Tag: I do not think that word means what you think it means

Notes and Open Letters Regarding the Election

These are things that have been rattling around in my head since the horror began to reveal itself last night.  Some of them are fully formed letters, other are just too long to be tweets.  Read them, share them, do what you will (with credit of course).  Fair warning, I don’t have the tolerance or patience to argue with Trump supporters, anyone who opted out of voting yesterday or who voted 3rd party.  If you show up here spouting crap that in any way irritates or stresses me I’ll bring down the ban hammer so fast it won’t just be the door hitting you in the ass on the way out.

Oh, yeah, and I’m probably gonna break my own rules and swear.  It’s the apocalypse.  I think my mom will understand.

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Say what now?

This is probably what The Bloggess would categorize as Spectacular Marketing Fail.  Or maybe Exceptional PR Blunder.  Anyway, when you’re trying to sell something, or in this case, give it away for free, remember the first rule of sales: Know Thy Audience.

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What we’re reading now – March 2016 edition

I got home from work last night, bundled myself into my Dash-don’t-you-dare-lick-me outfit, and spent some time playing Shaws Monopoly and reading stuff and things on the intertubes.  Some of them were awesome, some were thought provoking, others were troll/bless your heart you stupid little millennial magnets, and some actually made me want to comment.  Here they are for your reading pleasure.

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A very good year for swears

As most of you know, Geoff and I go out of our way to keep from swearing in this space.  This is mostly because this blog is read by our parents and both our mothers have been known to need smelling salts if they encounter too many F-bombs.  That being said, we both swear like sailors IRL and, as Geoff has said many times, he learned his particular talent for blue language in Cub Scouts and then basically got a graduate course in Foul Language in the Army.

So this post, both as it pertains to swear words, social media, writing, and the evolution of language, is very interesting.  I’m posting it here knowing that it will likely make our mothers reach for the smelling salts.  Be that as it may, the social science behind it is really interesting.  Also, the Strong Language blog is quite a read and worth checking out.  More after the jump.

~Kelly

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Cultural Appropriation & Antiques

Today Geoff and Amanda and I went to the Boston Antiques & Design Show in Wilmington, MA.  We’d never been to this show before and we actually heard about it in a book we found at a used book sale at MIT.  The book was awesome, it’s here if you want to check it out, but it may have mentioned that the show is held in a Shriners Auditorium.  Shriners, like the guys wearing little fuzzy red fezzes.

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Whitesplaining- don’t do it

I’ve been in a couple of situations lately I’ve witnessed the racial equivalent of Mansplaining.  That is, Whitesplaining.  In short, it’s when a white person explains to a non-white person how they should react to the use of a particular racially loaded term or epithet.  It also happens when a white person explains how non-white people should react to said to said terminology in an all white group.  In short, “this should offend you/them more or less than that” or, “that shouldn’t offend you/them at all.”

Awesome.

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Language, words, power, and Game of Thrones

I’ve been thinking a lot ever since I first cracked the books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire and watched the HBO show Game of Thrones about the language in the world GRRM has created.  Aside from the fact that most all of the actors speak British English (bravo, Peter Dinklage), there are a lot of interesting accents (bravo, Pedro Pascal), dialects, languages, and such to contend with on screen.

Off screen, in the written word, there’s a lot going on as well.  There’s a great essay here taking apart what’s happening, what GRRM has done and hasn’t done, and things like the necessity of having professional linguists create Dothraki and Valyrian, etc.  Click through, it is absolutely worth a read.

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