This is something I posted to a message board tonight. The website I mention at the end featured a store and how-to section -- it wasn't purely personal content. And I understand that some people just can't spell. So please don't hunt me down and kill me.
To weigh in on the whole class/grammar debate:
Clearly most people in the US don't get an education in Standard Written English. This blows, because people whose parents went to college, like me, will probably pick it up at home, whereas people whose parents didn't go to college probably won't, and so the class system is perpetuated. So yes, I think it's stupid to penalize people for "bad grammar" when they never had the chance to learn.
In my earlier post I was wrong to bring up colloquial English -- of which everyone speaks at least one version -- in connection to written English. I do, however, think that the class issue is most relevant when we're talking about colloquial English. The dominant class will spread the view that its dialect is the only correct one and ignore the fact that every dialect has its own consistent grammar. (In Black English, for example, double negatives are used for emphasis. Just because middle-class white people don't use double negatives, we make a lot of Ebonics jokes. This is annoying and stupid, like a lot of the things privileged people do.)
Standard Written English bears some obvious relation to the way rich people speak. I guess this happens for the same reasons that the English we speak is descended from the London version from back in the day.
No, I don't expect people to write in the most formal version of SWE whenever they write. (That would be inappropriate and boring.) The rules of spelling and punctuation, however, exist to make the reader's life easier. And I am not impressed when someone litters their website (for example) with errors or this variety. If someone has Internet access, then they have access to millions of examples of proper spelling and punctuation. If they continue to fuck it up, then they clearly don't care about their readers.
Now done being a bitch for the next 24 hours.
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(8)
02:38:31 AM,
Sunday 8 June 2003
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Oh yeah -- I've been listening to the Carter Family all the time lately. Is that better or worse for me than Elliott Smith?
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10:51:47 PM,
Saturday 7 June 2003
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This introvert thing is getting x-treme. I walked out of a friend's fucking garden party today, no warning, just couldn't take it. (Contributing factors: feeling like I'd just been a conversational jerk to a nice person, feeling like someone had unintentionally just been a conversational jerk to me, feeling embarassed for other reasons, and feeling completely claustrophobic.) Clearly there is at least one solution to this -- namely, having my hormones regulated again. But do any of the introverts in the Blogmass, who are legion, know any good coping strategies?
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(4)
10:50:44 PM,
Saturday 7 June 2003
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Of course I want a hamburger and a cigarette and some coffee just when my body will react worst to them.
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10:45:05 PM,
Saturday 7 June 2003
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::gnaws on shackles::
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(1)
07:14:32 PM,
Friday 6 June 2003
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Sometimes I hate looking down and feeling like I should be strapped to a prow someplace.
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(16)
06:30:37 PM,
Friday 6 June 2003
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I asked my love to go with me,
Just to walk a little way.
And as we walked, 'twas then we talked
Of our approaching wedding day.
cho: Then only say that you'll be mine
And in no other arms entwine.
Down beside, where the waters flow
Down by the banks of the Ohio.
I held a knife against her breast
As gently in my arms she pressed,
Crying "Willie, Oh Willie! Don't murder me
For I'm unprepared for eternity!"
cho:
I took her by her lily white hand
And led her down where the waters stand;
I picked her up and pitched her in
And watched her as she floated down.
cho:
I started home 'twixt twelve and one
Cryin' "Oh my God! What have I done?
I've murdered the only woman I love
Because she would not be my bride.
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(1)
03:26:13 PM,
Friday 6 June 2003
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Why why why do I fight my natural introverted tendencies. People can go ahead and think I'm rude, but I never want to pay $25 for bad food and two hours spent failing to make uncomfortable small talk again.
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(2)
12:34:29 PM,
Friday 6 June 2003
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Some of the homeless people around Civic Center will spread out a bunch of random shit on the sidewalk and try to sell it. The best thing I've seen for sale: A copy of Euroboy.
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(2)
06:41:03 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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Well I'm just a bitch today, aren't I.
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05:50:23 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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Pursuant to the Bobby-Kaipo thing, I was wondering "Why Kaipo?" I would have preferred being men together with, oh, Lee Roach, or James Gilmore, or perhaps Mike Borter (or maybe just his ass). All Kaipo had going on was the hair, which is of questionable value. And the massage thing. Wait, nevermind. I think I get it now.
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(1)
05:13:34 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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Contradictory things: My job could be done well by a hyperactive monkey. My job is stressful and driving me nuts.
At least the latter is only intermittently true.
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(1)
04:57:38 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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I want a t-shirt that expresses my love for Alyosha Karamazov. In Russian. Is this lame because I don't know Russian? Is this just lame? Discuss.
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(21)
02:34:19 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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I am feeling some intense thrift-shopping lust. It's been a month. No, it's been six weeks.
Six weeks! It must be last weekend's shoe binge that held me back from the brink.
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02:24:38 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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Sweet, sweet schadenfreude. The one true pleasure afforded by hatred.
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01:58:18 PM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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I think my paperback copy of Within a Budding Grove might disintegrate before I can finish reading it.
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11:25:23 AM,
Thursday 5 June 2003
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::seethe::Irrational work-related hate.::seethe::
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(1)
07:20:26 PM,
Wednesday 4 June 2003
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Both of the potential sublets I'm looking at for Tom and Kate are a five-minute walk from my house. Not only are my friends moving to this coast, they're going to be my neighbors. This makes me want to wear cardigans and flip my loafers jauntily from hand to hand.
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(3)
06:59:03 PM,
Wednesday 4 June 2003
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Best slogan for "herbal viagra" yet: MEN!!!! Don't give her FLOWERS!! Give her PLEASURE!!!
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(3)
03:42:49 PM,
Wednesday 4 June 2003
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SFBG article on sex in the new Matrix flick: "You can tell the Wachowski brothers grew up jacking off to ASCII pr0n."
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03:36:54 PM,
Wednesday 4 June 2003
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Response to my email to the folks at Giant Microbes:
Dear Sarah,
Thanks for your nice message and your interest in our products. I too have a soft spot for dengue fever (it's a wonderful swahili word, don't you think?) Rest assured, it is very high on our list of potential new microbes. Perhaps it will be available this fall.
Thanks again,
Yours,
Andrew Oliver
Yay dengue fever!
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(3)
02:36:34 PM,
Wednesday 4 June 2003
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When I watched the new Matrix flick I kept wishing for a copy of the script because I found it hard to tell, based on a single hearing, whether the philosophical content was interesting or just stupid. (Probably a little of both.) So here is a transcript of Neo's conversation with the Architect, with the comments of one viewer, and here is the conversation, followed by the comments of many viewers. Via Corsakti.
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(19)
07:24:06 PM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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I haven't been paying attention to the calendar, but based on my stronger-than-usual reaction to bad spelling today, I estimate that I'm PMSing.
::checks calendar::
Well, maybe I'm just a bitch, then.
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(2)
07:05:11 PM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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Two compliments on my hair today. I think it might be related to not washing it this morning.
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(1)
01:12:37 PM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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Dream the other night: I'm walking up an escalator with a friend on my left. In front of us are an old Chinese lady and her daughter. My friend is frustrated by how slowly the old lady is moving and keeps saying mean things about her. I try to calm my friend down but don't criticize her behavior. Te daughter gives us dirty looks.
When we get to the top of the escalator I see that there's a pit, like an empty elevator shaft, beside us. The pit is marked off by a low barrier. The old woman steps over the barrier and stands at the edge of the pit. Her daughter and the rest of us call to her and gesticulate, trying to get her to come back. The old woman turns and looks at us. She waves and then she steps over the edge.
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12:05:15 PM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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"There was a consensus the Iraqis were up to something. We know they had a programme of deception. We can't substantiate it now."
Still no evidence of Iraqi WMDs. Three options (tell me if you think of others): they had WMDs and the evidence is yet to be found; they had WMDs and destroyed all the conclusive evidence; they never had WMDs. The other night I heard a radio report trumpeting "evidence of Iraqi WMDs". Said evidence was Saddam Hussein's aggressive attitude towards a US invasion. This is valid evidence because megalomaniacal dictators are known for appropriately responding to crises.
To me it seems that the issue boils down to whether or not you trust the Bush administration. Heh.
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(4)
11:53:34 AM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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Until I went to karaoke last night I had no idea what the lyrics to Shania Twain's "I Feel Like a Woman" were about. "Color my hair do what I dare"? I know country music isn't exactly known for its progressive politics, but I didn't expect a song to so blantantly identify a woman's freedom with the freedom to alter her appearance.
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(11)
11:16:11 AM,
Tuesday 3 June 2003
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Brought to my attention by Lizzie, but it's on Davey's site: How to drink like a Rusky. My question is whether it is, in fact, written by a real, live Russian person.
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(3)
06:28:07 PM,
Monday 2 June 2003
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Best euphemism I know of: "being men together."
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(15)
02:04:40 PM,
Monday 2 June 2003
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Eighteen quad stretches later: Yesterday was a sad day in the history of my shoe addiction. (It's because I went to Quaker Meeting in the morning -- I think I boomeranged straight to materialism.) Two pairs within three hours -- and I thought about getting another at Payless but restrained myself.
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01:24:24 PM,
Monday 2 June 2003
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Oh yeah -- there was a bear advisory on the trails we hiked! How cool! First bear in 90 years! Also, I saw a really excellent snake (vertical orange and black stripes -- maybe not so nice?) but he didn't want to make friends.
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12:17:15 PM,
Monday 2 June 2003
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So I went hiking on Saturday with my family. (No aunts, unfortunately. They've gotten jobs with some fancy-schmancy eurotrash bakery and had to work.) It was a steep uphill (on Mt. Tam -- no, we didn't get to the top) and my quads are still aching.
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(2)
12:15:20 PM,
Monday 2 June 2003
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Gracious heavens: A personality test tells me I'm exactly whatI thought I was. I'm rarely surprised by them. Does that mean I know myself well or that I'm massively self-deluded?
Found (working frontwards) via Moss and Dorothea. Take the test here.
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(10)
11:32:52 PM,
Friday 30 May 2003
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Side note: here is a map of injuries that Jackie Chan has received during his career.
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10:45:23 PM,
Friday 30 May 2003
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Just watched Drunken Master. My favorite part was when the Master demonstrated the Drunken Eight Genii, and anytime someone insulted someone else's kung fu.
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(5)
10:42:55 PM,
Friday 30 May 2003
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Two ideas for conceptual art pieces:
* Stationery that has been exposed to the elements. Aged in particular places at particular times, e.g., one envelope left at a streetcorner for a week in June.
* Art from vending machines. (I know, it's been done.)
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(4)
10:35:56 PM,
Friday 30 May 2003
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site & script courtesy of Moss