Language

That was, by the way, written entirely to provoke Huey. Don’t worry about it.

On to the real post. (Warning, this post contains adult language. Kind of.) (more…)

[This post pertains almost exclusively to Facebook.]

[Also: This is not a post about politics. This is a post about human behavior, and language, and my hurting head.]

It’s kind of amazing how much of my ‘news’ feed is going by unread (thank you SocialFixer), simply because of the vitriol used by the people making the posts. Yes, you are completely free to say whatever you want, in whatever language you want. I am completely free to mark your post as something that I don’t want to see, and let my software take care of the rest.

I guess I don’t understand the motivations of these people. (And, trust me, the people in question here includes the full spectrum of liberal to conservative to weapons rights (or wrongs) to religion to reproductive rights to … just about anything a person can feel passionate about, really.) It’s clear that the people in question have no intention of actually trying to change someone’s mind, or they would use language conducive to that outcome. So, are they really just preaching to the choir, and hoping that the simple levels of noise pollution will get others to pay attention?

Because that’s what it is. Noise pollution. It’s clear that the system is on, but any signal is rapidly getting lost in the noise.

I’m all for rational debate. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one on Facebook. (I was about to say “the internet” but would have been lying. I’ve been on the internet for a long time, and there used to be actual discourse out there.)

Finally, if this post makes you want to remove me as a friend, then, well, it’s probably for the best. If it drives you to tell me how wrong and pigheaded and close-minded I am, then it may compel me to learn how to remove you as a friend, because my friends simply don’t behave that way.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled $SOCIAL_MEDIA_PLATFORM.

Yesterday, I stole a game from my friend Lee, and posted it to my own Facebook wall, hoping it might get a few responses. We’re now at over 70 responses, and they’re still coming in.

The rules are simple:

Take a movie title, and change something about it: remove a letter, add a letter, change a letter–whatever. Then tell us what the new movie is about.

You can see what’s been suggested so far via the link above, though you’ll probably have to be my Facebook friend in order to see the thread. You should totally join us, either on Facebook, or my blog, or LiveJournal. It’s fun!

I hereby propose that the acronym YAMA (standing for ‘Yet Another Medical Appointment’) be added to the common vernacular. This works especially well, as 山 (yama) in Japanese means ‘mountain’, and those dealing with chronic (or serial) medical conditions know that the continuous treks to various medical offices feels like climbing a mountain sometimes.

The reason this springs to mind this morning is that, thanks to the suggestions of those of you who responded to my query “WTF should meri do about her knee?“, I made an appointment with my PCP. My insurance does not actually require referrals, but 1) I like my PCP quite a lot, 2) I could get an appointment reasonably quickly (Thursday), and 3) she’s well aware of how broken I am, and might just suggest some scans or whatnot to have in hand at an initial appointment with an orthopedist or whatnot.

So yeah. Thursday. Gonna be a long day, as I have YAMA (!) that morning, and am planning to hang out with Jenn afterwards, but hopefully, it will be a useful day. (Not the hanging out with Jenn part. That doesn’t have to be useful. Just fun. And that’s pretty much guaranteed.)

Thanks to everyone who provided input (<Johnny5>INPUT!</Johnny5>) to my question yesterday about how one pronounces the final word when expanding the TCP/IP-centric initialism ‘TTL’. The results were, as expected, unanimous, and in favor of a short i, as in the first syllable of the word ‘livid’ and not as in the second syllable of the word ‘alive.’

While I knew this, there were a few things that caused me to doubt myself.

• I’m often incorrect.
• The author in question, Robert J. Sawyer, is a pretty net-savvy guy.
• The mispronunciation persisted through all three of the books in the trilogy in question (the WWW: (Wake|Watch|Wonder) series. I would have thought that, after the first book, someone would have waved their arms and corrected the narrators (multiple) as to the proper pronunciation of the word. But, it seems that either didn’t happen, or an executive decision was made to keep on keepin’ on with the standing error.

Anyway, I thank you all for confirming that I’m not completely off my rocker. It’s always good to have some external validation of that.

I’m listening to an audiobook which has a lot to do with the Internets. It’s a pretty good book, and part of a pretty good series, but there is one consistent mispronunciation that’s driving me nuts. However, upon further reflection, I realized that it’s remotely possible that I’ve been saying the phrase incorrectly all these years. I’m fairly certain that, if I am, I’m far from alone. But, it’s always good to check these things. That’s where you come in.

The mispronunciation in question comes about when the acronym TTL is expanded and the component words are said individually. Do you say the last word as:

• the last syllable in the word ‘alive’, or
• the first syllable in the word ‘livid’

Like I said, I’m pretty sure I know which way this is going to go, because the term just doesn’t make sense to me the other way. But I never underestimate the ability of the world to surprise me.

You may think that you have no idea what a pangram is, but you do. You’ve certainly heard the phrase, “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy grey dog,” before. This strange little collection of words is perhaps the most famous pangram of all time, but it’s hardly alone.

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