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I've been Barbelised!

Whisky Priestess

14:09 / 01.05.06

My example:

At a wedding anniversary lunch the other day, I found myself asking an expectant father whether he and his wife had found out the baby's gender yet.

It seems that, having recently read lots of interesting sex/gender theory threads on the board, I am now automatically substituting the word gender for sex, even when sex is actually what I mean (although fortunately not yet to the extent that I ask people whether they had gender last night ...)

I've been Barbelised!

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:53 / 01.05.06

I am less tolerant of other peoples lazy speech with regards to casual use of 'casual hatespeech'. IT used to roll off like water on a ducks back, but now I bristle like a hedgehog when I read/hear it.

So yeah, color me transformed by TEH PC CRAZIES!

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:58 / 01.05.06

I have also stopped using the term Lady Friend, although I am unclear on why it got the Barbelith black mark, since it did I have stopped using it.

Spyder Todd 2008

15:54 / 01.05.06

I’ve noticed that whenever arguing about anything, I automatically stay completely calm and focused without raising my voice. I provide a clear debate, use good grammar and diction, and make my point in an uncompromising fashion. Whereas, two or three years ago, I would raise my voice and get angry if pushed too hard. Not so anymore. I stay completely calm, which actually really unnerves whom ever I debating with.

I know that sounds weird to attribute to my time on Barbelith, but I really do think it’s from reading so many debates here, where someone starts ranting and raving and it really hurts their case. So when I find myself in an argument, I unconsciously think to myself, “What Would Haus Do?”

Also, studies show a daily dose of Barbelith makes you 137% smarter!

All Acting Regiment

17:48 / 01.05.06

Since becoming aware of the fundamental attribution error (the mental slip we all make where "me"=good and "you"=bad), I like ot feel I've renovated a lot of my opinions. Also I'd second spyder's point about the careful, sensible debating thing. I find that making it clear that I am no better or more worthy than the person I'm debating with helps a lot too.

01:28 / 09.05.06

Barbelith has made me more annoyable, really (both in relation to myself and others).
I'm always going to be relatively sedate (read: at times oblivious) and I haven't suddenly begun a crusade of indignant, righteous, shoutiness but it (Barbelith) has opened me up to a variety of open-minded debate and vicarious experience that is, of course, beneficial, to how I regard things/people/views.
So there, that's me, Barbelised, a little, at least.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

04:06 / 09.05.06

One of my biology professors once taught me the more obvious signs that a tree is dying and as a result where I once saw a line of pretty trees along the side of a road I now see death row. Likewise, since barbelith has taught me to indentify lazy thought and speech, sometimes I now see a bunch of nasty things in myself.

But I am more knowledgeable on an ass-load of other stuff now, largely because Barbelith has shown me many different ways of looking at things like behaviour, speech, assumptions, opinions, or knowledge of a particular subject. I like to think that I'm a better, more capable person because of that.

In a specific here 'n now sense...sometimes I put the letter "u" in words I didn't before. And I changed the way I write the number "4". Also a third arm has begun growing from the center of my chest, and it obeys commands that are not my own. It's hand has seven fingers. I'll be real with you, I'm not sure that one's from Barbelith.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

04:58 / 09.05.06

Barbelith gave me people to have a damn good time with in the UK. Not really a change of assumptions, but I will always be grateful to Barbelith as a general place for hooking me up with so many cool people (hell, I wouldn't have gotten out to Brighton otherwise...or spent half as much time in London).

Errr...also, I've begun using the word "partner" rather than girl/boyfriend and husband/wife when I don't know what people's relations are. I posted a picture of a woman I met at a recent convention and her wife on my Flickr, but not knowing their relationship (they HAD a relationship, that's all I knew), wrote in "partner". Kathryn got a laugh out of that, having never apparently heard the word used in that sense before.

Similarly, on the Temple side I've learned that making shit up as you go along is OK, but its good to do your research.

...also, I learned what a "sigil" is. Believe it or not, I never knew.

I've regretably been less active, or at least less sensibly and scholarlarly (is that even a word?) active on Barbelith in the last year. I really wish to get back into things.

Oh, and Barbelith has taught me that badgers are funny. All hail King Jack.

05:05 / 09.05.06

I blame y'all for adding "squee!" to my vocabulary, as a response to incredible cuteness/hausness. I like it.

Mysterious Transfer Student

17:30 / 10.05.06

Squeeing and Strong Truth are in full effect chez Tergesen. I wish I could add my voice to Spyder and Tuna's and say that Barb-inclusion has made me a gentler, more rational, yet also more quick to take action against bigotry kind of person, but I really can't be sure. Class hatred, OTOH, gets much shorter shrift from me than it ever used to, thanks to my assiduous cultivation of my Inner Flyboy.

(I'm sure that Haus or Flyboy, if they ever read this thread, would be nothing short of mortified to learn that other posters might consider them role models of any kind... to which we might flippantly reply, "Your work here is done.")

17:37 / 10.05.06

I'm not sure that I'm Barbelised in a specific way, other than sometimes saying 'teh' (and having it in the predictive texting on my 'phone). Barbelith's probably influenced me in a more general way, though, in that I have, over the course of years, evolved a 'voice' that I use for dictated letters at work as well as on here. My Barbestyle isn't a million miles away from the style I use for 'formal' stuff.

17:44 / 10.05.06

Before I came here I used to pride myself on my witing ability, general knowledge, clear thinking, education, debating style and open-mindedness. Now, despite them all having improved drastically since I was Barbelised, I am shamed by them all.

I never say Chav now. I've become a fan of 'Dykes to watch out for' and challenge implicit/casual -isms in real life far more often than I did (I'm proud to be called a PC thug!), I've discovered slash, fennecs, squeeing w00ting and snarking, and met local posters in their fleshy suits which has scarred me for life (Gumbitch, I'm looking at you, those yellow shorts are imprinted on my retina).

Barbelith is like going to big school at first I think (try to remember what that was like), but I still love it as much as when I first came here. It's just not scary now (except for some of the Armory forum).