[Dixonary] OT just wondering...

[Shani Naylor]

Hi all

Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have been
played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've recently
found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I had no idea its
use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew what it meant, I didn't
actually use it. Of course, most of our words would be impossible to drop
into casual conversation (my fave, ucalegon, for example).

What have others done (or not done)?

Shani

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[Judy Madnick]

Not done.

Judy



Original message
From: "Shani Naylor" <shani.naylor (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com;
Dated: 8/3/2015 9:46:37 PM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT just wondering...


Hi all
Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have been played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've recently found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I had no idea its use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew what it meant, I didn't actually use it. Of course, most of our words would be impossible to drop into casual conversation (my fave, ucalegon, for example).
What have others done (or not done)?
Shani

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[Dodi Schultz]

Me neither.

—Dodi


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


On 8/3/2015 9:49 PM, Judy Madnick wrote:
> Not done.
> Judy

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Original message
> From: "Shani Naylor"
> To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com;
> Dated: 8/3/2015 9:46:37 PM
> Subject: [Dixonary] OT just wondering...
>
> Hi all
>
> Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have been
> played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've
> recently found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I had
> no idea its use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew what it
> meant, I didn't actually use it. Of course, most of our words would be
> impossible to drop into casual conversation (my fave, ucalegon, for example).
>
> What have others done (or not done)?
>
>

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[Efrem Mallach]

Not that I remember. It’s possible that I used a word in the day or two after its results came out, but I doubt it.

(Using words that other people don’t know is a stereotype of professors. I try to avoid it.)

Efrem

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> On Aug 3, 2015, at 9:46 PM, Shani Naylor <shani.naylor (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have been played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've recently found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I had no idea its use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew what it meant, I didn't actually use it. Of course, most of our words would be impossible to drop into casual conversation (my fave, ucalegon, for example).
>
> What have others done (or not done)?
>
> Shani
>
>
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[Daniel Widdis]

On 8/3/15 7:46 PM, Shani Naylor wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have
> been played in their everyday life?
>
I have trouble remembering the words that have been played, much less
using them :)

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[Johnb - co.uk]

I have enough problems with words that I use in two slightly different areas

Firstly, I do use "strange" words out of delight in words and people
know that this is part of who I am - they may not always understand
precisely what I meant but my general meaning is usually obtainable from
context - my friends and colleagues have learned that I expect them to
do a bit of work in understanding me - or ask me

Secondly, I find that some people's trivialising of all situations by
their intolerance of what they consider "PC" by insisting that
perfectly valid words can only be used in certain ways and any other use
is some sort of hate crime means that many words are no longer
permissible in everyday conversation. I wouldn't mind so much if it
meant that I had to be very careful when talking to them but when their
intolerance breaks out into general society then it is annoying and our
language and culture is diminished.
As a subset of this problem I particularly object to those who insist
that an author writing a century or more ago ago must have meant what
these people now define a word to mean when the author used that word in
his historical context. I guess Kippling suffers from that about as much
as anyone although I have come across people who reject Romeo and Juliet
as a sexist tract and thus reject all of Shakespeare because he was a
sexual bigot. My response has been sadness for their stultified minds
and anger when they teach such to 12 year-olds (FYI stultify here in the
sense of alleging their own insanity to evade a responsibility - in this
case for thinking - I know the word has other meanings and as far as I
am concerned, with respect to such people, feel free to use the most
pejorative meaning that you can find)

No, I am not a PC type of person. As I said about myself, we have to do
a degree of work to understand another person not force them to conform
to our understanding of who they are.

*JohnnyB

*
On 04/08/2015 02:46, Shani Naylor wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have
> been played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've
> recently found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I
> had no idea its use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew
> what it meant, I didn't actually use it. Of course, most of our words
> would be impossible to drop into casual conversation (my fave,
> ucalegon, for example).
>
> What have others done (or not done)?
>
> Shani
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Dixonary" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to dixonary+unsubscribe (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
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[Shani Naylor]

Johnny I certainly agree with your second point. On the subject of
literature I find it equally annoying to read a contemporary book with an
historic theme only to find, hey presto, all the characters have 21st
century attitudes.

Shani

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[—Keith Hale—]

"Oh, the feelz!" -- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville

[C;

This OT thread has been an instant favourite - and especially with
JohnnyB's latest contribution and Shani's reply! The subject of "PC"
is thorny for me at times, because i have on many occasions -- with
glacial slow cluelessness -- reasoned out that i have given truly
tremendous offence to people i cared for by thinking i was
post-racial, or some sort of "edgy" comedian type. I hate those
misunderstandings, even as i grant Johnny's point that the hearer IS
part of the communication accord*. (*I used "compact" there, then
tried to look up that sense on-line with no joy. Did i make that up
in my cranium?)

A bit more on PC. [EDIT: make that a LOT more, please disregard with
my blessings if it is without interest! I guess this essay has been
brewing quite a while now!]

I intend to use "Native American" and "Indigenous peoples of the
Americas" and "First Nations" until such time as my understanding
expands as it did when i learned how reductively inaccurate "Indian"
is. My original college, now McMurry University (Abilene, Texas) used
"Indian" as their mascot identifier. For 83 years. For most of those
years, they had\have 'Tipi Village' every year at homecoming and the
sororities and fraternities build and decorate Tipis as accurately as
they know how. These are critiqued and judged by invited experts;
members of Native Tribes, all around a multiple-day bonfire. I've
seen this as 'edutaining' and harmless. By far the least stupid part
of homecoming. (The sports and jingoistic trash talking welded to it
have always made me fantasise about a sportsless universe!) In 2006
the NCAA (too sports-bored to bother defining) "handed down a decision
calling for the eighteen universities with Native American mascots to
change their names or obtain a waiver from their representative tribe
for the use of the mascot name." (Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurry_University)

In 2011 - yes, they went that long without a mascot (and yet witness
the blood-boilingly stupid and insulting alternative they came up with
in all that time) - they announced that the school's athletics
programs "would be known as the War Hawks. ... The war hawk is meant
to represent pride, courage and fierce competition for McMurry's
athletic teams." Ugh. Just going from "the McMurry College Indians"
to "the McMurry University Hawks" would have turned my stomach
permanently. "Indians" was inaccurate but not maliciously so like,
oh, say, "Red-Skins". But this vanishing United Methodist University
in sleepy little Abilene felt the need to jam "WAR" into the equation.
Petulance over their long-lost appeal? Possibly. If i gave a tenth
of nine-thousanth of a damn about athletic rivalries and the
worshipful reverence directed at it, i'd be endlessly outraged. As a
disinterested former student (still no degree, can't call myself an
'alumnus') i'm just a little angry and a lot darkly amused.

Phew. Got that off me ol' surgery-scarred chest! It is probably for
the best that i strayed from my original intention to write about the
worst PC offender i've yet seen: "Little People" replacing accurate
and relatively value-neutral words like "dwarf" and "midget". (ANY
word can be used as an insult - and VERY often these insults become
the names taken by the groups! Especially with religious
denominations. "Methodist" is such a one, and i think "Catholic"
_might_ be another. Too tired to research just now, Yay!)

On 4 August 2015 at 04:58, Shani Naylor <shani.naylor (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> Johnny I certainly agree with your second point. On the subject of
> literature I find it equally annoying to read a contemporary book with an
> historic theme only to find, hey presto, all the characters have 21st
> century attitudes.
>
> Shani
>
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[Efrem Mallach]

> On Aug 4, 2015, at 8:13 AM, —Keith Hale— <thoughtstorms (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
>
> "Oh, the feelz!" -- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville

Where in the book is this from? I couldn't find it in my electronic copy, even with the help of automated search tools and scanning all the occurrences of “oh."

> In 2011 - yes, they went that long without a mascot (and yet witness
> the blood-boilingly stupid and insulting alternative they came up with
> in all that time) - they announced that the school's athletics
> programs "would be known as the War Hawks. …

There is no end to excesses of political correctness.

In the mid-1990s the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where I taught then, replaced its previous mascot (I think they had been Indians too) with “River Hawks” because it lay on both sides of the Concord River. Soon after, the university's PR manager (my then GF) got a call from a self-confessed bird lover who said that the grinning caricature of a bird, which you can see here <http://www.prepsportswear.com/media/images/college_logos/300x300/2698348_mktg_logo.png>, was offensive to river hawks.

Elizabeth asked the caller if she had ever seen a river hawk. The caller admitted that she had not. E. then asked her if she knew what a real river hawk looked like. Again, the caller admitted that she did not. E. finally asked if she knew that there was no such bird as the river hawk, that it had been invented for the purpose of being the university’s mascot. The caller hung up.

Efrem

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[Dave Cunningham]

I, all too often, use "strange words" - albeit not from the game here.

My sister-in-law used to phone my wife - and if I answered the phone I said
I would ascertain if my wife was available. My sister-in-law found this
uproarious, and so my daughter-in-law, a teacher. heard the tale. In a
graduate education class, the professor, making a point about the paucity
of vocabulary today, asked the class whether any of them at all knew what
"ascertain" meant - so guess who raised the only hand in the entire class?

Dave



On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 5:02:23 AM UTC-4, jo... (AT) john-barrs (DOT) co.uk
wrote:

> I have enough problems with words that I use in two slightly different
> areas
>
> Firstly, I do use "strange" words out of delight in words and people know
> that this is part of who I am - they may not always understand precisely
> what I meant but my general meaning is usually obtainable from context - my
> friends and colleagues have learned that I expect them to do a bit of work
> in understanding me - or ask me
>
> Secondly, I find that some people's trivialising of all situations by
> their intolerance of what they consider "PC" by insisting that perfectly
> valid words can only be used in certain ways and any other use is some sort
> of hate crime means that many words are no longer permissible in everyday
> conversation. I wouldn't mind so much if it meant that I had to be very
> careful when talking to them but when their intolerance breaks out into
> general society then it is annoying and our language and culture is
> diminished.
> As a subset of this problem I particularly object to those who insist
> that an author writing a century or more ago ago must have meant what these
> people now define a word to mean when the author used that word in his
> historical context. I guess Kippling suffers from that about as much as
> anyone although I have come across people who reject Romeo and Juliet as a
> sexist tract and thus reject all of Shakespeare because he was a sexual
> bigot. My response has been sadness for their stultified minds and anger
> when they teach such to 12 year-olds (FYI stultify here in the sense of
> alleging their own insanity to evade a responsibility - in this case for
> thinking - I know the word has other meanings and as far as I am
> concerned, with respect to such people, feel free to use the most
> pejorative meaning that you can find)
>
> No, I am not a PC type of person. As I said about myself, we have to do a
> degree of work to understand another person not force them to conform to
> our understanding of who they are.
>
>
>
> *JohnnyB *
> On 04/08/2015 02:46, Shani Naylor wrote:
>
> Hi all
>
> Just wondering - has anyone started using any of the words that have been
> played in their everyday life? The reason I'm asking is that I've recently
> found myself saying 'skerrick'. When this word was played I had no idea its
> use was limited to the Antipodes. And while I knew what it meant, I didn't
> actually use it. Of course, most of our words would be impossible to drop
> into casual conversation (my fave, ucalegon, for example).
>
> What have others done (or not done)?
>
> Shani
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Dixonary" group.
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> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
>
>

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[—Keith Hale—]

>> "Oh, the feelz!" -- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville
>
>
> Where in the book is this from? I couldn't find it in my electronic copy,
> even with the help of automated search tools and scanning all the
> occurrences of “oh."
>

heh! I was being very much facetious! A decidedly modern "web-ism"
(if such a term exists) attributed to a well-known older work.
Playing on my shared distaste for "21st century attitudes" in period
storytelling! Even Mad Men and That 70's Show fail on that a lot!

> In the mid-1990s the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where I taught
> then, replaced its previous mascot (I think they had been Indians too) with
> “River Hawks” because it lay on both sides of the Concord River. Soon after,
> the university's PR manager (my then GF) got a call from a self-confessed
> bird lover who said that the grinning caricature of a bird, which you can
> see here, was offensive to river hawks.
>
> Elizabeth asked the caller if she had ever seen a river hawk. The caller
> admitted that she had not. E. then asked her if she knew what a real river
> hawk looked like. Again, the caller admitted that she did not. E. finally
> asked if she knew that there was no such bird as the river hawk, that it had
> been invented for the purpose of being the university’s mascot. The caller
> hung up.

Oh, i love this story! I certainly laughed out loud on that!
Additional proof that "freedom of speech" doesn't - and MUSTn't -
mean, or include "freedom from being offended"!

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[Dodi Schultz]

Love it!



On 8/4/2015 8:35 AM, Efrem Mallach wrote:
>
>
> In the mid-1990s the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where I taught
> then, replaced its previous mascot (I think they had been Indians too)
> with “River Hawks” because it lay on both sides of the Concord River.
> Soon after, the university's PR manager (my then GF) got a call from a
> self-confessed bird lover who said that the grinning caricature of a
> bird, which you can see here
> <http://www.prepsportswear.com/media/images/college_logos/300x300/2698348_mktg_logo.png>,
> was offensive to river hawks.
>
> Elizabeth asked the caller if she had ever seen a river hawk. The caller
> admitted that she had not. E. then asked her if she knew what a real
> river hawk looked like. Again, the caller admitted that she did not. E.
> finally asked if she knew that there was no such bird as the river hawk,
> that it had been invented for the purpose of being the university’s
> mascot. The caller hung up.
>
> Efrem
>

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