time when you added it, as a claim to priority, or do you just have to notice at the time that it's unique, and enjoy that warm feeling?
I'll just take "supervenience", then.
157 -- that's why I felt so happy about "backside".
And I'll claim "menses" for the patriarchy while I'm at it.
(Actually I'm not taking "supervenience", because it's not cool enough a word.)
You could just monitor the list and delete any word when you find that it's no longer yours alone.
I'm beginning to feel that a word claim does not count unless accompanied by a good definition.
"Hapax legomenon" occurs in multiple lists.
166: You thought you would get "pullet?" Cityfolk!
Also, I was going to do ferrule several hours ago, but that just seemed too obvious.
"supervenience"
I wonder how Wordie is going to deal with things like supervene/supervenience/supervenient. They really ought to be grouped or linked.
Also, what does it tell us about w-lfs-n that "menses" was added right after "salacious?" Too much.
Unsurprisingly, just got two to do with Protestantism:
backslidden
preterition
You godless people.
Ferrule. I don't need it any more. I have telluric.
Also, there are going to be issues with "aesthete", "esthete" and "æsthete". For example.
You thought you would get "pullet?"
I did get pullet. Also about a zillion grape varietals and wine types.
I added "menses" and "salacious" hours apart. You should be asking about "menses" and "meretricious".
W00t! The Modesto Kid gets "trice"!
Is "remasculate" a nonce word?
I was thinking of adding "floccinaucinihilipilification" a long time ago, apo, but didn't, because it is teh lame.
183: I call shenanigans -- OED does not recognize your word.
Much more interesting than simply hunting rarities are the inclusion of words for their idiosyncratic value to the poster (e.g., "wholly").
Brian knows what's up.
I was going to add WMYBSALB, but thought I'd leave it for you, Ben.
"Splenetic" got added before "bilious"?
An individual's list should manifest a sensibility grounded on genuine taste, as these words are employed in Ch. 3 of Nehamas' new book about beauty.
It seems to me what would be totally key, would be a Wordie add-on that would quickly calculate for any given user, how many words you have in common with him or her. And ideally it should be able to search their user database and return the users that are closest to you on a variety of metrics.
Yeah it's all that sitting around typing that does it to you, you ought to get a little fresh air and exercise.
Huh, I misinterpreted the pullet reference. Looks like someone got to "shoat" before me. Oh well.
I'm very much afraid, young w-lfs-n, that I got on the thaumaturgy bandwagon long before you did.
Oops, damn -- I misread "It's" in 197 as "I'm". 198 would make sense if 197 said "I'm running really slow."
196: Yep, just like that book site that was looked at recently.
186, 190: From "Fletcher's 'The Tragedie of Bonduca' and the Anxieties of the Masculine Government of James I," by Julie Crawford, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900:
"When Caratach commands Bonduca's daughters to rearm/remasculate the Roman soldiers ... he also returns the daughters to a domestic, private sphere, ordering the soldiers to "[b]ear off the women/Unto their Mother" (III.v.80-1)."
Couple more citations in JSTOR. The OED's so conservative sometimes.
I am happy, though, to have been the first user to add "gravlax".
Maybe so, minneapolitan, but it is a good word.
I actually deleted it from my list as not being good enough.
201 -- Yes! Wordie seems much more like "LibraryThing without books" than like "Flickr without photos".
It's running really slow.
In the comments at TechCrunch, the guy who built it said that it's running on a $5/month hosting plan; expect growing pains. I think he did it on a lark, not realizing that every geek on earth is going to want to use it.
I was bummed that someone beat me to "ecdysiast".
No one's taken "linguolabial", but I leave that to a phonologist.
Surprises: theremin, doobie, and shamble.
204: Okay, I'll quit harshing your buzz, no need to get all huffy and uptight about it.
Approaching it from the other side: what is the most popular of the words you have entered? I believe my most popular is "verisimilitude", which 44 other "wordies" (so to speak) had entered before I did.
211 -- I thought "theremin" had an "e" at the end, properly.
I got "meline" and "musteline", though.
Googlefight disputes your proper spelling.
Wordie should add an email/trackback doodad. You'd stick an address in there, and if yours was the first instance of a word it would blast out a message like "[WORD], BITCHEZ!!!" to your fellow lexical cockmongers.
"cockmonger" hasn't been claimed yet.
And I do mean that in the nicest way.
Hey Apo, you appear to have added "slatternly" not long before I did.
RobotJohnny appears to own Wordie.
So far, not counting "obfuscate" which is, deservedly, one of the 10 most popular Wordie words, my most popular is a tie between "unctuous" and "pulchritude". Also, w-lfs-n and I overlap by about 10 words, for now.
Return to the Island of O/T, i.e. Dates and Dating:
Someone I'm ashamed to be related to just sent me an email asking whether shaving his balls before a first date* would seem too forward, as in "I shaved them because I knew they'd end the night in your mouth." I have no idea how to answer this question, as I haven't dated in dog's years. What say ye?
*He already "hooked up" whilst hirsute with said female last week.
I'm wearing a shirt that's ten years old.
If he already hooked up with this person, it's not so presumptuous, is it?
This is an interesting and non-standard usage of the term "first date".
Did she ask him or otherwise indicate that she'd prefer him to shave his balls?
You know, anyone who's going to be significantly troubled by the hirsuteness or otherwise of your balls while, presumably, voluntarily putting her face near them, is probably more trouble you want to get involved with. Expressing a preference once a relationship has commenced is one thing, but until that point, the hairiness or not of any set of genitalia should be at the option of the owner.
In short, shave 'em or not, and if she has a problem with it, screw her. (or, rather, don't.)
It would make no sense for him to ask his relative SEK that question, if she had requested he do it.
This is one of those situations where the principle of "If you have to ask, you'd better not mess with it" gives way to "Some guys have all the luck."
(232 should be revised to be addressed to SEK's embarrassing relative, rather than SEK. Which is what I meant, but it didn't come out that way. I'm still sick, and not making a lot of sense.)
It would make no sense for him to ask his relative SEK that question, if she had requested he do it.
Right you are.
SEK's embarrassing relative
I think we've all figured out it's his grandpa already.
233's right: She hasn't asked him to do it, he wants to know whether it'd be polite or not, since if he did, well, she'll think he expected to go to bed with her again.
229, 230: Yes, I know, but such is the nature of the "hook-up culture." Don't y'all read the dashing Benoit Denizet-Lewis [.pdf]?
So then, no he shouldn't. If they were ok the last time, they're likely ok the next time. Some women don't like shaved balls, and if she's one of them, it could seem pretty creepy. That said, the fact that he's considering this, and is willing to ask someone else about it means it's likely that I don't have much insight into his world.
What I want to know is, how did your grandpa get into "hook-up culture"? Are they throwing rainbow parties at the retirement home nowadays?
And really, if they've already hooked up (I'm assuming this means 'have had sex') and are now going out on a post sex date, it's not presumptuous to expect that the odds of having sex again are good enough to make it worth preparing for. (Although I must say I don't really get the ball shaving thing.)
237: The whole thing about hair and nails growing after death is a hoax. The skin retracts, you see, making it appear as if growth has occurred.
In LB's honor, I now own "dengue" and "lamellae".
It all depends on how you define "growth".
Don't y'all read the dashing Benoit Denizet-Lewis?
That was discussed here. (And I think at John&Belle's around then, too.)
239: "But but but," he says, "It could be a gesture!" Which makes me think he just wants to shave his balls.
241: I understand the appeal of shaving -- increased sensation, a feeling of cleanliness, &c. -- it seems he's decided to do it for her, which I don't get, since as ogged said, if they were fine the first time, why not the second. That said, I don't think he expects to go to bed with her this time -- some weird rule, whereby a post-hook-up date constitutes a desire to enter into a long-term, monogamous relationship.
Hair isn't unclean.
That reminds me, I had a great idea: use the oil left over after confiting garlic to make mayonnaise.
"to make mayonnaise" s/b "as a lubricant"
To make mayonnaise to be used as a lubricant.
First to whortle, numps, lovesome, and deizen.
Also gaslight, flange, and lickerish.
(Here is your missing use-mention distinction punctuation: "" "" "" "" "" "" "".)
Some women don't like shaved balls
Well yeah, but shaving them is probably a safer bet. I'm thinking there's better odds on "likes them smooth" than on "grow out that bush".
use the oil left over after confiting garlic to make mayonnaise.
How much do you know of La Mayonnaise?
I can't believe nobody had added "unfogged."
"Gayatollah" remains unclaimed.
NEITHER CHIMPEACH NOR CHIMPEROR ARE IN THIS CHRESTOMATHY YET
Has anyone else wound up deleting a bunch of words on account of second thoughts?
That would seem to interfere with the "automatic writing" aspect of the thing. The list of words appearing as they arose has the appearance of representing a mind at work. Or idling.
I'm confident that's not possible.
Once in a while I'll hit a word I actually like, but most of the time it's interlopers like these blighted 9th grade vocabulary words still spoiling for attention. "Plinth", bah.
Uh, no offense, three other unfogged persons.
How has this become something you can be bad at? Try not to be so neurotic, neurotics.
I haven't even clicked the link yet, but it's already sounding barely above D&D on the nerd-o-meter.
I have insomnia and I need to do laundry. Again.
And I don't like wordie.
it's already sounding barely above D&D on the nerd-o-meter
Don't let the nerds ruin it for you; they're worried about what their lists say about them, and whether they have smart enough words, etc. It's a good tool and also a fun way to spend some time.
Nothing funny ever happens to me, da.
I have a doctor friend who we call "Straight Talk." Mostly that means that he's abusive and we forgive him for it. It also means that his medical advice is almost always "Don't be a baby, you're fine." His brother, also my friend, had a cough that wouldn't go away, and of course Straight Talk told him not to worry about it. Naturally, it turned out to be whooping cough, and though it could have been treated and taken care of, my friend took Straight Talk's advice just long enough that ST got whooping cough from him. Much merriment ensued.
275: Yeah, me neither.
I stopped drinking coffee about a month ago. Yesterday afternoon in my local coffee shop I ordered a decaf, and then later that night I was up until frickin' four in the morning. All agitated. Then today I had a weird headache, and I can't sleep again. I suspect the guy didn't hear me and gave me a regular coffee by mistake.
"Plinth", bah.
There's an excellent Bob Drake song called "Plinth Shriveller". Also, I have wound up deleting bunches of words.
How much do you know of La Mayonnaise?
I know how to make it.
Nothing funny ever happens to me, da.
Ogged is Danny Elfman!
da, you can have a slightly used "funny" story.
276: that's an awesome story.
When I was in grade 8 our parish priest was this really vulgar-talking old guy, but nice. My best friend's mother at the time was into the Charismatic Catholic movement -- Catholic masses, but with all these weird modifications adopted from evangelical denominations: "speaking in tongues", getting "slain in the spirit", etc.
So one day she asked Father Cher/nish if he was going to come to the Charismatic Catholic Convention in a few weeks, because she was going to be singing in their choir. He said, "No, I can't. I'm going to have diarrhea that day."
And weirdly, he did have diarrhea that day, because he had been bitten by a rat in the church basement and got meningitis.
Ben, I made it about two lines into your 52 in that thread.
he did have diarrhea that day, because he had been bitten by a rat in the church basement and got meningitis.
Sweet! Scary! Ok, vulger old guy story from the pool:
Seventy-something swimmer guy is even older than he sounds--he even passed out once in the locker room...paramedics, etc. But, it must be said, he's quick.
Fifty-something guy: So, did you give your wife ten hard inches of your Valentine's Day love last night?
Seventy-something guy: No, I gave her all of it.
My concentration is shot to hell. I blame MTV.
Actually, recently I was going through old diaries trying to reconstruct my entire work history for an application, and my entry for Xmas day, 1998, was something like, "I had a good day. I read 50 pp of Legitimation Crisis...."
I can't imagine reading 50 pp of anything nowadays, let alone Legitimation Crisis.
283: Awesome snappy comeback.
Do any vulgar old guys swim at your pool, ogged?
I can't imagine reading 50 pp of anything nowadays, let alone Legitimation Crisis.
You and I seem to be going through the same intellectual decline. Seriously, I think lack of sleep is responsible for most of it. You have insomnia, and I have to get up at six each day for work. I thought I was just getting senile, but being home over the summer (pre-surgery, anyway), I was sleeping a lot and it felt like I'd gotten my brain back.
I have to get up at six each day for work.
I take back everything I've ever said about wanting your job.
The first line of 284 addressed to Ben. It's me, it's not you, really.
Actually, ogged gave the same excuse for not having gotten the joke.
I take back everything I've ever said about wanting your job.
Probably wise, but I don't have to be there until 7:30. In the old days, I'd work out before work, and now I'm just slow in the mornings.
Actually, most of the time I get eight hours of sleep, so I have to find another scapegoat for my concentration problems.
My earliest class this quarter met at 1:15 pm.
Wait, no, that's not true; my earliest class this quarter met at 9am. But I never went.
My earliest class this quarter met at 1:15 pm.
That's not funny.
293: What kind of grad class is this, that you can skip all the time?
I once walked 50 minutes to campus in a blizzard (because there was a bus strike on) to make my 8:30am Ancient Greek class. Which ended up being cancelled. Of course.
Not quite as weird as the Heidegger action figure.
I don't have to be there until 7:30
I don't even like being up at 7:30. Goddamn elementary schools.
293: What kind of grad class is this, that you can skip all the time?
Logic, covering material I already know. I only took the second half.
One homework problem had us consider a relation R, where aRb if (a and b are blocks with certain characteristics located on a board—I think this is supposed to make the subject friendlier or something) either of them is a tetrahedron and they're on the same row. The question was, if it's transitive, prove it, and if it's not, give a counterexample. I wrote a python script that takes the name of a file containing definitions like this:
def R(y, x):
return (x.isTetra() or y.isTetra()) and x.sameRow(y)
premise_1 = lambda a, b: R(a,b)
premise_2 = lambda b, c: R(b,c)
conclusion_1 = lambda a, c: R(a,c)
I actually understood some parts of that Heidegger-on-youtube video.
Somehow I managed not to take logic, throughout two philosophy degrees, if you don't count the one I dropped.
The prof for that class was a moron. A good friend of mine took it with me, and when the prof was returning our first test, he called our names out from the front of the lecture hall (there were about 200 people in the class). My friend's name is, let's say, "Richard D'Arcy." (Not his real first name.) The prof announced his name as "Darky Richard." My friend was so taken aback he actually fell down the stairs.
You know what I hate about foreign languages and me? I hate that when I listen to French or Spanish with subtitles, I can understand the language just fine. But without the subtitles, I spend too much fucking time digging up vocab and fall behind. So frustrating.
Plus, it's not really much of a debate. Chomsky is much cuter than Foucault.
Chomsky is much cuter than Foucault.
Maybe you and he can form a quadrilabial implosive.
Hey Stanley. I'm thinking "no" on the silk 50s retro thing, mostly b/c I wore it tonight and it got rained on. Also, it's gonna be too cold for Philadelphia in winter.
What to wear, what to wear...
But you'll only have to wear it indoors (and in transit to indoors) in DC. Which is, you know, much warmer than Philly.
310: I know, wasn't that strange, wet substance leaking from the heavens just fucking weird or what?
Scratch that, you haven't been out here that long. The last time I saw it was at the last MLA.
Did you ever wonder why property values were higher nearer to the Euphrates than to the Tigris?
And now, I know, the rest, of the, story.
312: No kidding. And it *would* happen on the night I had people over for cocktails. Goddamn party-ruining weather.
I think that, of the Talking Heads songs I've heard, "Drugs" is my favorite.
Damn, that double-posted? Teach me to correct shit. Oh well, that joke's now officially unfunny twice.
Sorry to hear about your party, B. Nothing ruins a SoCal evening like a little bad the existence of weather.
Ah well, we just moved inside. I had a good time, anyway, and like met people and everything. Plus we drank half a case of wine, and that's never bad.
300--
isn't it sufficient just to say:
let a=circle, b=tetrahedron, c= circle;
let all be on same row;
so aRb, bRc, but not aRc;
so non transitive?
or as is more likely, I'm just not getting it.
Not quite as weird as the Heidegger action figure.
The weirdest thing about the HAF is that the guy claims he found it among his wife's old toys. From childhood? Did Heidegger play Barbie's dad? "Mommy look! I knitted a sweater for Heidegger!"
324 -- also, "aRb, bRa, but not aRa"
There are a couple of (well, "at least one") other Heidegger interview(s) on YouTube.
326--
your concurrence reassures me.
errare malim cum Clownae. etc.
so really whenever R is equal to a conjunction of relations R1...Rn and some Ri obtains disjunctively sc. by either relatum's having some property, R will not be transitive.
325: My mom used to knit skating dresses for my Barbies with matching caps. Heidegger would look awesome in one of those.
[Five hours of sleep! Two days in a row!]
DA is morphing into the Apostropher! Plus (for a limited time only) she has done something bizarre with her web site's layout!
God, I wish I could get by on four hours of sleep a night for long periods of time.
324, 326: yes, those suffice. The point of this story is that the assignment was boring.
God, I wish I could get by on four hours of sleep a night for long periods of time.
You just have to train your body to do it. And accept about a 50% productivity drop in your workday.