The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: jay-ell on August 25, 2007, 12:25:52 am
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"Scrotum" is a plural noun.
What is the singular form?
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It's, um, not a plural noun. Scrotum is singular; scrota is plural.
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A plural noun that should never be used:
"All day long, I examine scrota"
"Would you like to see my collection of scrota?"
"Half a pound of ground lamb, two cornish game hens, and as many scrota as you can find."
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A plural noun that should never be used:
"All day long, I examine scrota"
"Would you like to see my collection of scrota?"
"Half a pound of ground lamb, two cornish game hens, and as many scrota as you can find."
Well, only because it's an ugly word.
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Like my scrotum here it is in a nutshell.
Damn you, Jimmy Pop! That's going to be in my head for days now.
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Oh dang. I misread the answers.com dictionary entry.
I read it as n., pl. when instead it was n.; pl -ta.
Ah, well. Still got the basic gist of the question answered.
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Heh. that's awesome. Tiny can to Jay. Hell of ugly word.
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But I think we can all agree they aren't bad things, per se.
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Not as ugly as a sack full of cocks though.
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Not as ugly as a sack full of cocks though.
Huh. I thought the canonical was 'bucket of cocks'.
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Huh. I thought the canonical was 'bucket of cocks'.
When I was young, we could only afford such as a sachet of cocks.
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When I was young, we could only afford such as a sachet of cocks.
A bowl of dicks?
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Huh. I thought the canonical was 'bucket of cocks'.
You're right. I conflated it with "Dumb as a sack of hammers".
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*I* thought the saying was "a bucket of vaginas."
Which always confused me, because a vaginas to me is defined by negative space. A bucket of labia, sure. Cervices, fine. Clitorises? Even better. (Clitori? Spellcheck says no.) But a bucket of vaginas?
I don't think so.
Edited because: damn you Jough and your damn word filters, sometimes a pu$$y is just a vagin
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A bucket of ceviche for everyone!
I thought the pussy was the whole shmear, so to speak. A bucket of pu$$ye?
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PANLINGUISTICS FUN KORNER
Ugly word, eh. Imagine calling someone that. In Portuguese you can! It means basically what today's strip says about Lyle: He is a card-carrying, registered escroto.
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Clitorises? Even better. (Clitori? Spellcheck says no.)
1=clitoris. 2=clitorides. 3=hottt!
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Beware the clitorides of March.
Wait, no, welcome the clitorides of March.
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I know, double-posting. Sorry, indulge me.
I got a linguistics question, too. There's going to be some background info in here that may or may not be pertinent, but I thought I'd throw it in. So, I'm in my morning call to town, trying to figure out what we did to earn yesterday's piece of our $200 million budget. There happens to be an African-American gentleman at this teleconference (at our end). He's sitting next to the guy who is filling in for the big boss. Anyway, the big boss guy (42 year old white fellow, went to school at Notre Dame) is discussing a job that has been placed on the back burner, or been delayed, or set aside, or whatever you'd call it. He, on the other hand, says that it "has gone to the back of the bus".
The first thing that goes through my mind is Rosa Parks. Obviously, any bus-related expression is fairly new. I suspect that the expression "back of the bus" originated with African-American people being asked to move back so white people could sit in the front of the bus. I don't think the expression was ever used in any other way until after Rosa Parks, and I daresay that it only rose to prominence through her. In other words, if someone uses this expression in a deliberately derogatory or offensive manner, it'll refer to Rosa Parks - and even if a person doesn't know that it's referring to her, that's where it came from.
So, I have to assume that he doesn't make that connection - i.e., when he thinks "back of the bus", he just connects it to other people who have said it, and never thinks of Rosa Parks at all. So I wonder, for all you imaginary folks out in intertubes land, if you think this is an offensive expression. I also wonder what you think about the way the language is changing in respect to expressions like this - because unless people are diligent about teaching their children about civil rights struggles, there will just naturally be fewer and fewer people who understand the origin of this particular expression. I just found it sort of interesting (and not prescriptivist vs. descriptivist, which is nice).
Back to your regularly scheduled programming, if this doesn't interest anyone.
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Actually, it makes me think of school trips, when people who were misbehaving would traditionally be sent to sit in the back of the bus, several rows away from everyone else.
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Actually, it makes me think of school trips, when people who were misbehaving would traditionally be sent to sit in the back of the bus, several rows away from everyone else.
You went to a weird school. The back of the bus is the cool place to sit. Kids only sat at the front due to punishment (or nerdiness).
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Actually, it makes me think of school trips, when people who were misbehaving would traditionally be sent to sit in the back of the bus, several rows away from everyone else.
Sure, Ben, but given the incident I was referring to happened in 1955, you'd have to be 60 years old to have the experience before what I was characterizing as the origin of the expression. Specifically, in the instance I was discussing, it wasn't like the guy was saying that the project was being punished. He was saying it was less valuable to the group to complete it.
My experience was much as CJ's - if you misbehaved you had to sit in the front so they could keep an eye on you.
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Miscellaneous explanatory background on the incident in question:
In Montgomery, the first four rows of bus seats were reserved for white people. Buses had "colored" sections for black people—who made up more than 75 % of the bus system's riders—generally in the rear of the bus. These sections were not fixed in size but were determined by the placement of a movable sign. Black people also could sit in the middle rows, until the white section was full. Then they had to move to seats in the rear, stand, or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Black people were not allowed to sit across the aisle from white people. The driver also could move the "colored" section sign, or remove it altogether. If white people were already sitting in the front, black people could board to pay the fare, but then had to disembark and reenter through the rear door. There were times when the bus departed before the black customers who had paid made it to the back entrance.
For years, the black community had complained that the situation was unfair, and Parks was no exception: "My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest…I did a lot of walking in Montgomery." Parks had her first run-in on the public bus on a rainy day in 1943, when the bus driver, James Blake, demanded that she get off the bus and reenter through the back door. As she began to exit by the front door, she dropped her purse. Parks sat down for a moment in a seat for white passengers to pick up her purse. The bus driver was enraged and barely let her step off the bus before speeding off. Rosa walked more than five miles home in the rain.
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when he thinks "back of the bus", he just connects it to other people who have said it,
But can he have ever heard anyone else use this phrase the way he uses it? I certainly never have and I find it very surprising. My first impression is that this is some kind of weird individual confusion rather than a case of language change.
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But can he have ever heard anyone else use this phrase the way he uses it? I certainly never have and I find it very surprising. My first impression is that this is some kind of weird individual confusion rather than a case of language change.
I think he might have gotten confused with the "back burner" allegory.
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But can he have ever heard anyone else use this phrase the way he uses it? I certainly never have and I find it very surprising. My first impression is that this is some kind of weird individual confusion rather than a case of language change.
I guess I was thinking he had just heard it a few times, and didn't really identify it with meaning anything specifically, and so just figured it meant something farther away from where he was. Something that had been removed, something that was not important.
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I guess I was thinking he had just heard it a few times, and didn't really identify it with meaning anything specifically, and so just figured it meant something farther away from where he was. Something that had been removed, something that was not important.
Did the gentleman on the conference call say anything? Did anyone call him on it? Man, I wonder what he was thinking.
Then again...in this day and age, a lot of times people just let shit go either from incredulousness or politeness. One of my best friends is devoutly Jewish. His rebbe stopped by his office at lunch. Craig had to get something from a neighboring office, and a woman walked right in front of them and yelled at one of her officemates, "Dammit, did you kike my pencil again?"
She walked off, totally oblivious to the fact that the two dudes wearing funny little hats were Jewish and that she had said something horribly offensive. Craig and the rebbe were too shocked to say anything. The other people in the office, though...they were totally horrified. Everybody stared at her in shock.
I don't know if the "back of the bus" comment is in the same league as far as offensiveness, but...Some people are just retarded.
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She walked off, totally oblivious to the fact that the two dudes wearing funny little hats were Jewish and that she had said something horribly offensive. Craig and the rebbe were too shocked to say anything. The other people in the office, though...they were totally horrified. Everybody stared at her in shock.
My ladyfriend has a pretty obviously Jewish last name. When she purchased her last car, the mechanic told her that the "brakes are at 35% so you can probably Jew them down on that."
I don't know if he was being unthinkingly racist, or if he was telling her to use her secret birthright powers.
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I lived in Alabama for 25 years, and do not recall ever hearing the phrase "move to the back of the bus" used in any context. Maybe my memory is faulty.
At work "the bus" is the latest horrible crisis that is sweeping through our department, and we discuss who is driving, flagging down, directing, or being thrown under it, but no one has ever moved to the back of it.
I can not help you with this, Nabu.
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My first thought with back of the bus is school related too, though logically I know it doesn't hold up.
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I don't know if he was being unthinkingly racist, or if he was telling her to use her secret birthright powers.
one guy I know, his dad always makes sure his big gold Star of David necklace is showing before he makes a purchase. You know, to let them know who they're dealing with.
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My ladyfriend has a pretty obviously Jewish last name. When she purchased her last car, the mechanic told her that the "brakes are at 35% so you can probably Jew them down on that."
I don't know if he was being unthinkingly racist, or if he was telling her to use her secret birthright powers.
As a kid, I thought the term was "chew them down" and used this all the time. As in "she chewed him down to trading three Garbage Pail stickers for her one sparkly Pretty Pony sticker." It made a lot of sense to me at the time - I thought it was in line with "chewing someone out." I thought it meant working hard/aggressively to get someone to comply to your wishes. After a while I noticed other people were saying "Jew" not "chew" in this expression and self-corrected never realizing the racist connotations of what I was saying. I went to a small private Catholic school, and didn't even know that there were other religions until I was about 12. I originally thought there were Christians and heathens/pagans, but also that only Catholics were Christians. I knew there were Jews in the bible, but didn't know this referred to a religious group - I thought the term described some geographic location. I'm glad I didn't stay at that school.
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I'd actually never even heard that expression until a few years ago when a semi-retired lady said it at work. Then it showed up on Family Guy right after that when Peter was pretending to be Jewish.
I do remember learning horribly bigoted expressions totally by accident when I was little because I had no idea what they meant. We used to play a game called "smear the queer" a lot growing up, so as far as I knew the primary definition of queer was "kid holding the football."
I was also well into elementary school before I heard anybody say "catch a tiger by the toe."
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Man, that is the one reason I hate thinking about when I was a kid. We grew up in a pretty un-integrated neighborhood, and we said all kinds of horrible fuck*ng things. Of course, the people who were the objects of the slurs were never represented, but it was pretty fucked up.
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I went to a small private Catholic school, and didn't even know that there were other religions until I was about 12. I originally thought there were Christians and heathens/pagans, but also that only Catholics were Christians. I knew there were Jews in the bible, but didn't know this referred to a religious group - I thought the term described some geographic location. I'm glad I didn't stay at that school.
I had a similar upbringing, in that I was raised by my folks with no mention of religion at all, but went to a catholic school for Kindergarden.
These new ideas that were thrust upon me, were very strange indeed.
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Man, that is the one reason I hate thinking about when I was a kid. We grew up in a pretty un-integrated neighborhood, and we said all kinds of horrible fuck*ng things. Of course, the people who were the objects of the slurs were never represented, but it was pretty fucked up.
My parents would try to correct this stuff, but it mainly came from other kids who didn't know what the words meant, either. I remember my dad overhearing a discussion of smear the queer and telling me to stop but not explaining why. I couldn't figure out why somebody would be offended by being called "the kid with the football."
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As a kid, I thought the term was "chew them down" and used this all the time. As in "she chewed him down to trading three Garbage Pail stickers for her one sparkly Pretty Pony sticker." It made a lot of sense to me at the time - I thought it was in line with "chewing someone out." I thought it meant working hard/aggressively to get someone to comply to your wishes. After a while I noticed other people were saying "Jew" not "chew" in this expression and self-corrected never realizing the racist connotations of what I was saying.
See, I think this is pretty typical and why you should not immediately get hysterical when you hear someone use terms like this. There really are people who don't realize they are slurs - because we only hear them spoken, not written, and because there are enough homophones in English that for all anyone knows it could be 'joo them down.'
A similar case is that that 'gyp' in the sense of 'cheat' supposedly derives from 'gypsy.' Once in a while someone will still write an indignant letter for the editor saying that that word shouldn't be used because it's a slur. But if no one knows the history and the association any more, come on, give it up. Any offensive aspect of that word is really gone, lost in the mists of time at this point.
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See, I think this is pretty typical and why you should not immediately get hysterical when you hear someone use terms like this. There really are people who don't realize they are slurs - because we only hear them spoken, not written, and because there are enough homophones in English that for all anyone knows it could be 'joo them down.'
A similar case is that that 'gyp' in the sense of 'cheat' supposedly derives from 'gypsy.' Once in a while someone will still write an indignant letter for the editor saying that that word shouldn't be used because it's a slur. But if no one knows the history and the association any more, come on, give it up. Any offensive aspect of that word is really gone, lost in the mists of time at this point.
However, if the only people who remember are the folks being slurred, it gets a bit more tricky.
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However, if the only people who remember are the folks being slurred, it gets a bit more tricky.
Yeah, but it seems to me you should pick your battles, you know? God knows there are enough deliberately offensive people in the world to worry about without also looking for offense where none was intended. Remember the story about the DC government official who got in trouble for using the word 'niggardly' because it contained the same syllables as a racial slur? It's really possible to take this sort of thing way too far.
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They're still out there though... It's not as though they were wiped out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people states that there are 80,000 in Canada, and 1 Million in the U.S.
Not significantly large populations, but certainly not nonexistent.
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I learned the full concept of male homosexuality relatively late, actually. I heard all the gay slurs, of course, living in the semi-rural Adirondacks but... I don't know... I never put them together with the idea of men doing each other until probably eleven.
I just thought these slurs were about, y'know, girly boys. Sissy boys. It never actually struck me that a man would be attracted to another man because men always came off as such crude-looking animalish functional things.
Still do, really. I really only know what is supposed to be attractive about the male form after years and years of asking straight ladies and gay men questions about what the hell could be attractive about a dude.
Interestingly, though, our next-door-neighbor was a lesbian with a revolving door of partners in serial monogamy so... I understood the idea of FEMALE homosexuality by, like, five or six.
But it made sense. Ladies are so pretty that ladies should probably like them too.
I understood... and really still understand... as little about what a lady would see in a man as what a gay fellow would, really.
Maybe it's some kind of sublimated self-hate about my appearance projected onto all dudes or something. I'm open to the idea that I'm screwed up about it.
But yeah. I thought that "gays" or "queers" were just sissy dudes who liked painting and dressing too well and stuff and... I didn't put together the total idea until very late in childhood.
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Yeah, but it seems to me you should pick your battles, you know? God knows there are enough deliberately offensive people in the world to worry about without also looking for offense where none was intended. Remember the story about the DC government official who got in trouble for using the word 'niggardly' because it contained the same syllables as a racial slur? It's really possible to take this sort of thing way too far.
Sure, but you can agree that niggardly!=back of the bus. Back of the bus is (in reality) directly referencing treating blacks as second-class citizens (at best). Niggardly is a word that sounds like it contains a slur. Like Egyptian. Or adjudicate.
It's like Ash's experience. He was getting that in what appears to me a direct response to how blacks were treated. And he rejected it - to my mind rightly so. But if the only people who remember what back of the bus really means are blacks, and whites use it more and more, well I guess I don't think that I would call their rejection of it as an acceptable cliche an example of taking PC way too far.
Interesting, lfm. I just read something somewhere that made the case that these folks (Larry Craig) don't consider themselves gay. They consider sissy-boys gay, and they consider themselves straight guys who like sucking cock. I can't remember where that was.
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They're still out there though... It's not as though they were wiped out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people states that there are 80,000 in Canada, and 1 Million in the U.S.
Not significantly large populations, but certainly not nonexistent.
Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.' It's purely etymology, not racism.
I think the 'back of the bus' thing is different in that it's not a common part of the language in the way that guy uses it, and someone ought to take pity on him and explain that the phrase has an offensive connotation that he may not be aware of.
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Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.' It's purely etymology, not racism.
I think it's a problem of differing backgrounds. Here's the city I was raised in (http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/washington/stories/NW_070207WAN_marks_funeral_LJ.37dda9a7.html).
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Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.' It's purely etymology, not racism.
I think the 'back of the bus' thing is different in that it's not a common part of the language in the way that guy uses it, and someone ought to take pity on him and explain that the phrase has an offensive connotation that he may not be aware of.
Gyp is not racist, but I know at least one other board member who would be offended by the term "welched". Also, I am always caught off guard when a tv personality or professor says "reneged".
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Gyp is not racist,
Well, I don't know. I think that the Romanies Romany don't even like to be called Gypsies. They might think it's racist, or offensive, or a slur, or whatever.
My bad - thanks, lfm.
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Gyp is definitely derived from racism against the Romany but... it's so far back that I didn't know that originally either. I felt very bad about that, once I figured it out.
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My favorite is how a lot of people think that Handicapped comes from a kind of insensitive thing, but it doesn't?
it is kind of not working for me to put the words together, so, here. (http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/handicap.asp)
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Also, I am always caught off guard when a tv personality or professor says "reneged".
I always wondered about this as well. People around here pronounce it reniged, which may be how to pronounce it or they could be a lot of racists.
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"Back of the bus" sounds inoffensive to me, but as an historian (man I hate saying that it sounds so pretentious why I do I have to be such a dork [/roastbeef]) lots of things fail to faze me. I would regard it as an accurate representation of how Black people used to be treated in this country, which, while unpleasant, should probably not be dropped entirely from the cultural consciousness.
When Pedro was a little kid, his younger sister had a crush on Pedro's friend. Pedro found out about this, and told his friend, "My sister wants to be gay with you."
The friend has not yet let him forget this. It has been twenty years, and he still gets teased.
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I talked to both the guys. The black guy said he didn't take offense because he knew the boss didn't mean it as a slur, but he did that head shake which basically means that he hears racist shit so often that he really has to filter it down to the really egregious stuff and not react to everything somebody says. Then I talked to the boss. I said that he had said this thing the other day. He said yeah. I asked him if he knew who Rosa Parks was. He damn near started crying, he was so horrified that he had said such a thing. It didn't stick in his mind that it was what the expression was about. But the other guy? He can't hear the expression without thinking that. So it's ok - the boss said he was going to go talk to the other guy.
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I talked to both the guys. The black guy said he didn't take offense because he knew the boss didn't mean it as a slur, but he did that head shake which basically means that he hears racist shit so often that he really has to filter it down to the really egregious stuff and not react to everything somebody says. Then I talked to the boss. I said that he had said this thing the other day. He said yeah. I asked him if he knew who Rosa Parks was. He damn near started crying, he was so horrified that he had said such a thing. It didn't stick in his mind that it was what the expression was about. But the other guy? He can't hear the expression without thinking that. So it's ok - the boss said he was going to go talk to the other guy.
Nabu...CAN'D. I'm really glad that you mentioned it to him.
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I'm glad you resolved the origin of it.
That said, with regard to the bit of condescension (at least perceived by me as such although I'm pretty twitchy tonight, so) earlier in the thread about me supposedly not knowing when the Rosa Parks incident would have been, I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase, and it would not have required a 60-year-old to have originated that phrase by that means - it would rather have required it to have developed independently of that situation, perhaps by people unaware of the possible racial tensions involved.
Since further evidence regarding the phrase's origin and use has come to light, obviously my speculative origin is incorrect. I just wanted to address a problem of methodology regarding an assumption made at an earlier stage.
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I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase
In fact most of the most interesting phrase and word origins you hear are fables. (Like inev's link above.) This (http://www.word-detective.com/backidx.html) is a good site to find the disappointing truth about most of the fun word origin stories you hear.
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I'm glad you resolved the origin of it.
That said, with regard to the bit of condescension (at least perceived by me as such although I'm pretty twitchy tonight, so) earlier in the thread about me supposedly not knowing when the Rosa Parks incident would have been, I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase, and it would not have required a 60-year-old to have originated that phrase by that means - it would rather have required it to have developed independently of that situation, perhaps by people unaware of the possible racial tensions involved.
Since further evidence regarding the phrase's origin and use has come to light, obviously my speculative origin is incorrect. I just wanted to address a problem of methodology regarding an assumption made at an earlier stage.
I constructed a nice post here, but the board, as it has done for me often recently, told me I had already posted it when I first attempted to do so, and when I hit the back button, it was gone.
Ben, I'm sorry if I came off a bit shirty. I re-read my post in response to you and it seems pretty even-handed to me, but this whole discussion is about how the listener perceives things, so there you go. Again, my apologies. I tried to go into more detail about things, since I think my initial post didn't quite capture my point (I was in a rush to get this out there, because I wanted to deal with this before the guys left work), but as this issue is resolved on my side, I'm going to let it go.
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This is a good site to find the disappointing truth about most of the fun word origin stories you hear.
goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.
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goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.
The site has been there for years, it will be there when you get back. GO OUT.
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..wait, are we talking about actual gladiator battles?
Screw the linguistics and me acting like a dick because I haven't gotten any sleep, I want to hear about the damn gladiator battles.
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no, it was "American Gladiator" style silly foam shit.
The icecream was awesome, though.
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no, it was "American Gladiator" style silly foam shit.
The icecream was awesome, though.
You made the right choice.
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My favorite is how a lot of people think that Handicapped comes from a kind of insensitive thing, but it doesn't?
it is kind of not working for me to put the words together, so, here. (http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/handicap.asp)
Well, "handicapped" as in "That guy over there is handicapped" is wrong. It's not a word that is supposed to be used to describe the condition of a person, much as you're not supposed to refer to a person as "Oriental."
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I had a paraplegic friend who used to describe herself as a "non-walker."
I think using the specific term for the person's disability is generally preferable, much like so-called Native Americans (according to a friend who knows about such things) generally prefer to be called by their tribal affiliation (e.g. Cherokee, Blackfoot, etc.) I would rather have my son labeled "autistic" than "handicapped," "disabled," or even "special-needs."
When it comes to things like bathrooms stalls and parking spaces, I tend to refer to them as "wheelchair-accessible." They are not designed for all disabled people. They are designed for people in wheelchairs. A larger bathroom stall with handrails isn't going to help you if you're deaf.
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When it comes to things like bathrooms stalls and parking spaces, I tend to refer to them as "wheelchair-accessible." They are not designed for all disabled people. They are designed for people in wheelchairs. A larger bathroom stall with handrails isn't going to help you if you're deaf.
Insert wide-stance joke here.
Edited to make me not look quite as unfeeling.
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Well, "handicapped" as in "That guy over there is handicapped" is wrong. It's not a word that is supposed to be used to describe the condition of a person, much as you're not supposed to refer to a person as "Oriental."
Yeah, but this is a thing that changes over time, too. All polite words for stigmatized conditions eventually become stigmatized as words. "Moron" and "idiot" used to be technical, scientific terms, but they turned into insults. So they got replaced with other technical terms, like 'retarded,' but that became an insult... etc. Language can't keep up, because language can't do anything to affect people's underlying negative attitudes.