This is an old one from last month, but saw this on Cringe Electoral Takes, and it's a truly outstanding example of the genre.
It says Source: General Election voting intentions from doorstep conversations with 2154 people across North Herefordshire between June 2022 and July 2023.
It would be good if more voters told canvassers for their party that they are withholding support for one election because of their duplicitous leaflets - I know of two LibDems who have done just that because of the bar chart crap. Those of us who are more active can help by refusing to take out leaflets which are clearly designed to mislead. I can offer one instance - refusing to take out a polling day leaflet which claimed that "early returns from our represrentatives at the polling stations" showed that Labour was just 1% behind - quite apart from the idiocy of supposing that early telling shows anything, it had of course been printed days earlier.
Neither of which are things advertisers like. Musk could accept that, or he could throw all of his toys out of his pram and scream and screech against people he really needs.
Edit: and later: "Yup. Premium+ is a great way to support free speech and not support those “woke” organizations"
What did he actually say? I heard a BBC report but they declined to repeat it.
I hate it when they do that. It means people have no idea what someone actually said and thus how bad it may be. The reader is expected to just accept it. In this case I know he has said stuff at least as or worse before. The man loves conspiracies. (Snip)
I don't think he does. He promotes conspiracies that will make him look like the Voice of Truth, the person everyone should be listening to. The only person who knows how the world really works.
This, along with his vast riches, gives him an enormous amount of power. The guy is as much a risk to the US and the world as Trump.
Edit: and later: "Yup. Premium+ is a great way to support free speech and not support those “woke” organizations"
What did he actually say? I heard a BBC report but they declined to repeat it.
I hate it when they do that. It means people have no idea what someone actually said and thus how bad it may be. The reader is expected to just accept it. In this case I know he has said stuff at least as or worse before. The man loves conspiracies. (Snip)
I don't think he does. He promotes conspiracies that will make him look like the Voice of Truth, the person everyone should be listening to. The only person who knows how the world really works.
This, along with his vast riches, gives him an enormous amount of power. The guy is as much a risk to the US and the world as Trump.
IDK, I think despite obviously being a smart man in many ways, he has become increasingly credulous. He seems to swallow very simplistic takes on things, and because he is so rich and powerful people look for a deeper explanation of why he would do that, when the simplest answer is that even centi billionaires can be foolish sometimes, especially with stuff they want to believe is true.
One thing twitter has been useful for is demonstrating plenty of rich, powerful, and even very smart people, can also be incredibly stupid, especially outside their areas of expertise.
It's them libtard Jews in our country turning a blind eye to the Muslamic menace that are the problem, I'm just fine with Israel blowing the shit out of Palestinians.
It's them libtard Jews in our country turning a blind eye to the Muslamic menace that are the problem, I'm just fine with Israel blowing the shit out of Palestinians.
Would that be the gist?
As I understand it, this is what Musk was endorsing:
Okay.
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
Noce to hear form you Mike, and - having had 3 sudden weeks in hospital myself and basically losing half the year - I feel for you.
Get well soon.
My thought-provoking listen for the day:
Tanni's lifetime road to disabled equality
Dame Tanni-Grey Thompson on the history of attitudes to disabled people over half a century, including accounts from a number of countries, and how much there is still to do. Good mix of personal experience and some political conversation. BBC World Service. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct68fc
A bit more .. er .. niche:
Youtuber Steve1989 (2m subscribers natch) reviewing a gourmet Danish Army 24 hour ration pack:
@Leon assume you've been keeping up with the rats leaving the sinking ship at OpenAI? Not seen a company throw talent away like that in a long time. Microsoft speed running the Nokia business plan IMO.
I have. And I’ve heard rumours
A famous "artist's impression" of org charts at the big tech companies.
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
Snap. I got one for my brother too, cos he's too chaotic to get one for himself. Fortunately I've never needed my oximeter but I'm convinced my brother's saved his life at one point - convinced him and the 111 agent to get an ambulance pronto. So thanks @Foxy!
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
His suggested collection of items was very useful and may well have saved the lives of relatives in Peru.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
@Leon assume you've been keeping up with the rats leaving the sinking ship at OpenAI? Not seen a company throw talent away like that in a long time. Microsoft speed running the Nokia business plan IMO.
I have. And I’ve heard rumours
A famous "artist's impression" of org charts at the big tech companies.
Evidently Microsoft doing their best to live up to their reputation...
It really is quite odd. The FT is reporting that lots of other OpenAI staff - some senior - are quitting to follow Altman. So it’s more like a schism than a sacking or a coup
Hmmmm
ChatGPT is frankly, complete crap, even compared to where it was a couple of months ago, reading more and more like a rote-boilerplate-generator unable to step out of its generic-assistant's tone of voice. Note how we've all stopped talking about it on here.
I noticed that I only used it 10 times last month, and was about to cancel my subscription. Then I found out they'd linked it to DALLe and you can use it to create incredibly verbose prompts for detailed images, with really excellent results. So they have my subscription fee for now. But I hardly use it at all, except for the most mundane boilerplate text. "Write me a complaint letter to BT, etc"
Competition cannot come soon enough. The corporate LLMs are all hobbled, and the hobbyist ones aren't nearly smart enough, or simple enough to run.
Yes, it’s shit, compared to its first incarnation. As is Stable Diffusion, which produced dazzlingly brilliant images, and now seems inert and boring. Likewise Anthropic’s Claude, from Wow to Snooze
They all get nerfed by the nervous Wokerati, and crippled by the lawyers afraid of copyright law (the latter more justifiable, perhaps)
My big hope is xAI. If anyone out there doesn’t give a fuck, it is Musk, and apparently xAI is fast catching up
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
@Leon assume you've been keeping up with the rats leaving the sinking ship at OpenAI? Not seen a company throw talent away like that in a long time. Microsoft speed running the Nokia business plan IMO.
I have. And I’ve heard rumours
A famous "artist's impression" of org charts at the big tech companies.
Evidently Microsoft doing their best to live up to their reputation...
It really is quite odd. The FT is reporting that lots of other OpenAI staff - some senior - are quitting to follow Altman. So it’s more like a schism than a sacking or a coup
Hmmmm
ChatGPT is frankly, complete crap, even compared to where it was a couple of months ago, reading more and more like a rote-boilerplate-generator unable to step out of its generic-assistant's tone of voice. Note how we've all stopped talking about it on here.
I noticed that I only used it 10 times last month, and was about to cancel my subscription. Then I found out they'd linked it to DALLe and you can use it to create incredibly verbose prompts for detailed images, with really excellent results. So they have my subscription fee for now. But I hardly use it at all, except for the most mundane boilerplate text. "Write me a complaint letter to BT, etc"
Competition cannot come soon enough. The corporate LLMs are all hobbled, and the hobbyist ones aren't nearly smart enough, or simple enough to run.
Yes, it’s shit, compared to its first incarnation. As is Stable Diffusion, which produced dazzlingly brilliant images, and now seems inert and boring. Likewise Anthropic’s Claude, from Wow to Snooze
They all get nerfed by the nervous Wokerati, and crippled by the lawyers afraid of copyright law (the latter more justifiable, perhaps)
My big hope is xAI. If anyone out there doesn’t give a fuck, it is Musk, and apparently xAI is fast catching up
I cannot help but empathise with the nervous wokerati, I was thinking all about it whilst watching a 30m video on how the movie Wall-E was trying to warn us all about this.
An 88 year old acquaintance (not one of my patients) recently fell and broke her hip. She was very fit beforehand, indeed was going for a difficult tennis shot playing with her grandchildren at the time!
She couldn't get up, and was in some pain, so an ambulance was called. It took 6 hours to arrive, and during that time her family were increasingly worried, as she was fading away before their eyes into delirium. Much longer and I think she would have died. After a stormy recovery she is back home, albeit still cannot manage stairs.
Her son is a multi-millionaire, but at these times no amount of money can bypass the need for NHS and timely ambulance services. These, and trauma care only exist in NHS form.
Health is a great social leveller. When the fickle finger of fate picks us there are some things that money cannot buy a way out.
Yes, even if you’re an affluent professional money can’t buy you the skill to avoid a terrible creaking cliche like the “fickle finger of fate” followed immediately by the painfully yawnsome “there are some things money can’t buy” and all of this following the stratospherically trite observation that “health is a great social leveler”
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
Having just been mean to @Foxy, I concur that his advice about oximeters was some of the best and most useful wisdom ever dispensed on PB
I now carry one in my travel tool bag, everywhere I go, along with Swiss Army knife, spoon, fork, Spyderco Tenacious, proper corkscrew, thermometer, head torch, lighter and small metal mug
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
His suggested collection of items was very useful and may well have saved the lives of relatives in Peru.
My GP must also read Foxy because now (well, yesterday) pulse oximeter, thermometer and sphygmomanometer (blood pressure) were all the electronic sort we all have at home, and not a drop of mercury in sight. All we now need is a stethoscope phone app.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Civilising them is a long and weary process.
They won't be truly civilised until they start playing FOOTball with their feet!
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Civilising them is a long and weary process.
They won't be truly civilised until they start playing FOOTball with their feet!
To a large extent they have, which is why David Beckham signed Leo Messi to play the beautiful game over there.
Look after yourself Mike. As I approach 80 I am noticing a tendency to feel a little dizzy if I move suddenly - could a fall be the next stage?
1) Don't move suddenly 2) Rest, then take Blood pressure over several days and different times 3)See your doctor with this info pronto to assess whst blood pressure tablets u r on and if not on one , what you should be on..... if req
If moving suddenly causes dizziness, it might well be BPPV rather than BP.
It is worth noting too whether BP drops on standing too as "postural hypotension" may cause dizziness and falls. It is a side effect of a number of medications.
There is also interesting work on nocturnal dips in blood pressure and ischaemia events.
Mechanical falls happen at all ages, but it becomes more frequent with a variety of sensory impairments, and the impact of falls much worse with age.
Thanks Doc. I also have arthritis in the cervical spine so I do a series of exercises of the neck which do not have any effect on my balance so there may be some mileage in the nocturnal dip idea.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
To encourage Americans to adopt words like "posh" and "wanker" we have even chosen our political leaders to provide a clear demonstration of the words' meaning.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
Not to mention Indian English sending terms back the other way. Anyone in IT will now be familiar with prepone (to bring forward, opposite of postpone) and do the needful.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
An 88 year old acquaintance (not one of my patients) recently fell and broke her hip. She was very fit beforehand, indeed was going for a difficult tennis shot playing with her grandchildren at the time!
She couldn't get up, and was in some pain, so an ambulance was called. It took 6 hours to arrive, and during that time her family were increasingly worried, as she was fading away before their eyes into delirium. Much longer and I think she would have died. After a stormy recovery she is back home, albeit still cannot manage stairs.
Her son is a multi-millionaire, but at these times no amount of money can bypass the need for NHS and timely ambulance services. These, and trauma care only exist in NHS form.
Health is a great social leveller. When the fickle finger of fate picks us there are some things that money cannot buy a way out.
Yes, even if you’re an affluent professional money can’t buy you the skill to avoid a terrible creaking cliche like the “fickle finger of fate” followed immediately by the painfully yawnsome “there are some things money can’t buy” and all of this following the stratospherically trite observation that “health is a great social leveler”
Only teasin’, doc
I am paid to heal, not to write!
I tend to write in run on sentences, go on tangents, be repetitive, and have verbal tics such as the frequent use of "though" and discursive clauses.
Almost everything I write needs a second go via the edit function.
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
His suggested collection of items was very useful and may well have saved the lives of relatives in Peru.
My GP must also read Foxy because now (well, yesterday) pulse oximeter, thermometer and sphygmomanometer (blood pressure) were all the electronic sort we all have at home, and not a drop of mercury in sight. All we now need is a stethoscope phone app.
My GP now gets me to take my mother-in-laws blood pressure - needed for the medication she is on - via zoom. Since I have the same one she uses in the practise...
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
To encourage Americans to adopt words like "posh" and "wanker" we have even chosen our political leaders to provide a clear demonstration of the words' meaning.
Americans also, increasingly, love the word BOLLOCKS, which is useful for them given their present and future choice of presidents
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
I overhead a couple of English tourists in a Welsh pub complaining about the local patois. "They haven't even got their own word for Television," one of them said.
It's them libtard Jews in our country turning a blind eye to the Muslamic menace that are the problem, I'm just fine with Israel blowing the shit out of Palestinians.
Would that be the gist?
As I understand it, this is what Musk was endorsing:
Okay.
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
To encourage Americans to adopt words like "posh" and "wanker" we have even chosen our political leaders to provide a clear demonstration of the words' meaning.
It is thoroughly disgusting how these nasty furriners are infecting the Purity Of Our Perfect Kulture with their ghastly, inferior culture. Something should be done.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
Pretty much the same as, say, using the abbreviated form of Pakistani in front of those professions.
It's them libtard Jews in our country turning a blind eye to the Muslamic menace that are the problem, I'm just fine with Israel blowing the shit out of Palestinians.
Would that be the gist?
As I understand it, this is what Musk was endorsing:
Okay.
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
I think he means uninterested.
I think you're right. It's actually quite difficult to work out what that sentence means, particularly which country "their country" means. I thought probably he meant "their countries".
DavidL said: "Civilising them [Americans] is a long and weary process.
The last two sentences of "Huckleberry Finn: "But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before."
(For the record: The most civilized people I've met while traveling were in Iowa and Minnesota.)
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
It's Netflix etc. I keep having to correct my kids who use US imported words and phrases in place of their British English equivalents - it's a desperate rear-guard action. Mind, two of them have US passports owing to being born over there so maybe being able to speak like a native might be useful to them one day.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
Be my guest if you feel so strongly.
I don't.
Its those who feel strongly enough to join a protest who should explain why the Palestinians are different to all those other groups for whom there are never protests.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
I'm pretty sure that awesome became popular in Britain around twenty years or more ago.
Mike - Hope you are all well, and soon. And that you are getting the exercise you need to protect yourself from future falls.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
I got one at the start of Covid on the excellent advice of @Foxy for which, once again, much thanks.
His suggested collection of items was very useful and may well have saved the lives of relatives in Peru.
My GP must also read Foxy because now (well, yesterday) pulse oximeter, thermometer and sphygmomanometer (blood pressure) were all the electronic sort we all have at home, and not a drop of mercury in sight. All we now need is a stethoscope phone app.
My GP now gets me to take my mother-in-laws blood pressure - needed for the medication she is on - via zoom. Since I have the same one she uses in the practise...
Our next door neighbours brother is experiencing health problems and he has purchased from the heart foundation for £99 a home ECG app that records his heart rate whenever he gets palpitations and sends it direct to his GPs surgery
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
Doing it in deep Brum my accent helps the experience along too.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
Edit: and later: "Yup. Premium+ is a great way to support free speech and not support those “woke” organizations"
What did he actually say? I heard a BBC report but they declined to repeat it.
I hate it when they do that. It means people have no idea what someone actually said and thus how bad it may be. The reader is expected to just accept it. In this case I know he has said stuff at least as or worse before. The man loves conspiracies.
But companies are more concerned about nazi posts apparently showing up next to their advertising than his comments.
Seems a classic case of blaming the wider community as a whole for the intellectual positions taken by some.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
Not to mention Indian English sending terms back the other way. Anyone in IT will now be familiar with prepone (to bring forward, opposite of postpone) and do the needful.
Don't get me started on Indian mispronunciations and placement of inappropriate stress
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
It might help the process if I let you know about my current visit to Aldi. Shipped in 8x bottles of Monsigny Champagne fifteen quid a pop I'd happily serve it alongside Bolly (similar biscuity taste). Overheard a young couple she to him saying why is it so expensive just to live.
Plus I got to use my pound coin for the trolley and avoided buying a "supermarket token" from Amazon for £3.99 so in all a good day.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
And yet Jewish feels like a euphemism. Doesn’t Woody Allen have a whole riff about this, making fun of it. “I’m not a Jew, I’m JewISH”
“Jew Banker” does sound quite Nazi, that said
Yet “Jewish Banker” sounds just as bad in a different way
Maybe there is no way you can put the concepts “Jew” and “banker” together without an echo of anti-Semitism somewhere, so deeply rooted are these stereotypes
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
I saw some small children playing football in Corfu once. Suddenly one of them yelled out 'Missed by a mile!' before reverting back to Greek.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
One of the other lesser reported conflicts is the Myanmar civil war, with around 42k dead since 2021, with some possibly significant recent gains by the anti-government forces.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
I saw some small children playing football in Corfu once. Suddenly one of them yelled out 'Missed by a mile!' before reverting back to Greek.
I remember watching Borgen over 10 years ago, where apparently there was no danish equivalent for '15 minutes of fame'.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can have about the same meaning as the rather abbreviated form of "Pakistani". Would you use that?
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
It's Netflix etc. I keep having to correct my kids who use US imported words and phrases in place of their British English equivalents - it's a desperate rear-guard action. Mind, two of them have US passports owing to being born over there so maybe being able to speak like a native might be useful to them one day.
I believe we have conducted quite a successful counter-offensive with “Peppa Pig”
“Having a go: US parents say Peppa Pig is giving their kids British accents”
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
Hmmm.
Are not most of those are far older than 10 years? Many are 1990 or much earlier.
Some of them:
- "Awesome" has been in use here as an American import since the 1980s/early 1990s in my experience. Yes, it is like nails on a blackboard.
- "Culture War" is of at least similar vintage - having been used around eg the abortion debate in US politics. More recent in the UK in broader use, perhaps? I surmise that it comes from the German Kulturkampf, which is a 19C term around religious-secular conflict. An example would perhaps be how France developed their Laicite 'state religion'.
- "STEM" is again early 1990s. There was another 'Sciences and Engineering' acronym before it; it is imo one of those permanent promotional slogans that are always there, going round in circles.
- "Passed" - passed away has been around forever afaics. It's about a materialist culture not being comfortable with death, having forgotten the language and rituals to deal with it sensibly, and making up proxy-words to skirt around the edge. "Passed on" is in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
- "Season" - isn't this a hop-over from the theatre world in part - season of plays?
I'll agree on Black Friday, Woke, Incel.
Also on Baseball terms - they belong strictly in Charlie Brown Cartoons.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
One of the other lesser reported conflicts is the Myanmar civil war, with around 42k dead since 2021, with some possibly significant recent gains by the anti-government forces.
To be fair to Al Jaz, just yesterday they did run a 30 minute segment on the Rohingya plight.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
My sister lives in the US and apparently 'whilst' meets with a few glazed expressions ('Is that a word?').
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can have about the same meaning as the rather abbreviated form of "Pakistani". Would you use that?
If you think the word "Jew" is pejorative per se, then you really need to think again.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
Apparently, til the British came up with the word “weekend” in 1879, the entire world had no handy name for this concept
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
Of course it can be used pejoratively. So can any number of other words - black, gay, Irish, man, woman, Tory, Socialist.
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can have about the same meaning as the rather abbreviated form of "Pakistani". Would you use that?
If you think the word "Jew" is pejorative per se, then you really need to think again.
It certainly can be. Like “Slav” or “Turk”
It has a staccato monosyllabic quality which sounds innately offensive, in various contexts
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
Hmmm.
Are not most of those are far older than 10 years? Many are 1990 or much earlier.
Some of them:
- "Awesome" has been in use here as an American import since the 1980s/early 1990s in my experience. Yes, it is like nails on a blackboard.
- "Culture War" is of at least similar vintage - having been used around eg the abortion debate in US politics. More recent in the UK in broader use, perhaps? I surmise that it comes from the German Kulturkampf, which is a 19C term around religious-secular conflict. An example would perhaps be how France developed their Laicite 'state religion'.
- "STEM" is again early 1990s. There was another 'Sciences and Engineering' acronym before it; it is imo one of those permanent promotional slogans that are always there, going round in circles.
- "Passed" - passed away has been around forever afaics. It's about a materialist culture not being comfortable with death, having forgotten the language and rituals to deal with it sensibly, and making up proxy-words to skirt around the edge. "Passed on" is in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
- "Season" - isn't this a hop-over from the theatre world in part - season of plays?
I'll agree on Black Friday, Woke, Incel.
Also on Baseball terms - they belong strictly in Charlie Brown Cartoons.
Passed away may be ours but "passed" on its own is a recent American euphemism. Season comes from American television: it is what we used to call series; it spread here with online discussion forums and box set videos and DVDs. Box set might not please the purists either.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
Of course it can be used pejoratively. So can any number of other words - black, gay, Irish, man, woman, Tory, Socialist.
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
Be my guest if you feel so strongly.
I don't.
Its those who feel strongly enough to join a protest who should explain why the Palestinians are different to all those other groups for whom there are never protests.
There's a Uyghur protest today in London. Are you going?
While some of these have not been on the same scale as pro-Palestinian protests, I think you exaggerate for the sake of your argument. There may well be inconsistent concern expressed about different conflicts around the world, but that doesn't mean the only explanation for that is that the protests are 100% driven by antisemitism.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
One of the other lesser reported conflicts is the Myanmar civil war, with around 42k dead since 2021, with some possibly significant recent gains by the anti-government forces.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
Apparently, til the British came up with the word “weekend” in 1879, the entire world had no handy name for this concept
When the working week was six or even seven days, there was no weekend concept to have a name for. Six working days and the sabbath was standard until recently.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
I saw some small children playing football in Corfu once. Suddenly one of them yelled out 'Missed by a mile!' before reverting back to Greek.
I remember watching Borgen over 10 years ago, where apparently there was no danish equivalent for '15 minutes of fame'.
Nordic languages are so overloaded with Anglicisms they might as well speak English. Indeed there must be a decent chance they will, in two or three generations
Relatedly, when I was kayaking this morning, I did it with a Khmer guide, and a nice young French couple. The Khmer guy obviously spoke English, albeit haltingly, the French guy had some as well - but, unusually, the French woman seemed to have no English at all. So he translated everything for her
She looked embarrassed by her lack of English, she blushed a couple of times. It reminded me of how absurdly lucky we are to have the English language as the global language. It means we don’t have to worry about anything to do with language, it will all be in our language, it is probably bad for us and makes us lazy, nonetheless when people bang on about the evil of the British Empire, you should also say a quiet prayer of thanks that our belligerent ancestors made sure everyone speaks our tongue
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
The one that amazes me is "fortnight". I've often been asked, "do you guys really say fortnight?" "Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?" It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
Apparently, til the British came up with the word “weekend” in 1879, the entire world had no handy name for this concept
When the working week was six or even seven days, there was no weekend concept to have a name for. Six working days and the sabbath was standard until recently.
Isn't that why we had so many saints days, for those to be the times you got a break?
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
Of course it can be used pejoratively. So can any number of other words - black, gay, Irish, man, woman, Tory, Socialist.
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
In a phrase like "jew doctor", it is.
I'm not sure quite what you are having trouble understanding in the comment "Of course it can be used pejoratively. ... But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies."
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
Of course it can be used pejoratively. So can any number of other words - black, gay, Irish, man, woman, Tory, Socialist.
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
But I’ve got good Jewish friends who object to it. And Roger is Jewish
In the end it is their call. However it is confusing because some other Jews (er, Jewish people) use it proudly, “I am a Jew!”
I tend to avoid it, just in case, being a polite Brit
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
Nonsense. We’ve also given them dozens of football expressions, for starters
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
I also get the impression that Americans are starting say 'film' more when they once would only have said 'movie'.
Yep, the perceived poshness of British English means they import loads of words, as I say we just don’t notice
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
I saw some small children playing football in Corfu once. Suddenly one of them yelled out 'Missed by a mile!' before reverting back to Greek.
I remember watching Borgen over 10 years ago, where apparently there was no danish equivalent for '15 minutes of fame'.
Nordic languages are so overloaded with Anglicisms they might as well speak English. Indeed there must be a decent chance they will, in two or three generations
Relatedly, when I was kayaking this morning, I did it with a Khmer guide, and a nice young French couple. The Khmer guy obviously spoke English, albeit haltingly, the French guy had some as well - but, unusually, the French woman seemed to have no English at all. So he translated everything for her
She looked embarrassed by her lack of English, she blushed a couple of times. It reminded me of how absurdly lucky we are to have the English language as the global language. It means we don’t have to worry about anything to do with language, it will all be in our language, it is probably bad for us and makes us lazy, nonetheless when people bang on about the evil of the British Empire, you should also say a quiet prayer of thanks that our belligerent ancestors made sure everyone speaks out tongue
AI may have come too soon to enable to complete takeover of globish - very soon people won't need to learn other languages at all, it'll all get auto translated, and so will the current trend of lots of people fluently speaking English as a second language be as needed?
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
Hmmm.
Are not most of those are far older than 10 years? Many are 1990 or much earlier.
Some of them:
- "Awesome" has been in use here as an American import since the 1980s/early 1990s in my experience. Yes, it is like nails on a blackboard.
- "Culture War" is of at least similar vintage - having been used around eg the abortion debate in US politics. More recent in the UK in broader use, perhaps? I surmise that it comes from the German Kulturkampf, which is a 19C term around religious-secular conflict. An example would perhaps be how France developed their Laicite 'state religion'.
- "STEM" is again early 1990s. There was another 'Sciences and Engineering' acronym before it; it is imo one of those permanent promotional slogans that are always there, going round in circles.
- "Passed" - passed away has been around forever afaics. It's about a materialist culture not being comfortable with death, having forgotten the language and rituals to deal with it sensibly, and making up proxy-words to skirt around the edge. "Passed on" is in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
- "Season" - isn't this a hop-over from the theatre world in part - season of plays?
I'll agree on Black Friday, Woke, Incel.
Also on Baseball terms - they belong strictly in Charlie Brown Cartoons.
The older ones there though are an example of terms we resisted, for years or decades, and finally succumbed to. Hence the Bakhmut reference. I agree that Netflix is to blame for quite a few. Though not STEM.
“Sadly passed” has infected our language in no more than a year or so. Passed away / on was always in there as an occasionally used euphemism, but nobody is saying “died” about relatives or celebrities anymore. Is it American? I assumed so but perhaps it’s just a home grown trend.
An ad on the radio just now got me thinking about American cultural imports in the last decade. There have been many: the rate has definitely accelerated. To name just a few:
- Black Friday (that’s what triggered the thought) - “Season” rather than series - the final, grinding Bakhmut-style victory of “ATM” - “Woke” - “Culture war” - “Incel” - “Passed” instead of died (or even passed away) - “STEM” - A whole plethora of baseball expressions, like “circle back”
I could go on. During that time all we’ve managed in return is to give them “close of play”
IIUC, "awesome" is displacing "brilliant". Which is not...good
Hmmm.
Are not most of those are far older than 10 years? Many are 1990 or much earlier.
Some of them:
- "Awesome" has been in use here as an American import since the 1980s/early 1990s in my experience. Yes, it is like nails on a blackboard.
- "Culture War" is of at least similar vintage - having been used around eg the abortion debate in US politics. More recent in the UK in broader use, perhaps? I surmise that it comes from the German Kulturkampf, which is a 19C term around religious-secular conflict. An example would perhaps be how France developed their Laicite 'state religion'.
- "STEM" is again early 1990s. There was another 'Sciences and Engineering' acronym before it; it is imo one of those permanent promotional slogans that are always there, going round in circles.
- "Passed" - passed away has been around forever afaics. It's about a materialist culture not being comfortable with death, having forgotten the language and rituals to deal with it sensibly, and making up proxy-words to skirt around the edge. "Passed on" is in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
- "Season" - isn't this a hop-over from the theatre world in part - season of plays?
I'll agree on Black Friday, Woke, Incel.
Also on Baseball terms - they belong strictly in Charlie Brown Cartoons.
The older ones there though are an example of terms we resisted, for years or decades, and finally succumbed to. Hence the Bakhmut reference. I agree that Netflix is to blame for quite a few. Though not STEM.
“Sadly passed” has infected our language in no more than a year or so. Passed away / on was always in there as an occasionally used euphemism, but nobody is saying “died” about relatives or celebrities anymore. Is it American? I assumed so but perhaps it’s just a home grown trend.
Perhaps nobody wanted to admit loved ones had "died" from Covid. "Passed" sounded less threatening - and contagious.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
One of the other lesser reported conflicts is the Myanmar civil war, with around 42k dead since 2021, with some possibly significant recent gains by the anti-government forces.
Curious how Myanmar has become such a horrible place whereas neighbouring Thailand has developed pretty well.
Thailand was never colonized, and became a British protectorate instead. They thus preserved their monarchy (and the social structure that goes with it), which has been absolutely key to their comparative stability, meaning they have avoided the absolute hell visited on neighbouring Indochinese states, but the British empire saved them from external savagery and then the Americans took over
A long-lived stable monarchy is one of the best ways of avoiding political horror (not guaranteed, but it definitely helps)
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Updated for 17th November. Y-axis starts at zero:
Please add Sudanese, Yemeni, Syrian and Uigher deaths.
Be my guest if you feel so strongly.
I don't.
Its those who feel strongly enough to join a protest who should explain why the Palestinians are different to all those other groups for whom there are never protests.
There's a Uyghur protest today in London. Are you going?
While some of these have not been on the same scale as pro-Palestinian protests, I think you exaggerate for the sake of your argument. There may well be inconsistent concern expressed about different conflicts around the world, but that doesn't mean the only explanation for that is that the protests are 100% driven by antisemitism.
From your link:
Hundreds of people have marched to the Syrian Embassy in London to show solidarity with those suffering from President Bashar Assad's crackdown.
So why hundreds against Syria and hundreds of thousands against Israel ?
People being persecuted in MENA, or across the Islamic world more generally, has happened continuously for generations.
They are effectively the 'control test' on how people react. Or more likely don't react.
Israel is the catalyst. Add a catalyst and the reaction begins.
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
There are no pro-Palestinian protestors.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
You might be better using 'Jewish' than 'Jew'. It's less pejorative. Imagine you are talking about a doctor or a banker and then put your 'Jew' in front of it and you might get an idea of how unpleasant it sounds.
The word "Jew" really isn't pejorative.
It can be when used like that. On a related note, I'm half-convinced the term "jew hate" has only been used since I wondered on pb if the public understood the word antisemitism. No doubt mere coincidence but certainly it is not old enough to vote.
Of course it can be used pejoratively. So can any number of other words - black, gay, Irish, man, woman, Tory, Socialist.
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
In a phrase like "jew doctor", it is.
I think my WhatsApp predictive text has some dodgy beliefs. Every time I am writing a work message which involves the words “new bank” or “new banker” it changes the “new” to “Jew” which, luckily I’ve managed to catch before sending all times but once which was embarrassing. I can’t understand why it changes it but having done a WhatsApp text search I had never written the word “Jew “ or any variant before.
Comments
*) Placing ads for companies beside unsuitable content.
*) Musk 'liking' anti-Semitic tropes.
Neither of which are things advertisers like. Musk could accept that, or he could throw all of his toys out of his pram and scream and screech against people he really needs.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299
This, along with his vast riches, gives him an enormous amount of power. The guy is as much a risk to the US and the world as Trump.
One thing twitter has been useful for is demonstrating plenty of rich, powerful, and even very smart people, can also be incredibly stupid, especially outside their areas of expertise.
Would that be the gist?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12764819/Police-orders-step-pro-Palestinian-protesters-climb-war-memorials-today-hundreds-thousands-expected-100-rallies-UK.html
A week is a long time in politics and also in policing.
Okay.
Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.
I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
You want truth said to your face, there it is.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/us-ukraine-support-putin-defeat/675953/
Quite long please read. As compelling an argument for what is at stake in Ukraine as you will find anywhere.
This may not be relevant, but years ago I read about a program to protect elderly ladies from fractures in falls. Typically, they would fall forward, try to catch themselves and break bones in their arms. The program had them lift weights to strengthen the bones in their arms and was able, as I recall to increase that strength by 25 percent in just two weeks.
(There was one problem: Many of the ladies didn't think it lady like to lift weights, so the planners had them lift soup cans instead.)
On a personal note: When COVID came along, I learned that, in many patients, it reduced the oxygen to their brains, making them stupider. So I bought a cheap oximeter on Amazon and use it every morning to check against that. (It also measures your pulse rate.) The one I have is not "medical grade", and so did not have to have to pass many expensive tests, but seems to work well, anyway.
They are anti-Israel protestors or for some anti-Jew protestors.
Noce to hear form you Mike, and - having had 3 sudden weeks in hospital myself and basically losing half the year - I feel for you.
Get well soon.
My thought-provoking listen for the day:
Tanni's lifetime road to disabled equality
Dame Tanni-Grey Thompson on the history of attitudes to disabled people over half a century, including accounts from a number of countries, and how much there is still to do. Good mix of personal experience and some political conversation. BBC World Service.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct68fc
A bit more .. er .. niche:
Youtuber Steve1989 (2m subscribers natch) reviewing a gourmet Danish Army 24 hour ration pack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXF4ds_6ZiM
The number of anti-Israel protestors is smaller and the number of anti-semitic protesters smaller agin.
Yes I like her too: I've read her "Twilight of Democracy" book.
Also “brilliant”, “wanker”, “posh” and multiple others. All making inroads
We don’t notice because we’re not American and don’t realise they don’t have these expressions, and when you encounter them in the States you don’t realise they are imports
That said, I do detest “Black Friday”, which is absolutely meaningless out of its Thanksgiving context, unlike, say, Halloween which is an original British export reimported, the same way we imported the Blues and gave it back to them in the 1960s
They all get nerfed by the nervous Wokerati, and crippled by the lawyers afraid of copyright law (the latter more justifiable, perhaps)
My big hope is xAI. If anyone out there doesn’t give a fuck, it is Musk, and apparently xAI is fast catching up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nts0x9Lahm0&list=FLg5SdxeHca5JpoZ1j9-RpJg&index=1
Only teasin’, doc
I now carry one in my travel tool bag, everywhere I go, along with Swiss Army knife, spoon, fork, Spyderco Tenacious, proper corkscrew, thermometer, head torch, lighter and small metal mug
Why not try to grow up?
It has the prestige of, say, French in British English in the 19th century, when the socially ambitious would litter their prose with French phrases
I also I like to listen to foreigners talking their weird foreign languages, to catch the English imports. You can be listening to two people speaking Polish and they will suddenly say “oh my God” or “fucking hell” - then they go back to Polish or Punjabi or whatever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw&ab_channel=MarcDonis
I tend to write in run on sentences, go on tangents, be repetitive, and have verbal tics such as the frequent use of "though" and discursive clauses.
Almost everything I write needs a second go via the edit function.
I need a bigger living room, as well.
The last two sentences of "Huckleberry Finn: "But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before."
(For the record: The most civilized people I've met while traveling were in Iowa and Minnesota.)
Its those who feel strongly enough to join a protest who should explain why the Palestinians are different to all those other groups for whom there are never protests.
"Yes of course", I reply, "what do you say?"
It seems that "two weeks" is quite sufficient for much of the world!
It might help the process if I let you know about my current visit to Aldi. Shipped in 8x bottles of Monsigny Champagne fifteen quid a pop I'd happily serve it alongside Bolly (similar biscuity taste). Overheard a young couple she to him saying why is it so expensive just to live.
Plus I got to use my pound coin for the trolley and avoided buying a "supermarket token" from Amazon for £3.99 so in all a good day.
“Jew Banker” does sound quite Nazi, that said
Yet “Jewish Banker” sounds just as bad in a different way
Maybe there is no way you can put the concepts “Jew” and “banker” together without an echo of anti-Semitism somewhere, so deeply rooted are these stereotypes
“Having a go: US parents say Peppa Pig is giving their kids British accents”
https://www.parrotanalytics.com/press/having-a-go-us-parents-say-peppa-pig-is-giving-their-kids-british-accents/
Are not most of those are far older than 10 years? Many are 1990 or much earlier.
Some of them:
- "Awesome" has been in use here as an American import since the 1980s/early 1990s in my experience. Yes, it is like nails on a blackboard.
- "Culture War" is of at least similar vintage - having been used around eg the abortion debate in US politics. More recent in the UK in broader use, perhaps? I surmise that it comes from the German Kulturkampf, which is a 19C term around religious-secular conflict. An example would perhaps be how France developed their Laicite 'state religion'.
- "STEM" is again early 1990s. There was another 'Sciences and Engineering' acronym before it; it is imo one of those permanent promotional slogans that are always there, going round in circles.
- "Passed" - passed away has been around forever afaics. It's about a materialist culture not being comfortable with death, having forgotten the language and rituals to deal with it sensibly, and making up proxy-words to skirt around the edge. "Passed on" is in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
- "Season" - isn't this a hop-over from the theatre world in part - season of plays?
I'll agree on Black Friday, Woke, Incel.
Also on Baseball terms - they belong strictly in Charlie Brown Cartoons.
It’s like comparing people murdered by Harold Shipman to accidental deaths in the NHS and implying that the NHS is more culpable than Dr Shipman
But if you are saying it is pejorative in itself, for heaven's sake think about what that implies.
It has a staccato monosyllabic quality which sounds innately offensive, in various contexts
The Trotskyist entryists Stop the War have held various protests about the war in Yemen, e.g. https://www.stopwar.org.uk/world-says-no-to-war-on-yemen-25-jan-2021/
There were huge protests over Syria, e.g. https://news.sky.com/story/uk-protest-over-syrian-deaths-10484500
While some of these have not been on the same scale as pro-Palestinian protests, I think you exaggerate for the sake of your argument. There may well be inconsistent concern expressed about different conflicts around the world, but that doesn't mean the only explanation for that is that the protests are 100% driven by antisemitism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
Curious how Myanmar has become such a horrible place whereas neighbouring Thailand has developed pretty well.
Relatedly, when I was kayaking this morning, I did it with a Khmer guide, and a nice young French couple. The Khmer guy obviously spoke English, albeit haltingly, the French guy had some as well - but, unusually, the French woman seemed to have no English at all. So he translated everything for her
She looked embarrassed by her lack of English, she blushed a couple of times. It reminded me of how absurdly lucky we are to have the English language as the global language. It means we don’t have to worry about anything to do with language, it will all be in our language, it is probably bad for us and makes us lazy, nonetheless when people bang on about the evil of the British Empire, you should also say a quiet prayer of thanks that our belligerent ancestors made sure everyone speaks our tongue
In the end it is their call. However it is confusing because some other Jews (er, Jewish people) use it proudly, “I am a Jew!”
I tend to avoid it, just in case, being a polite Brit
“Sadly passed” has infected our language in no more than a year or so. Passed away / on was always in there as an occasionally used euphemism, but nobody is saying “died” about relatives or celebrities anymore. Is it American? I assumed so but perhaps it’s just a home grown trend.
A long-lived stable monarchy is one of the best ways of avoiding political horror (not guaranteed, but it definitely helps)
Hundreds of people have marched to the Syrian Embassy in London to show solidarity with those suffering from President Bashar Assad's crackdown.
So why hundreds against Syria and hundreds of thousands against Israel ?
People being persecuted in MENA, or across the Islamic world more generally, has happened continuously for generations.
They are effectively the 'control test' on how people react. Or more likely don't react.
Israel is the catalyst. Add a catalyst and the reaction begins.