"ostensibly female." well phrased. I remember when those drug & doping horror stories were coming out-- what a madhouse.
[LB decides that maybe testosterone isn't such a treat after all.]
Ha. I just changed it to "nominally," since I think "ostensibly" is close to "apparently" and apparently female is what they're not. But a madhouse, yes. The East Germans, then the Chinese. So obvious for so long.
I like the way that German swimmer looks like she's about to swat Evans.
I think "ostensibly" reads better than "nominally". Ostensibly means they're claiming they are, but evidence suggests otherwise.
Ostensibly means they're claiming they are, but evidence suggests otherwise.
No, I think "ostensible" means to seem to be one thing, but really be another.
Also, "ostensibly" is an awesomer word.
6: Everything but their physical appearance would lead you to believe they're female, so I think it's fine.
We cannot allow ourselves to be seduced by awesomer words, or we will have been vanquished by the terror-mongers.
But my word means what you mean to mean.
12: I mean, as long as we're being all downmarket, here.
"Soi-disant" is just pretentiousese for the already pretentious "nominally."
I think the best word here would be "technically." "Purported" also works.
"Ersatz" implies inferiority, but in this context, they were superior versions of the real thing. Little bitches grow on trees, don't they?
15 is almost correct, although s-d also includes the meaning that the namer and the named are the same. Still pretentious though.
Second sentence of 18 looks like the new mouseover text.
The one in the middle is not female. Trust me on this.
Pretentiousese is only my second language.
I think the best word here would be "technically." "Purported" also works.
I will have this fight ALL NIGHT with you ankle-biters. "Technically" doesn't really work because with the right technical tools, their elevated testosterone, etc. would have been detected. So "technically" they're in some gray area of undetectability. "Purported" is ok, but they were only officially purported to be, but widely purported not to be really female, so it's not quite right either. "Nominal" works because it implies that the thingness of the thing is limited to its name.
that the thingness of the thing is limited to its name.
Which is why you're wrong, pipsqueak. The femaleness of the swimmers is not only nominal, it's genetic.
21: But she's participating in a women's event, so she's ostensibly a woman, no?
Or are you saying that you're sure because you know it's really Billy Idol?
Nominally works well enough definitionally, but makes pacing of the sentence fall flat. Purportedly is better for that reason alone.
they were superior versions of the real thing
By the clock, maybe. By my own reckoning, not quite.
Both those German swimmers look like they should be playing keyboards for Loverboy or Billy Squier.
That's why I said "in this context," sneaky Jesus.
A) I was wondering how this thread was 24 comments already, WATFO, it's pedantry.
B) Nominally and soi-disant are the right words. The idea is to convey that they fit the LETTER of the law, but not the SPIRIT. That is, if the law was "You must be female".
The femaleness of the swimmers is not only nominal, it's genetic.
It's also historical and in some ways physical, etc., but it's not unproblematic, which is what "nominally" conveys better than any possible word in the universe ever.
I think the right word is "genotypically," because it implies the correct contrast.
it's not unproblematic
You should be ashamed of yourself.
So the purpose of this blog is to get all the pedants in one place in case they ever need to be shot, right?
C) Purportedly and allegedly are good too. However, there is a problem with those, as well as nominally and soi-disant. All these words imply that the femaleness is in doubt or unproven, when in fact it must have been proven (the letter, if not the spirit, of femaleness) for them to be eligible.
More accurate would be "marginally" or "technically" female.
I read a quote recently from the ex-husband of one of those swimmers (himself a member of the DDR men's team) and he said he'd been in the Olympic training bubble so long that he forgot what women usually look like.
They are ostensibly female because they were entered into a women's event; the categorization of them as women relied on much more than simple naming.
24 is correct. The Germans in question have vaginas and lack y chromosomes, so their femdom is legit, but only in the narrowest, technical sense. Which is why I chose "technically."
32: Would seem to imply a test that almost certainly didn't occur.
Yes, indefensible one, but "this context" is a photographic record of a event proving that they were not, in fact, superior versions of the real thing. So even I was wrong. (Note also that 'real', in this context, is interchangeable with 'American', which is as it should be.)
the categorization of them as women relied on much more than simple naming
What you're calling "categorization" is what's designated by "nominal."
I think the right word is "genotypically," because it implies the correct contrast.
Maybe, although I don't think genes are always dispositive when it comes to questions of sex--but I'm not a biologist.
foolishmortal and I get it right.
Also, you just think "ostensibly" is a great word because it sounds like "ostentatious", which is in fact a great word.
Would seem to imply a test that almost certainly didn't occur.
They started sex-testing sometime in the 1960s, iirc.
What you're calling "categorization" is what's designated by "nominal."
Don't mock me for my autodidacticism.
I read a quote recently from the ex-husband of one of those swimmers (himself a member of the DDR men's team) and he said he'd been in the Olympic training bubble so long that he forgot what women usually look like.
Yes, you did.
Wrongshore is a connoisseur of hairspray.
44: I thought that was "sex-testing," and it stopped b/c of objections from various women's rights groups. (Actually, I did not know that. Do they do it for all competitors?)
Regardless of her gender, the one on the right has a pretty nice body.
Maybe we should let al Qaeda field an olympic team.
If the Iroquois Nations can field a team at international lacrosse competitions, then al Qaeda should be able to field a team in, um, what sports do they play? Biathlon? Equestrian?
47: God damn it. I googled " east german swim women site:unfogged.com" and it didn't come up.
49: Wikipedia has an entry, and it says you're right, they don't do it anymore.
It's the second result when I search for "east german swimmer site:unfogged.com".
I can only imagine what great men like Walter Ullbricht and Otto Grotewohl would think if they knew that now that the German Democratic Republic no longer exists, the number one association that it brings to mind for most people is "masculine female athletes".
The difference in the searches is "swimmer" vs. "swim." Always go for the shorter version, because google will return longer versions of the same word, but not shorter versions.
the number one association that it brings to mind for most people is
Surely the Oscar-winning Lives of Others.
57: Thanks. I'd thought Google's semantic algorithms always caught stuff like that.
I knew two or three people who dropped out of school to not-make the Olympics. When I look at that picture, I get really sad for the other female swimmers in East Germany who were doped and didn't even make it as far as competing (or win 2nd or 3rd place).
To add to that, I feel really sad that for the better part of the twentieth century so many of the world's people fell prey to an asinine system of government so appallingly stupid it came up with the idea that having the state dope up its citizens with God-knows would be a swell idea because winning Olympic events would so prove that Marx was right about the labor theory of value.
62: can't argue with results, though.
On the other hand, the person who was pushing to make sex an Olympic event just to see what the East Germans would come up with was really onto something.
Pedantically, the nominal thing and all the other arguments are dumb. They're women; they're just women who've been pumped full of testosterone and therefore have a lot of "masculine" secondary sex characteristics. This doesn't, actually, affect their sex, people.
But what I really wanted to say was about the good old days thing. PK was just asking me why the US has allies, and I started explaining about power, and wealth, and then somewhere along the way it occurred to me to add, oh, and a lot of people like some of the things we stand for.
65.1: The point of all the wordplay is not, it seems to me, a search for the word with the closest to perfect truth value, but rather a search for the word that would best express the (ostensibly) humorous claim about their sex that Ogged wanted to make. Plus, hey, watch yer essentializing there!
The claim is stupid, and yeah, I'm being kinda essentialist, but only in the name of correcting a stupid conflation of gender with sex.
Well, sure, and I'm just being difficult.
You're not correcting anything, you're just positing a more essentialist account of sex. And I have work to do, so you can't go on to prove how very wrong you are by arguing with me. With someone else, maybe.
Since this is nominally a swimming post, and I don't want to have to go find and watch a bunch of swimming videos on Youtube, I have a question for the swimmers present: when you do a flip turn, do you tuck into a ball so that you're nicely coiled up for the pushoff, or do you sort of flop your legs out of the water all splashy-like, a la breaching whales? I ask because I notice that several of the more serious swimmers (swim team kids + the more hardassed masters) at my pool do the latter, which seems pretty inefficient to me. I think that I learned the former when I swam in high school, but that was a while back so maybe the whale flip is a newfangled method or something.
Is there any pedantry to be found on this point of form?
Now dammit, don't try to tell me that a swimming question killed the thread.
68: No, it's a valid point.
69: Copouts R U.
Shorter BitchPhd: Chickens don't have the cognitive ability to formulate a reason for crossing a road.
If you haven't seen it, rent Top Secret and check out the scene where the East German women's gymnastics team sings their national anthem.
71: not a ball. breaching whales is closer. bend waist sharply, bend knees so your feet are close to wall, push off.
77: Thanks for the answer, although that's not the one I was looking for. Now I'm going to need the rationale.
Innately female. Superficially male.
Cereb, unless you're racing, it doesn't really matter, but piking is preferred to balling nowadays only because it's a little bit faster, and it's faster because you generate less resistance when you bring your legs around out of the water rather than in it.
Not sure what the rationale is, other than "it's faster". You don't really want to be all coiled up for the pushoff - the optimal shove comes with your legs partially extended. Remember that if you turn six inches further from the wall, that's a foot less distance you have to swim. You also probably gain more from being able to kick downward powerfully than you lose from not being tightly tucked.
I'd rather be a baller than a piker, frankly.
wrongshore wins with lusciously.
How about partially female?
I approve congenitally. The pun wins me over.
80 & 81: Thanks, I'm satisfied with those explanations. Even though I'm going to have to put up with a certain amount of smugness at the pool tomorrow.
cerebrocrat:
The key is to land flat on your back, not on your side. I wouldnt worry too much about pike or ball, but I suspect that you are better served with a ball, instead of a pike.
As Jake mentioned, you simply do not want to be too close to the wall. It is the same concept at squating weights: if you squat too low, you do not have the power to spring up/forward.
60--
"I get really sad for the other female swimmers in East Germany"
variation on that thought: i remember listening to a series of lectures on the history of opera that explained that back in the day when castrati were all the rage, you had to castrate about ten boys to get one decent professional singer. as with much talent searching, it had to happen at a fairly early age, e.g. pre-pub, when there would be no telling how the voice would develop.
so there are the other nine. they've got a right to sing the blues, but they may not have the mojo
hmmmm--thinking of talent searching--what if we made it a condition for all contestants on american idol? or for all of the judges?
Evans looks like the tomboyish girl that we all knew and loved and now fondly remember from junior high school. But those East German nominal women? For real, they look like men. Or, they look like men who sort of look like women. Put them together on an album cover, in some sort of weird composite, and we're talking Frampton Comes Alive. Peter Frampton at the '88 Olympics. On steroids.
they look like men who sort of look like women
IA is Henry James!
65:I am not certain what the USA stands for, or has ever stood for. You may stand for something, or I, or Jimmy Carter; and Bush and Lindsay Graham may stand for something else.
I happen to believe the Post-War Conventions and Institutions are among humanity's greatest achievements; but except for the Nuremburg trials the United States did not diligently practice or attempt to enforce those standards. So I have a harder time saying America stands for a free press or stand aginst aggression against sovereign nations.
PS:Blaming Communism...oh, never mind.
You may stand for something, or I, or Jimmy Carter; and Bush and Lindsay Graham may stand for something else.
That's precisely what America stands for.
The USA - standing for, and falling for, anything.
The circle is complete. Frampton sings about swimming:
"Or, they look like men who sort of look like women. Put them together on an album cover, in some sort of weird composite, and we're talking Frampton Comes Alive. Peter Frampton at the '88 Olympics. On steroids."
"wonder how your feeling
There's ringing in my ears
And no one to relate to 'cept the sea
Who can I belive in
I'm kneeling on the floor
There has to be a force who do I phone
The stars are out and shinning, but all I really want to know...
Oh won't you show me the way
I want you ...show me the way
Well, I can see no reason
You living on your nerves
When someone drops a cup and I submerge
I'm swimming in a circle
I feel I'm going down
There has to be a fool to play my part
Lindsay Graham may stand for something else.
Lindsay Graham stands for re-election. Which he will be, probably, and possibly for the next several decades. Graham doesn't have the love of the hard-core base like DeMint, but he's cultivated the image of a reasonable man which goes over well with a lot of the people in this state. What's really amazing is how people in this state have no trouble electing a man who obviously doesn't have finding a wife on his mind (Graham's boyfriends are as widely rumored as Thurmond's affair with Carrie Butler was), yet can still vote overwhelmingly to make same-sex unions unconstitutional.
in re 98, i'd just like to say:
waaah
wah wah wah wah wah
93
Tastes vary. The East German woman on the right looks fine to me, at least in this photograph.
"Everything but their physical appearance would lead you to believe they're female, so I think it's fine."
The appearance of her seven inch erect clitoris had me confused, yes.
Is anyone else watching tennis?
Easier to have the computer play Pong. Less sweat.
Damn you Standpipe. I was still waking up. Now I'm glued to the TV.
