"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Economics. *sigh* Just another field that HAS to use words in idiosyncratic ways in order to attempt to make its jargon less acceptable to the hoi polloi. Example: in common speech “rival” and “competitor” are synonyms. In Economics, however, a good (yeh, another one, but with strong etymological roots) is rival if its use or consumption by one party denies another party its use or consumption.
Fugetaboutit.
. . . No, don’t. Really.
In another forum, after I had used “sic” correctly in quoting a text with an error, some lame brain just HAD to chime and tell me what it meant. . . while demonstrating they had not read the linked article from which the text was quoted AND saying incorrectly that the error I noted was a misspelling, when it was a correctly spelled word that was misused.
Well, the commenter learned a lesson, yeah, and hopefully two.
#gagamaggot
1. Never try to instruct someone on words when you don’t know what you are talking about. Instead, ask and learn. Or at least get a dictionary and learn how to use it. *duh*
2. If the quoted material that is from a larger text that’s available to you, READ THE LARGER TEXT before making a fool of yourself. If you then want to go ahead and make a fool of yourself anyway, be prepared to be “schooled.”
Choose your grandparents wisely. *heh*
I am very fortunate to have only one prescription med. (At my age, that’s more than a bit atypical, I know; I’m very, very fortunate.) The thing is, my Wonder Woman is prescribed the same med, same dosage, as a part of her _wide array_ of prescription meds.
She gets all hers from a local pharmacy using her employer-provided health insurance prescription drug benefit. I make a trip ~15 miles out of town once a year to pick up a year’s supply (Yeh, I brow-beat my doctor into writing it for 360 tabs, which–given my roughly 80% compliance–means I have about eight months’ backup supply, after all these years on the same med) at a discount pharmacy, using no insurance.
My cost is 1/6 her cost, after her co-pay.
(The point isn’t where she likes to buy her prescription meds. It’s still pretty cheap, so I don’t really care where she buys her meds. Wherever she’s comfortable doing so is just fine by me. It’s her decision, after all, anyway.)
As I said up front, I consider myself VERY fortunate to only “require” one prescription med for a condition I could take care of myself, and used to, with about 20 minutes of slow, controlled breathing twice a day, but I told my doctor that was just boring and requested a chemical solution.
I took GREAT care selecting my grandparents. . .
All I really have to deal with concerning health issues are creeping arthritis and this damnable tinitus. Oh, well, for the one I can lie to myself and say that pain is just weakness leaving the body. It doesn’t work, but it makes me laugh at myself. For the other, well, I just call my tinitus “the voices in my head” (Oh! those dulcet, belltoned ‘voices’! #gagamaggot), and blame it for my various insanities.
*heh*
On another site, I read of a gal’s woes ordering lingerie from Amazon. Seems some bras that were delivered were. . . not exactly as ordered.
Off-the-wall and around the corner. . . and since I don’t wear a bra (*heh*), probably not germane, but. . .
I noticed recently that one of my Wonder Woman’s discarded bras might make a couple of good facemasks, with perhaps some added filtration material. Something to think about? *heh*
Aaaannnd,
Neon colors and psychedelic designs (the aforementioned gal’s complaint). . . Jimmy Durante said it best:
I already knew, generally, what an M44 was in the context of wildlife management–a baited cyanide device ostensibly used to control [that is, kill] coyotes and other canidae (apparently against foxes in Australia, though using a different poison), but for some reason it popped into my head and I decided to check a few resources for a more detailed description of it and its uses.
The Wikipedia article included an incident in “criticisms” of its use that made me snicker:
“In 2003, Mr. Dennis Slaugh of Vernal, Utah, was on public lands and mistook an M-44 for a survey marker. When he pulled on it, the device shot sodium cyanide powder on his face and chest causing him to become violently ill.” [Wikipedia article on M44 cyanide device]
He THOUGHT it was a SURVEY MARKER on public land, so he tried to pull it up? Asshat. He got what he deserved. The Deuteronomical injunction against moving “boundary stones” came to mind (along with all the laws currently on the books) when I read about this asshat. Since the incident was cited as a criticism of the use of M44 cyanide devices, I doubt the asshat learned the proper lesson from his disgusting behavior. The proper lessons to have learned from that would include:
DON’T MESS WITH SURVEY MARKERS
DON’T MESS WITH STUFF THAT IS NOT YOURS, PERIOD
DON’T BITCH AND MOAN AND DEMAND SOMEONE “DO SOMETHING” WHEN YOUR OWN MISBEHAVIOR REBOUNDS ON YOU
But, as I said, since the incident is cited as a criticism of the device and its use, I doubt the asshat learned the proper lesson from it. I could be wrong. . . but that’s not the way to bet.
Sometimes, text written by a subliterate writer can lead to fun stuff. A silly, 20-something self-pub subliterate writer (whose “editorial” helpers are no more literate than he is) provided such a brief moment, before I ashcanned his stupid book.
“. . .tells me that a newly discovered landmark was uncovered by the storm and that the ruin is not in any kind of withered [sic] state.”
Oh, my. The subliterate writer was probably groping for “weathered,” but since
a. his ears are apparently dull and
b. he just flat-out doesn’t know the differences between “wither” and “weather,”
. . .he went with a near homophone that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
But. . . then I paused and thought of the different meanings of wither, and their etymologies. (Yes, because I spent much of my youth reading dictionaries–and still do to this day, for that matter–and have a wide range of interests in disparate fields, I knew that the noun “wither” and the verb “wither” came from two very different roots. *shrugs* So? 🙂 ) So I had a bit of personal entertainment contemplating a horse’s withers and the withering of a plant.
And then, back to the Badly Written Text to a further description of the “ruin”:
“In fact, it doesn’t look “ruined” at all! It appears to be in perfect condition!”
*head-desk* Then why, oh why, did the “eminent archaeologist” initially refer to it as a “ruin”?
Because the writer had no appropriate vocabulary to describe it else, of course.
Well, this lil incident combined with four others in the two pages since I picked the book back up to convince me I needed to delete it from my library entirely, so as not to even accidentally pick it back up.
Oh, well. At least I managed to get all the way to 4% of the thing this time. . .
Although I’ve made the meal for years, last night, my Wonder Woman said, “I’m starting to view this as comfort food.” *huh* For me, it’s always been comfort food, an imitation of a meal my mom used to make on rare occasions back when I was just a lad.
Packaged chicken pot pies
A sort of mock Waldorf salad.
That’s it.
I miss the aluminum pans packaged chicken pot pies used to come in. They were so very useful for many things. Still, packaged chicken pot pies are pretty standardized, nothing to see there, really, but the salad?
OK, “mock Waldorf” because it includes apples and walnuts. The rest is shopped or shredded cabbage, chopped (almost minced) celery and/or celery seed, a can of fruit salad (drained), and mayonnaise. The amounts of cabbage, apple, walnut, etc., are variable, so the amount of mayo–added last–is too.
Last night, a couple of differences:
I just used a package of pre-shredded coleslaw mix that included julienned carrots.
Had no celery. Reached for the celery seed and started shaking some on (“measuring” b’guess-n-b’gosh) and realized I’d grabbed celery SALT. *meh* It ended up all right.
And finally, after decades of making this meal, it’s “comfort food” for my Wonder Woman. So, I have accomplished something in this life.
😉
Just re-read our town ordinances on one short topic (long story; just suffice it to say I was right, and citing the ordinance did the trick 😉 ). In the very short topic covered by the ordinance, I noted six grammar/usage errors that might affect some other folks and invalidate those portions as the subsection applies to them.
Will I tell the town council what those errors are and what the implications might well be? Heck no! The section involved is stupid and invasive and needs to be challenged by someone who’s being oppressed by “The Man.” *heh* If I hear of someone who’s been cited under that subsection, I will point out to them the errors that make the language nonsensical.
I’ve needed intermittent breaks from the flood cleanup, and so I selected an Indie-published space opera series to read for that purpose, forsaking all other reading–light, inconsequential, fun.
But fun marred by faulty execution. Oh, the plots are typical light space opera and the characters stalwart heroes and evil villains, etc. All Flash Gordon/Doc Smith Lensman (without the superman/superwoman aspect) type plots, etc. IOW, just good light fun.
Except. The writer bragged on his editor. That’s an almost sure sign that both the writer and his editor are not formally literate, and have a disconnect between their verbal fluency and subliteracy, evidenced in writer errors of grammar, punctuation, word misusage, and more that survive the “editing” process to publication.
And that’s a shame, because the books are otherwise quite enjoyable, light fare, something the writer stated he was aiming for.
Oh, well. It’s still better than discarding soaked boxes of books, ripping up and discarding carpeting, bleaching walls and floors, and more. And. . . all the errors actually provide a distraction of their own. *heh*
OK, one example of so very FREAKING many:
“A bright blaze of color shown from a split in the corpse’s suit.”
Shone (although “shined” would be preferable) or showed? Which did the writer intend with his misuse of “shown”? One can guess, but unless the writer (or at least his editor) improves his written vocabulary, one can only guess.
#gagamaggot
It simply conforms to the universe’s laws.
We needed rain, so I washed the cars.
It worked! (As usual.)