Tell me about something you learned today Share your knowledge and solidify the information in your brainmeat
I learned how to plant carrots (am currently in a 'hardcore' fantasy medieval minecraft role-play server and my farmer character hung out with her trainer today. I have a notecard full of carrot notes.)
Today I learnt that kids parties are exhausting but seeing the kids you babysit turning each other into toilet paper mummies is immensely entertaining.
Today EulersBidentity taught me the meaning of "Who's 'she', the cat's mother?" - a phrase I'd seen before, I think, but didn't understand. I like learning about how different cultures use words. I've never heard anyone here say that referring to someone using just pronouns is rude, but I have seen people object to being referred to with pronouns while they were present, so I think there's a similar sentiment, maybe.
Today I learned that Saturn got called Saturn because the greeks called it Kronos and the Romans were like, "hmm, we can name it after our equivalent of Kronos, Saturnes!" and then I guess Saturn is just the one english decided to use. {:l
Today I learned Snitchanon's real identity Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler is top-secret also there's apparently a limit to how many nested spoiler tags we can have. :(
I saw that and found it very interesting! And also wanted to ask @EulersBidentity how the saying handles other pronouns but the thread was being all serious at the time. So, how does it? Is he the cat's father? Do you use "she" regardless of the offending pronoun in question? Does this happen more often with people using female pronouns than male ones for some reason?
@oph IME it does happen more frequently with female pronouns than other ones! Probably because people are more touchy about rudeness towards women than towards men (because protecting the fragile feeemales). There's no equivalent phrase for other pronouns that I know of. Although my gut says that it's still rude for other pronouns, so I wonder how I picked that up...convention, probably. But like I said, this phrase (and this grammar rule) is dated. I heard it occasionally as a child, but only enough that it's not alien to me: it wasn't a staple of my childhood. If you google the phrase with "USA" you get a couple of blogs talking about how ENORMOUSLY SHOCKING British expats find it when Americans use pronouns - nah, it's not really that big a deal. Elderly people might be shocked. Younger people, depending on their upbringing, might find it a bit weird or rude. I was thinking about it because I thought I might be reading additional hostility into the posts in tumblr.txt that wasn't intended. Every time someone started a post with "she said" or "they did" I was like, well that's a bit fuckin' rude. I've noticed a cultural difference in the CDCF before, too! Although that situation is slightly different, since the thread is about Ray. There, starting posts with "he/him" without naming the person seems less rude, but it still gives me the impression of slightly messy English.
In the Wieliczka salt mines in Poland, there are pools of water that can't absorb any more salt and they're really cool to see.
singing is waaaaay easier than i've been doing it for five years. ...it's worth noting that i've re-learned this every week now for about seven weeks.
Today I learned that several of the swordfighting scenes in Steven Universe, particularly in the episodes Steven The Sword Fighter and Sworn To The Sword, are directly based on scenes from Revolutionary Girl Utena. Which basically means I have no excuse not to watch Utena.
From what I recall, it also seemed to happen a lot more to women/girls in general, since at least in my area it was often used as 'stop talking about someone like they aren't right in front of you' (the whole 'using pronouns only while someone is right there' usage), and that generally happened to women more commonly for obvious reasons. >_>
