Recommenting from over there. AWB had a good point that it's not just class, but also a sign of too much television and not enough fresh air and experience.
Also, "moonlit walks on the beach." I bet you find these in personal ads in landlocked states. The local paper used to have people who'd write that in ads. In Pittsburgh. ("If we go to Erie, and it's a low pollution level day...")
"Toothless, impoverished 60-year-old looking for relationship-free sex with model-beautiful 30-something. Your place, because of the vermin here."
It's more than just class, though. Or maybe it's not class, but something that tracks it pretty closely. It's not like there aren't any rich cheesy guys. (Maybe they're confined to Long Island (and Tehrangeles), but I have my doubts.)
"Unless, of course, you share my hobby of varmit shooting. Must have own .22."
"Class" isn't quite right if you're using it to describe an economic stratum. Better in the sense of "how people like us behave."
It is "people like us," but why are "people like us" like that and others not?
I'd have so much more respect if he just said what he meant: "Mid-50s guy coming to NYC for a weekend without my wife. Looking to buy you nice dinner and clothes in exchange for blowjobs."
4: Well, it's class, which is more than just money. Something that kind of surprised me working for a small law firm is developing a stereotype of small-rich people: the kind of people who own a couple of retail businesses, maybe a rental building or two. Quite rich, but in a local kind of way. Not always, but often, people in that specific economic category tend to display a lot of class markers that I, as a much poorer but overeducated professional, think of as lower class; the same sorts of things as in Alif's personal ad.
7: I'm not getting the question, or rather I'm not getting it as anything other than obvious. 'People like us' are 'like us' because of their education (whether formal or autodidact) and upbringing, which shape their tastes and behavior.
8: Enough respect to go for it, though? Because that's the actual point, I think.
9: (I do know what an incredible, and pathetic, snob I sound like here.)
'People like us' are 'like us' because of their education (whether formal or autodidact) and upbringing, which shape their tastes and behavior.
Sort of. There are people coming out of "appropriate" schools who are still cheesy.
SCMT has a point in 11. Presumeably, our mid-50's gentlemen would prefer ten "Oh my god, this guy sucks on every possible level" and one "Oh, wow, how romantic" to eleven, "Heh, well, I've gotta respect him for being straight up. But, no."
What I find amusing about class in America is that everyone thinks that everyone below them is too coarse, and everyone above them too effete. In Iran there's still genuine deference going up the class ladder. More sincere "I'm just a humble shopkeeper" stuff. (Less so now than in Shah's day, but still noticeable.)
I think she gets off on the wrong foot with the class/education explanation. There are plenty of guys with college degrees and MBAs who are that stupid. And plenty of guys without who know better than that.
Ogged's sense of class = "people like us" is more accurate, but all that means is that Alif's proxy for what she's getting at is a clumsy one.
if he just said what he meant
Yeah, but surely he thinks of himself as someone who "knows how to treat a lady right," so he can't say that. Plus, it wouldn't be classy.
You want to see the spectrum of class in America? Go to Vegas.
15: That's because Americans like to pretend that class doesn't exist. So those below aren't simply lower on the social scale; they're lower, morally. And those above aren't better; they're just more affected.
There are plenty of guys with college degrees and MBAs who are that stupid. And plenty of guys without who know better than that.
'Zactly. (This is creeping me out, B.)
Really, shouldn't we just ban the word "lady" altogether? There's no inoffensive way to use it.
Meh, I think it's easy to get hung up on the exceptions, and Alif notes that this isn't a perfect system, but I think she's right that education is a pretty good proxy for a lot of this stuff.
20: IM IN UR BRANE COOOPTING UR IDEAZ.
Resolved: The only person allowed to say the word "lady" is Tom Jones.
23: That's because you're a snob, and you don't actually know anyone who doesn't have a college degree.
25: Seconded.
you don't actually know anyone who doesn't have a college degree
Not true, reverse snob.
I also agree with B. Many well-educated-on-paper people are completely oblivious to how awful they appear in personal ads, etc. It might be tone-deafness and lack of self consciousness, not so much class.
This sort of thing shows you that men as well as women are in thrall to the media's depiction of romance and don't have enough confidence to overcome it in favor of trying to look for what they would actually enjoy.
Quite rich, but in a local kind of way. Not always, but often, people in that specific economic category tend to display a lot of class markers that I, as a much poorer but overeducated professional, think of as lower class; the same sorts of things as in Alif's personal ad.
When you say this, I think "trophy wives", in the sense of women who don't have much to offer but their looks (e.g. not the multi-talented Mrs. Fred Thompson or Mrs. Jack Welch), and that this is seen as an asset to the husband, showing that he's made it in the competitive world of local business.
I went to a local prep school, and every one of the most beautiful girls there was also among the richest. We attributed this to being the offspring of trophy wives.
Do your common friends call women "ladies"?
And if so, is it because they're common, or because they're Persian?
The eternal issue in talking about class in the US is that some of us end up talking about a particular variable (income, education level) while others are talking about something much more amorphous, a nebulous web of achievements, connections, geography, history, etc. that you can only start to get at with the phrase "socioeconomic level."
Either that, or read Gone With the Wind. Talk about frank discussion of class.
22. Standing up when a lady enters a room, or opening doors for one is just a sign of respect. How can that be offensive?
well-educated-on-paper people are completely oblivious to how awful they appear in personal ads
Sure, true, anyone can be an ass, but it's the particular mode of awfulness that's distinctive. Alif's correspondent is using language that gives away his class.
"Tall, dark, sarcastic and moody seeks female same."
I think part of what makes people weird on this issue is that social class isn't as uniformly associated with economic class as it seems like it should be. Like, the rich people I'm talking about. It feels very incorrect to describe them as in a 'lower' class than I am, because they could buy and sell everything I own a dozen times over. So it's not a lower class, it's a different class, with different behavior and tastes.
31: That's because people get cause and effect confused. Inasmuch as education is a good class proxy, it's because people who are themselves the children of educated-class parents are the ones most likely to get master's degrees as a matter of course. It's not as though one of the required courses in most master's programs is "lady and other forbidden words."
35."Tall, dark, sarcastic and moody seeks female same."
Fins and/ or gills a plus
35 -- wait, is that a real ad? 'Cause I'd totally respond to that one!
37 doesn't sound right. You do learn how to behave by hanging out with people, and the various tiers of colleges do have a homogenizing effect on their students.
I use 'lady', for some reason, talking to small children about adult women I don't know: "Oh, look, the lady in the blue shirt is walking a dog that looks just like DogBreath*."
*Unlikely, given what DB looks like, but just for example.
So the word "lady" is a class marker, but finding it hilarious to take down high and mighty types isn't. Hokay.
37, 40: And college allows people who actively want to change class to pick up the traits of a different class.
(Where's ttaM? I have the impression that doing this in the UK would look unpleasantly hypocritical, whereas in the US it doesn't the same way.)
40: But that's not education per se.
Also, I continue to maintain that there are plenty of frat boys business majors and other pre-professional types, many of whom go to state universities that have liberal arts requirements, who think "lady" is a perfectly acceptable word.
41: Isn't that an odd tic? Most people do that. I think it's because saying "that woman" inevitably sounds somewhat rude. Which is so bothersome, and all the more reason to ban "lady" (with the all-important Tom Jones exemption) immediately.
What's the hangup with "lady." I use it the same way LB does.
but I think she's right that education is a pretty good proxy for a lot of this stuff.
I don't know. I think, at least some of the time, there's some sort of "size of self-identified community" thing going on. You don't have to be particularly rich or particularly well-educated to know many of the signs to which DA points; it gets pumped to you through the television.
It seems a bit like accents: there's a standard "accentless" American accent that lots of Americans don't have, but the accent doesn't necessarily follow class.
To 45, following on from 44: Yeah, I'd say that's the result of a decision to stick with class-of-origin rather than switching to overeducated-professionals-and-people-who-act-like-them class.
I would also say that Alif's sorting mechanism probably works great with academic, rather than MBA, advanced degrees. The overlap between people getting a masters in an academic subject and people who use 'lady' in the Smoove B sense is going to be pretty small.
34: I think this isn't right, mostly because I think, perhaps incorrectly, that there's a pretty strong script of what is Romantic® and what a Romantic Date® consists in, and if you're filling out a personal ad for the first time and you're trying to sound Romantic®, you're going to reach for the clichés, which seem to me, at least, to range over a couple classes.
Shorter me: men who are clueless about women know no bounds.
47: The deal is that 'woman' shouldn't sound insulting. Which B is right about -- I use 'lady' because 'that woman' sounds wrong somehow.
Isn't the lady/woman thing some nutty Victorian hold-over, where "woman" meant "probably sleeping with someone" and "lady" implied "so pure she only has a theoretical vagina"?
Yep. With the added neat feature of being able to address a young woman of the lower classes about whom one wished to be polite as a 'young person' -- 'lady' she wasn't entitled to, and 'woman' would be like calling her a slut.
He got his responses from the playmate of the month's short bio, on the other side of the centerfold, so how wrong could they be?
I think it's the particular phrase "that woman" that people try to avoid. "I met a nice woman" is fine, but "I talked to that woman" is not.
God, we need to invent a time machine so I can go back and smack some Victorian heads. Repeat after me: "It's just a goddamn ankle!!"
"It's just a ... horrible lustful sin?"
"[thwack]"
"ankle?"
"Lady" seems like the right word to hear when a father is instructing his son about things like ... first, holding doors for..., shall we join..., etc.
I have that fucking Styx song stuck in my head.
57: And we'd like them to quit that.
Re "lady", I link to Ezra's comment on a magnificent douchebag in training.
Lady
When you're with me I'm smiling
give me
all-ll-ll of your love.
re: 44
You're all fuckin' snobs.
More seriously, I think class is a little less easily adopted or shook off than that and class is much more complex than just education and wealth (although I expect everyone here would agree with that anyway).
Personally, I find education is a pretty poor proxy for the sorts of values I care about and the things I prefer in my friends and in a girlfriend or partner. But that's not because I don't want to find compatible people, or because I'm 'above' class issues. I just have different traits that I am looking for and education alone is a pretty poor proxy for those.
I could'a had class, but my professor told me that "tonight's not your night" just before the final and now I'm a humble non-union longshoreman.
59: Judging from the number of men my age and younger whom I see not holding doors for the pregnant, the aged and the overburdened, you're getting your wish.
What's the hangup with "lady."
So much for Ogged's idea that "lady" is a proxy for education.
11, 14: You guys have the kernel of an idea that struck me. This guy is making a posting to get some over one weekend, with no time or wiggle room for actual romancing or chemistry to take hold. He has to ensure that this is a woman whose "love" can be bought, to some extent, since charm is far less reliable than cash.
In other words, even if he does not possess the media-driven (potentially lower-class?) ideas of romance and dating that Alif is talking about, he probably wants to find a woman who believe those ideas. That way he can reliably go to dinner with a good-looking person and effectively buy her affection. This may not be the case with someone "classier" or educated (or just plain smarter/more jaded), who most likely has a more idiosyncratic bar for potential mates to clear, relying on such impossible-to-predetermine traits as their perception of one's charm, personality, wit, intellect and looks.
See, that's different. I've told my 'working in an office of all 40-50 year old men when I was 19' story? I couldn't get near a door to open it myself most of the time, ladies get doors held for them; when I was lugging heavy boxes, on the other hand, doors banged shut in my face, because I wasn't perceived as feminine while I was lifting stuff.
Opening doors for the overburdened or infirm, I'm all for.
61: Fuck you, why does this track end with Bolero? I can't get it out of my head either!!!!!! gahhhhhhhhh.
I use "lady" a lot at my second job at the pet store. It's so useful: "Can you help the lady who wants a guinea pig?" or "The lady in the white tank top should probably wear a bra seems to enjoy the air conditioning" or "Where did that weird lady go? I have her fish."
I'd hate to see "lady" abolished. It makes me sound respectful, even if I'm insulting the lady in question.
I find education is a pretty poor proxy for the sorts of values I care about and the things I prefer in my friends and in a girlfriend or partner
Sure, bad proxy, but also a bad filter?
Shorter 66: "Lady" is a proxy for "stupid woman."
59: Are you speaking for all lady-kind on that?
My father used both "gentleman" and "lady" to refer to strangers ("Oh, look, that gentleman just drove away with his car door open"). I picked it up mostly unconsciously, but it sometimes gets me get strange looks.
My experience of "lady" in other contexts is that it is a very good proxy for someone carrying around a madonna/whore complex. Lady is for one set of women, female is for the other, and never the twain shall meet.
It makes me sound respectful, even if I'm insulting the lady in question.
Precisely.
And my guess is that "lady" along with "gentleman" are actually American usages with origins in the anti-deference views of the early republic: if we're not going to acknowledge a difference between "ladies and gentlemen" and those who aren't, let's address everyone by the most respectful term (short of titles).
Cala, that's Dennis DeYoung singing the music of Styx. Show a little respect. Here, try this.
72: Only those who agree with me.
59: Please don't make this a definitive ruling. It runs counter to my years of Pavlovian programming, and would surely cause headaches if I tried to follow it.
That said, I also hold doors open for the elderly and emboxed.
71: Well, more like "impressed by being called 'Lady' " is a proxy for "will put out for a flashy night" (aka "stupid woman", if you so choose)
And I recomment from Alif's: why is champagne a dealbreaker? Champagne is good! It's full of bubbles!
YoungestCalaSis, who is pretty much drop-dead gorgeous, went through a phase a year ago where she made her guy friends open doors for her, including a few hilarious times at buildings with double doors, so she'd proceed into the entryway, pause, wait, and then he'd scurry forward for the next door. She's over it now, but it's a weird thing when you realize your little sister has figured out exactly how much power she has over the opposite sex.
Actual champagne is very pleasant, and people should drink more of it (also good, Champagne cocktails!). Champagne as a signifier of a 'classy' night, on the other hand, is lame.
more like "impressed by being called 'Lady' " is a proxy for "will put out for a flashy night" (aka "stupid woman", if you so choose)
Nope. I'll put out for a flashy night, but I won't respond to a personal ad where a guy says he knows how to treat a lady.
Yeah, champagne is something you drink to celebrate with someone you're already intimate with. As part of an introduction, it's skeezy.
why is champagne a dealbreaker? Champagne is good! It's full of bubbles!
But I *like* fat chicks!
82: Ah. Yes, this I can see. (Disclosure: I just returned from the wine store with a case of wine to take to the beach tomorrow, half of which are bubblers.)
champagne is something you drink to celebrate
Champagne is something I drink with breakfast on the weekends.
On the other hand, 84 is just wrong. Champagne is something you drink when you're in the mood to drink something light and fizzy.
What's skeezy is assuming that ladies are impressed by light fizzy (and expensive) drinks.
It's too much part of a script. Champagne, and then there will be scattered rose petals, lemme guess.
So what do you guys think of the young hipster half-ironic use of the word "lady," seemingly as a way of avoiding using the word "girl" for women age 18-30 or so, but of conveying more warmth/affection/interest than the use of the word "woman" for same?
I'd also put out for champagne at the beach.
Shorter Sikkiin: Kenny Rogers, please stop e-mailing me.
"Classy" is the driving signifier. There is no problem with the use of the word "lady" except as it's used as a "classier" form of "woman." As LB says, same with champagne.
I'd also put out for champagne at the beach.
C'mon down then. We're at Froz's folks' place on Hilton Head Island.
"Lady" is impossible to teach in ESL, but fun to try to teach, because it's so contextual. Y'll forgat "Hey, lady, wanna fuck?" and "That was no lady, that was my wife".
Class: remember "cultural capital", peeps! Comes with or without money. Money comes with ot without cultural capital. They convert, but not automatically.
But the entire *point* of the word "lady" is that it's a classier form of the word woman. Hence, banination.
83: How did all these guys learn how to treat a lady? Is there just one lady going around being treated by America's Full Cleveland-wearers in turn?
I take it my singles ad was ineffective once again. Not my genre, I guess.
94: Too much effort. There's a beach ten minutes' drive away, and a couple wine stores en route.
I think this thread has pretty much proven that there are plenty of educated folks who will use the word "lady."
83: I think that's the sort of thing you learn on the street. One skeevy guy passes on his 'how to treat a lady' tips to the next.
Nope. I'll put out for a flashy night, but I won't respond to a personal ad where a guy says he knows how to treat a lady.
That's why the former is a proxy for the latter, and not vice-versa. And I can bet that from your dating profile, unless you included that precise line, few could tell that you'd hopping their bone after an expensive night out. Plus, just from what you've said here before, I bet your idea of a flashy night that deserves some lovin' is more idiosyncratic (differing from media / soap opera ideals) than this comment implies.
Also, on champagne, two notes:
1) This bar in Wicker Park has a cocktail with a lychee and a little bit of lychee nectar in champagne that's completely awesome. I recommend the homemade version to anyone.
2) The rules everyone is mentioning in this thread do not apply to cheap bubbly. Meet-and-greets involving cheap blush champagne or the such being swigged from the bottle can be immensely successful among people of many classes.
(OT: you know what is stupid? A couple that doesn't have a fuzzy love song trying to pick out a 'first dance' song.)
Both first-date champagne and the word "lady" are perfectly acceptable, however, if you arrived after a jaunty splashing of MANDOM.
103: Not fair. MANDOM makes everything OK.
I don't get why guys like this respond to ads like the kind I presume Sikiin would write. (I wrote one and got similar responses out the wazoo.) Pretty much every other woman on CL seems to be looking to be bought things, either because they're shallow golddiggers or because they're actual prostitutes (often hard to tell which), so there's no dearth of CL ladies looking to be bought for a night on the town. Why respond to thoughtful, humorous academic types with this shit?
Either they think they will get even more pleasure out of treating a woman this way who doesn't look for it--making a trophy out of someone who doesn't want to be treated as a trophy as the enforcement of patriarchal success--or they just respond to every goddamned ad on CL.
Probably the latter, I guess.
I posted 101. Also, by "the former is a proxy for the latter", I meant that "being impressed by being called a lady" is a proxy for "will put out for a flashy night".
100 is awesome.
I can bet that from your dating profile, unless you included that precise line, few could tell that you'd hopping their bone after an expensive night out
Nope. My first dates when I was hopping men's bones via a dating profile were a free play (to which I provided the tickets), meeting at a coffeeshop followed by a cheap Thai lunch, and a home-cooked meal (preceded, to be fair, by a plane flight to Minneapolis, but I paid for that myself).
you know what is stupid? A couple that doesn't have a fuzzy love song trying to pick out a 'first dance' song.
I hate the whole idea that women reward men with sex. I'm surprised bitchphd is so happy to act within that tradition.
102: Cala, can I suggest some classic but romantic songs by Styx?
Also, can we drink MANDOM? Has anyone tried?
there are plenty of educated folks who will use the word "lady."
Pretty much anybody who has ever worked in the service industry in this part of the country will use the word "lady". And "gentleman".
106: No, ladies don't put out after a first date. Have you learned nothing?
It would probably help if I didn't hate most slow love songs.
108 completely fails to understand my point, which is that I put out because I want to get laid.
I am, however, perfectly willing to play the game of courtship, because it's fun. And I happen to like nice meals out, regardless of whether I or my date is picking up the tab. So there.
108 completely fails to understand my point, which is that I put out because I want to get laid.
I am, however, perfectly willing to play the game of courtship, because it's fun. And I happen to like nice meals out, regardless of whether I or my date is picking up the tab. So there.
I don't get why guys like this respond to ads like the kind I presume Sikiin would write.
I think one of the class markers that makes them 'guys like this' is that they aren't fluent in interpreting nuances of prose style. Alif's ad probably doesn't look all that different from an ad written by their target lady, because they're not reading the subtleties at all.
Cala, if you have to have a first dance song, cheese it up. Go with "You Are My Lady" or maybe "I Will Always Love You," in honor of Shivbunny's Canadian origin.
I am, however, perfectly willing to play the game of courtship, because it's fun.
This means that B's "complicated."
102: So pick something like this and enjoy watching the faces of your guests.
When I went to feminist indoctrination camp, I was instructed that one uses the term "lady" in any circumstance where the term "gentleman" would be appropriate if referring to a male, and in no other situation.
Of course, I was indoctrinated so long ago that the term "bitch" was deemed unacceptable when describing either women or ladies, even ironically, so I've obviously missed a few developments in this area.
Since you brought it up in this thread, Cala, it's gotta be "Lay Lady Lay." Sorry, them's the rules.
108, 117: But isn't the main reason why this response is so insulting that it assumes what women want to avoid, except in the case of a great deal of Romantic Spending, is sex? I have a hard time understanding how anyone could participate in online dating unless they were looking, at least in part, for sex. Parsimon commented a while back that it all sounds like squicky self-advertisement, a huge quick-speed meatmarket, and it pretty much is. Except, if you're not posting in the "Casual Encounters" section, you're probably interested in talking and having a drink before you actually take your clothes off, and you might also be interested in a relationship.
I've heard that the Chinese use cooking skills as a proxy for class: "mein of lord or lady."
You know, it's really too bad that Cala didn't just let us plan her wedding for her. I bet we'd even enjoy running interference with her mom.
Oh, and then the father-daughter dance! arrgggg.
102: we went with Louis Armstrong's version of La Vie en Rose. Great trumpet solo, & short. You could also resist the slow dance thing & do something swing-y, but that requires more effort to learn the steps.
And seriously, the last time I danced with my father, I was probably two, standing on his feet, and dancing to 'another one bites the dust.'
Alif's ad probably doesn't look all that different from an ad written by their target lady, because they're not reading the subtleties at all.
Or, it costs little effort to respond to any remotely likely target. It's the direct mail principle: A response rate in the single-digits, percentage-wise, can justify the cost of thousands of stamps.
130: Then you really, really should do "Another One Bites the Dust." That'd be cute.
130: it seems to me you've just answered your own question.
I just attended one of the most pre-packaged weddings I've ever seen. It wasn't bad, I liked the people and so on, but the space and the staff clearly do this four times a week, and the DJ/MC person was going entirely from boring/embarrassing standards (with the possible exception of "YMCA", which is either fascinating or appalling at such a maximially heteronormative event). I suppose it's one more thing to eat your brain, but if you like music, please, put together some kind of actual playlist.
AWB: I expect they're not actually reading the ads as much as scanning them for being the right age.
Alif's ad probably doesn't look all that different from an ad written by their target lady, because they're not reading the subtleties at all.
Not to disagree with pf's point, but definitely yes to the above. I was once amazed when numerous commenters failed to observe that the blog posts they were responding to were written by two completely separate bloggers, with very different writing voices. Some people really do read for content, and are tone-deaf to style.
I think the playlist are going to be boring-embarassing standards (otherwise, what does the mother dance to?) plus whatever my sisters and friends request. Which means there's a good chance we go from the Chicken Dance to bhangra in one evening.
Skipping the Chicken Dance is entirely permissible, even within the context of boring standards. The DJ told me so.
It looks like Scooter Libby can make it to the wedding after all...
Question: which is worse? 'Skeevy' or 'sleazy'? I'm being told it's the latter.
otherwise, what does the mother dance to?
It's your chance to do the dance they call the hump.
And on the lady thing, use 'lady' where you'd use 'gentleman', but I think the rule boils down to, 'don't be a skeeze.'
Question: which is worse? 'Skeevy' or 'sleazy'?
Huh, that's interesting. I have no idea, although I use both. I suppose sleazy is worse.
Talk about distinctions that are hard to convey in ESL!
Father-daughter dance is EASY. Here's just one possibility.
Skeeves tend to be gross out of social cluelessness. Sleazes are actively malevolent.
Cala- will it be declasse or a cultural signifier when you do the "Money dance" with your fiance?
140: In my idiolect, 'skeevy' is a contemptuous class descriptor -- Lenny and Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley, or some more up-to-date version. 'Sleazy' expresses specific disapproval of conduct.
A generally skeevy guy might be behaving himself admirably, and so would not be acting sleazy. An aristocrat acting badly, as, for example Bush pardoning Libby, is sleazy but not skeevy.
145: And a 'skeeze' combines both!
I voted down the Money Dance on the grounds that they always bore the guests to death, and we're having a small wedding so we can't afford to kill anyone.
But declasse-but-striving-for-respectable is generally a good rule of thumb for my family. But you know, if we pretend my mom is ironic about her love of the cheesy wedding songs, she can be an ahead of the times hipster.
Father-daughter dance is EASY.
Thank Heaven for Little Girls
Ooh, ooh. Or the Butterfly Kisses song. Or, or, the Unforgettable song. Or pretty much anything country, which will combine God, weddings, love, and trucks into a pleasant melange.
Thank Heaven for Little Girls
the pedophile theme song.
Sketchy to me is often what LB was talking about above - - specific disapproval of conduct. "He asked me to go to the club afterwards, but it seemed kind of sketchy."
Huh. I've always interpreted "sketchy" and "skeevy" as positives. If they're negatives, that might explain the lack of return calls, though.
Although 'sketchy' to me is doubtful. 'I'm not going in that club, it looks awfully sketchy,' expresses fear that a fight will break out or you'll be harassed, but not certainty. I wouldn't use 'sketchy' about something that I wasn't sure was a problem.
Father-daughter dance is EASY.
"My Heart Belongs to Daddy"
I've got an extra negative in that last sentence.
"Sketchy" is much more often used to describe places or situations than people.
'Lady' is now a condescending term, for the most part, becasue it's used to address/ describe shop girls. It may have initially been intended as a sign of respect, but since the use has been dropped everywhere else, it's now a very strong class marker--in reverse.
(I want to scream, when people say "Ask the nice lady..")
Marginally better than, "Inquire of the wench."
Fuck: Skeevy
Marry: Sketchy
Kill: Sleazy
Sketchy means rough or divey, as in situations.
Except in stupid Canada, where as far as I can tell it's an all-purpose term for "not cool."
Except in stupid Canada
I think this is part of why I was wondering; I've gotten the impression that sketchy gets used for a wider variety of things in Commonwealth countries than in the US. An Australian once asked me if Americans used the word at all.
144, 150, 156: There's also this appropriately-titled number, which has the bonus of being written about a gay sugar-daddy relationship.
In my idiolect, people as well as their behavior can definitely be sketchy. Sketchy people engage in sketchy behavior.
Sketchiness is the quality that requires one to play hip or dangerous.
It's actually really fun to go shopping for clothes with your girl or boyfriend (not, however, your "lady"). You can each dress each other up, it's like grown-up dolls.
She has to be really totally relaxed with her body and looks, though.
She has to be really totally relaxed with her body and looks, though.
Hey, I like to think that Snarkout and I are both fun to go shopping with too, despite being only moderately relaxed about our appearances.
My son is an expert on sketchiness and may be sketchy himself at this point.
169 is true, especially if you make the other person get something they totally are uncomfortable in and then you both wear the clothes out that evening
actually one of my favorite dates
"Some people really do read for content, and are tone-deaf to style."
well for things like blogs, i'm usually reading for political/social/sexual/jessica beil content, not prose stylings. if i want that, i'll get out a novel or something. Trying to read for both usually results in dissappointment, and slower reading speeds.
I've very rarely heard anyone say "sketchy", and have never heard "skeezy". "Shady" is a lot more common, and seems to mean about the same thing as "sketchy".
have never heard "skeezy" or "skeevy" either, it may go without saying.
This may also be a place to ask whether the British word "slag" means the same as the American word "slut".
"Shady" is sort of like "sketchy" transported back in time to 1959.
Funny, I thought "skeevy" was "sleazy" transported into 1969.
172: Yoyo, reading for style is not always about appreciation, and it's not something one does consciously. It's just about being able to recognize, usually semi-subconsciously, the difference between typical sentence structures, rhetorical maneuvers, and diction. We all do it, to different degrees, just like we all taste food, even though there are some who are better at describing what they taste.
Actual champagne is very pleasant, and people should drink more of it (also good, Champagne cocktails!).
Champagne cocktail recipe: put sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne glass. A few drops of bitters on top of the sugar cube. Then pour a jigger of cognac on top of the now-embittered sugar cube. Fill the rest of the champagne glass with champagne.
Guaranteed to get the ladies to put out. I may use it tomorrow night.
re: 174
I don't think so. Slag carries class connotations that slut does not.
hm, i don't think thats true. Many times i only enjoy the first few bites of a meal, and then totally forget i'm eating, because my mind is entirely focused on the tv or the thread or something. sometimes i forget i'm driving because i'm enjoying the song on the ipod. etc. if i don't think something will be important, its definatly going to get filtered out unless its quite wierd.
i head that on the veldt, women had to multitask betwween kids and foraging, while men had to have absolute concentration on spearing their rats.
Evo psych can blow me. The naturalization of gender differences through evo psych can especially blow me.
You may not be thinking about what you're tasting, but your brain still receives the information, even if you ignore it, just like your iPod doesn't make you blind and crash into a tree.
You're so wrong, AWB. The need to spear rats on the primal veldt explains almost everything about men.
You may not be thinking about what you're tasting, but your brain still receives the information, even if you ignore it
Indeed -- I bet you'd notice if there was a patch of ground-up aspirin in the middle of your unimportant hamburger.
182: Only in an analogical way that's about as sophisticated as a Gallagher joke.
For the love of good champagne, marcus! That had best be some sparkling white wine you're proposing to adulterate so.
Sounds like someone isn't reading for style.
Champagne cocktails are a perfectly worthy tradition.
185: good champagne alone won't get the ladies to put out, Jackmormon. You need to feed her some sugar...and some fine cognac...
188: I hear they like sugarcubes and carrots, and a light scratch on the nose.
Since good champagne does get me to put out, as it were, does that mean I'm not a lady? I'll have you know, Mr. Smoove B, that my family is very respectable!
JM, a close reading of 178 reveals that you are guaranteed to put out when served the cocktail in question, so I don't know why you're pretending to gripe.
And AWB, you don't actually want evo psych to blow you. What you REALLY want is for evo psych to grab you by the hair and drag you back to its cave for some good missionary-position sex, culminating in impregnation. Millions of years of evolution leave you no choice in your true desires.
191 would have been better in a pre-190 world.
Last night's dinner included a dessert of champagne jelly with raspberries, but I used persecco instead, because, yum.
Also, RMS and I told most of our friends, with a straight face, that our first dance would be to this song.
Actually, I know you won't believe this, but the dry toasty quality of good champagne provides a perfect counterpoint to the other ingredients in the drink. That recipe made with a bad sparkling white would be too sweet, and the flavor of the cognac wouldn't balance.
Remember, this cocktail was invented by the *French*, who are not disposed to screw up their champagne.
And a jigger isn't very much -- the drink should be dominated by the champagne.
That is all I have to say on the matter of champagne cocktails.
I will arrive at your door in a pure-white limousine. Upon arriving, I will not honk the horn. Instead, I will walk up the stairs of your apartment building and softly rap on your door. When the door opens, I will compliment you on your outfit and your hair. I will then command the limo driver to take your bags so that I may look deep into your eyes as I hold your hand at shoulder level. As we walk down the stairs, I will whisper such romantic things to you as "Your eyes are like two brown gems," "You are my ebony queen," and "Your body is like a delicate flower, and I am a trained gardener who knows that kind of flower inside and out."
When we reach the car, I will open the door for you because you deserve to be treated in such a fashion.
Inside the limo, I will have available an assortment of only the finest champagnes purchaseable from the best champagne stores in all of France. There will also be cranberry juice. If you wish, you can mix the two together.
As our driver drives us, I will kiss you upon your neck, arms, and forehead. I will refrain from kissing your lips so that your passion for me will grow to the highest level imaginable. I will let you control the air conditioning in the limo, as well, ensuring that the temperature inside is precisely to your wildest wishes.
Way back at 44, LB wrote:
And college allows people who actively want to change class to pick up the traits of a different class
I'd alter one thing about this: whether one actively wants to change class, college provides (can provide) an opportunity to learn how to do so.
I'd prefer to understand "people like us," a phrase I use only under duress, in terms of people who are able to behave with what counts as comfort and grace among a number of different cultural classes. That often involves learning up the ladder, as it were.
I was about to provide a personal anecdote about this, but my comments are way too fucking long lately.
198. Do you remember the SNL skit with Walken as "The Continental"?
When my daughter was 2, I used to bounce her up and down singing I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande. I'm hoping that the prospect of this playing for the father-daughter dance keeps her from getting married for several years yet.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2RQtK1B6uyk
walken best of. Smoove B got nuttin on The Continental.
201: "Fine champahnyuh and ze art of massage...."
we went with Louis Armstrong's version of La Vie en Rose
Now I really wanna see someone choose "Je ne regrette rien" for their first dance.
Fuck. I'd do it, except I'm already married.
Walken's funny, but no one touches Smoove.
Except all the fine ladies who are so enamored of his stylin' moves.
Belatedly, I realise that my 185 reveals my own class position: I have had the opportunity to drink some very good champagne, but it does not exactly flow like water in my household... Smoove, could you help out with that?
No one has mentioned possibly the greatest changing-class movie ever: Working Girl, with Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, and Harrison Ford: "If you want people to take you seriously, you have to have serious hair."
Champagne and cranberry juice? Is there meant to be an obvious joke there?
I think just that it's the kind of thing unsophisticated people would do with champagne--mix it with juice to make it more palatable.
Cheap champagne makes orange juice much more fun.
Agreed, I like the mimosas just fine.
Is there meant to be an obvious joke there?
Yes. The Smoove B joke is in the contrasts between (a) what he thinks is "high class" and what is, in fact, classy (e.g. "you can mix the two together"), and (b) his view of 'treating a lady right' and then expressing his desire to, for example, hit her from behind or freak her nasty.
his view of 'treating a lady right' and then expressing his desire to, for example, hit her from behind or freak her nasty.
If you weren't so gay, Labs, you'd realize that there's no contrast there.
Cranberry and champagne wouldn't go well, would it? Mimosas pretty much are the point of brunch, but cranberry juice is probably too tart.
The need to spear rats on the primal veldt
Goddammit, it's hunting giraffes! Hunting giraffes! And rolling in the mud like little piggies!
I guess the yeast infection joke wasn't obvious to everyone. "Let me make you feel good inside in every way".
but cranberry juice is probably too tart.
Depends on what you're serving it with. I like the idea of cranberry mimosas, served with a slice of kiwi, maybe, but you'd probably want to serve them with something either less tart--um, some kind of fruit compote--or something that isn't too sweet--um, shrimp and grits?
And rolling in the mud like little piggies!
Women can never understand it when we want to do this. "The laundry! the laundry!" they shriek.
My proof of this? Evolutionary psychology! Also, memories of my Mom when I was a kid.
You barbarians. Champagne is a sparkling wine specific to the Champagne region (and therefore the name is capitalized). Most of it is very fine, and mixing it with anything is akin to the Chinese nouveau-riche fad of mixing Coca-Cola with Mouton Rothschild. Champagne and other sparkling wines are the ideal accompaniment to many foods, especially seafood, and there's no reason not to have them on a first date. In fact, there's good reason to order Champagne just to make certain your date doesn't have weird ideas about Champagne as a class indicator.
But Jesus, if your date misunderstands Champagne, buying it for her may cause her to erroneously screw you, not understanding the real message that you were trying to send.
So you don't call back. It happens.
I think I'd prefer a trip to Champagne and Limousin to a limousine ride with free champagne.
224: Now that's a classy quip - the classy version of "I'd rather have a bottle in fronta me than a frontal lobotomy."
"Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends!"
fools, all of you. CLEARLY, Cala's "first dance" song should be "Masochism Tango".
duh.
You barbarians. Champagne is a sparkling wine specific to the Champagne region
When I crack open the next bottle of '96 Pol Roger Winston Churchill I have aging in the cellar, I'll drink a toast to you, Mr. McQueen, for teaching me so much about Champagne (capitalized!).
You're not even inviting me to share your Pol Roger, marcus? You barbarian.
Cala's first dance song should be Lyle Lovett's "She's No Lady".
The classic champagne cocktail (the champagne cocktail just called "champagne cocktail") doesn't contain any cognac, just sugar and bitters, so I immediately distrust marcus.
But really, why not go straight for the heavy hitters? Use real absinthe for the former.
1. w-lfs-n is wildly wrong[1] on the subject of the classic champagne cocktail.
2. I think it may be some time before the wives of knights and above (like Lady Thatcher, for example), take on the new regime under which they are called "birds".
3. I did the evolutionary psychology joke on my blog last week
[1]by which I mean, just wrong; it's a simple factual claim and it isn't true; there are some recipes which have cognac and some which don't. I'm not sure that there are degrees of wrong for something like that
If, on a date, I ever got pedantic about champagne, and the lucky lady didn't recognize it as a Wayne's World reference, I'd drop her on the spot. Well, not on the spot, but soon enough.
This kind of pedantry interferes with my sex life.
Y'all are making me very glad that I've got a steady date lately. You're also making me feel very sorry for you people out on the coasts, caught between the Scylla of Snobbery and the Charybdis of Hipsterdom.
Of course, I only have graduate credit.
233: The ones in Claridges have brandy in them. My wife's oldest friend, the Hon. Catherine C-, drinks them nowhere else. She was also a nice illustration in her youth of the difference between a slut and a slag. No one would ever have called her a slag.
Cala's first dance song should be Ice Cube's "Givin' Up The Nappy Dugout".
As usual, the joke on dsquared's blog is both funnier and more penetrating about the absurdity of the topic than anything else on the web, so everybody should go check it out. (I'm a total dsquared groupie -- during a discussion on Megan's blog, I even used him as an example of the redeeming social value produced by allowing people to be assholes on the web).
[1]by which I mean, just wrong; it's a simple factual claim and it isn't true; there are some recipes which have cognac and some which don't. I'm not sure that there are degrees of wrong for something like that
Blast.
Blast.
Graduates of w-lfs-n's alma mater can't stand to admit they're wrong. That's why the world hates them.
Champagne enema vs. coffee enema: complementary or mutually exclusive? Discuss.