Four Words: Use Other Words Please

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Oh dear I can't spell 'amended' right either...what a fool

― David, Friday, 15 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Nicole, actually I really ought to have known, almost *did* know, that you were being sarcastic. I've read tons of your posts and I know you're not at all like that - if I had stopped to think about it at all. Feel almost foolish about going off like that actually because you see, I'd just woken up two hours early because I'd set my clock wrong, and I am not a happy fun morning person on the best of days, so I was in the fuzzed up mode of snarly bed-headed bitch. I think I wanted to read it that way. I still believe what I said is how things should be, but in person I've been just as nit-picky and snobby as the worst ever seen here, so I was being a total hypocrite to boot. Apologies for slinging the s word at you guys - you too mark. As for emoticons - yeah, they do serve a valid purpose. In It's easy to say that we communicated well and fine enough without them before the internet came along, but the difference is that written word on the internet is often conversational. It's a style that developed in tandem with visual and aural cues, and a style that had no time to properly adapt when the internet made cue-less conversations commonplace. Emoticons, LOLs, tee hees, hehs and hahs are the only adaptation that we've managed to patch on to stop the obvious gap. I mean we can either use this stuff (within reason) to try to convey whatever seems lacking because of this displaced style context, or we can abandon the conversational style all together (not likely,) or else we'd better just resign ourselves to being misunderstood as often as not. Not caring either way does have a certain virtue. Personally, the only things I find even remotely essential are the occaisional ;) to denote only a very subtle joke and to denote, uh, sarcasm. Throw in a "heh" or two, and I'm 8).

― Kim, Friday, 15 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

One Use-Other-Words-Please that baffles me, and that's probably more just a quirk of the english language is "no offense, but...", as in "I'm about to say the worst shit about you, but act like nothing's wrong and it's all in good fun". How did that one emerge ? I can't think of any similar expression in french. Also, it took quite a bit of explaining before I (vaguely) came to understand the meaning of "so to speak", and I'd still be unable to explain it to someone else if I were asked.

― Patrick, Friday, 15 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one year passes...

Hey - this is where Nicole decided that everyone hated her!

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 04:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

N., you cruel man.

I note that Nicole offered up what I think is a crucial point here:

One reason I use emoticons: seems when I don't, I invariably get "Are you serious?!" types of responses. I've even received a couple of very angry and offended emails from people who had taken something I had written at face value. Hence the use of emoticons...

Something which I stand by constantly, of course.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 04:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

eight months pass...

New bete noire:

"Your mileage may vary"

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:30 (twenty years ago) link

that is a bete rouge at worst

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:34 (twenty years ago) link

what does it mean? i don't drive.

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:37 (twenty years ago) link

red beast

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:37 (twenty years ago) link

I reject your zoology.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:38 (twenty years ago) link

And barely drive.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:38 (twenty years ago) link

you guys kill me.
the mileage thing -- what does that mean?

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:45 (twenty years ago) link

Two Words: is only funny if the phrase is very ostensibly NOT two words.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:47 (twenty years ago) link

Two words: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:50 (twenty years ago) link

Nah, doesn't work.

― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:51 (twenty years ago) link

See, that is funny.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Monday, 17 November 2003 11:51 (twenty years ago) link

Enrique, I am assuming the mileage thing means 'you may disagree'. A kind of 'IMHO' variant that is equally vague and redundant and somehow even more smug and shit.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:03 (twenty years ago) link

i don't think it works, as a metaphor.

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:05 (twenty years ago) link

No, it is rubbish.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:09 (twenty years ago) link

Is it (the mileage thing) in adverts or something? I mean I suppose it is but I've never seen it.

― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:10 (twenty years ago) link

This is a nasty little thread.

(Nick, curly Jackie asked after you yesterday. She sends her love)

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:11 (twenty years ago) link

Hurray for curly Jackie. I send my love back. She's a cracker.

You're right - this thread is nasty.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:13 (twenty years ago) link

nasty like janet

i've seen nastier

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:14 (twenty years ago) link

I don't think it's that bad: it's generaly used as an acknowledgment of the fact that different people like different things. Its use is mildly ironic, since the original use (car commercials) was about how things are objectively rather than subjectively different (oh, my sides etc.)

N: have you been seeing a sudden upsurge in this recently? I've been seeing YMMV for about 10 years, on and off.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:15 (twenty years ago) link

Research indicates that N. now hates every single US ILXer.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:15 (twenty years ago) link

(and Pashmina)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:16 (twenty years ago) link

I've only just noticed it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:16 (twenty years ago) link

I don't hate people for saying things. That would be ridiculous.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:20 (twenty years ago) link

so you like enoch powell?

― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:23 (twenty years ago) link

I don't think he likes people for saying things.

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:33 (twenty years ago) link

his mileage varies

― athos magnani (Cozen), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:36 (twenty years ago) link

I don't hate Enoch Powell. Anyway, he's dead.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 17 November 2003 12:47 (twenty years ago) link

--I have no problem with that
--We'll make it happen
--End of story
\
(that's three different ones, by the way)

― Skottie, Monday, 17 November 2003 21:14 (twenty years ago) link

one year passes...

ILXors use "creepy" way too damn much and much more than the rest of the population. Is this a throwback to the 50s?

― Creepy Weirdo, Thursday, 13 October 2005 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link

five years pass...

why does every goddamn description of a southern (US) accent call it a "drawl"?? USE OTHER WORDS, PLEASE

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, 11 July 2011 16:54 (twelve years ago) link

Drawing your vowels out = drawl

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawl

They use it because it's a readily recognizable feature of a dialect and it's quick and easy to say compared to "dialect" or "way of speaking" or "he drags out his vowels"; and "southern accent" sounds weird to some people because they associate accents with other languages.

― bamcquern, Monday, 11 July 2011 20:44 (twelve years ago) link

my point is that some - many? most? - southern accents are not drawls

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Friday, 15 July 2011 16:51 (twelve years ago) link

people who call their computer a "'puter"

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Friday, 15 July 2011 16:51 (twelve years ago) link

or a pooter

― kkvgz, Friday, 15 July 2011 19:28 (twelve years ago) link

meta
ad hominem

― kkvgz, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:00 (twelve years ago) link

(not singling out the latest post by kdt, btw. I've been tired of these two for a long while)

― grit of ad hominem (kkvgz), Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:01 (twelve years ago) link

three years pass...

Today I learned on Twitter that some people call sunglasses "sunnies"

ffs why

― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Monday, 24 November 2014 18:34 (nine years ago) link

sunglasses successor will be along shortly to explain it all.

― estela, Monday, 24 November 2014 19:09 (nine years ago) link

― the farakhan of gg (DJP), Monday, 24 November 2014 19:13 (nine years ago) link

four months pass...

"You do you"???? I've never heard anyone say this and would at least briefly contemplate hitting someone who did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/magazine/how-you-do-you-perfectly-captures-our-narcissistic-culture.html

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 March 2015 16:20 (nine years ago) link

three years pass...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyF8FiUWkAYZDdI.jpg

― mookieproof, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 16:44 (five years ago) link

ugh

― Right column Leftist (sunny successor), Tuesday, 29 January 2019 20:33 (five years ago) link

instantiation

like, is "instance" not good enough for you

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 20:39 (five years ago) link

The term was originally coined by Coca-Cola as "throat share",[2] in order to measure how much of the world's beverages were theirs, but is now more commonly referred to as share of throat.[3]

― mick signals, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 20:49 (five years ago) link

Today I learned on Twitter that some people call sunglasses "sunnies"

ffs why

Those same people call sandwiches "sammies". I can't help but hear that in a widdle kid voice.

― the body of a spider... (scampering alpaca), Tuesday, 29 January 2019 21:06 (five years ago) link

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