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Is Barbelith Dying II - Words and phrases

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15:43 / 18.11.02

How about bartering with like-minded people?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:23 / 18.11.02

Ignatius_J The made-up words, "hir" and "ze." They only work in written form,

That's because you haven't been to any of the London meets. Oh the poly-gendered bitching that goes on...

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:29 / 18.11.02

And that's just Flowers and hir multiple personalities...

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:30 / 18.11.02

Who then all sex each other up. While singing.

New thread here.

16:35 / 18.11.02

what does ze mean, then?

and why are you all so blind to the concept of a mutating language?
(obviously not everyone here, but everyone who is so afflicted)

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:36 / 18.11.02

phrases used to pimping own threads. in the guise of moderation.

16:36 / 18.11.02

How about bartering with like-minded people?

I hope that's what I'm doing here. Though can we do it on credit until the bank is established?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:57 / 18.11.02

This is strictly non-'Lith, but the verbal contortions you see being performed on Goth boards by pretend vampires either have me gnawing thru my monitor cable or pissing myself laughing. Examples include wanton cruelty to the letter Y, assuming that if thou means you, thy must mean my, and thinking that the person who said you were cliched meant clique.

17:12 / 18.11.02

assuming that if thou means you, thy must mean my, and thinking that the person who said you were cliched meant clique.

I think that's the funniest thing I've heard all day. Fucking brilliant.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:19 / 18.11.02

The funniest thing was watching the person thus accused defend themselves by talking at length about how hir all-around superiority to everyone else meant that ze suffered terrible persecution, and that's why ze was "somewhat elitist".

Murray Hamhandler

21:42 / 18.11.02

To get slightly more on topic... Not a word/phrase per se, but one thing that bugs me on the board is the occasional tendency (probably applicable to everyone, including myself, at one time or another) to act as if one has sprung into the world fully-informed w/r/t a particular topic/discipline and judge those less informed accordingly. The unwillingness to recognize that people learn at different rates and are at different stages of education w/in particular disciplines and that not all ignorance is willful. For a community filled w/such intelligent and information-rich individuals, the Barb is sometimes distressingly lacking in...pedagogical spirit, I guess you could say.

22:04 / 18.11.02

Deric Holloway! Voice of sense!

I hate hate hate the word 'ze'; "I saw this thing someone had done. I don't know what they were thinking" vs. "I saw this thing someone had done. I don't know what ze was thinking" (possibly affected by past participles 'n' shit, but there you go.)

I'd take the former anytime, and it's something my particular dialect gives me license to do. The latter would get me a (healthily deserved) pasting.

Because I'd sound like a prick.

The Return Of Rothkoid

22:04 / 18.11.02

Over. Fucking. Quoting. Use a link, use a suitable excerpt of a couple of pars, but do not put the entirety of the Wall Street Journal or whatever it is online.

Not a phrase or word, but a habit. A fucking annoying one. I'll read the article if interest is piqued, dammit.

22:06 / 18.11.02

True dat. Post a link!

Overdoing single posts into novella-like essays is also a tedious and self-important habit. Remove the chaff, please!

23:24 / 18.11.02

Names. Do we really need the recent influx of ......23 names that have been registered? Have all other combinations of digits been outlawed?

23:32 / 18.11.02

I have a -23 name f'r other boards, but I thought it'd be stupit here.

23:36 / 18.11.02

Duncan: yes. There's often a lack of appreciation for the actual medium that we're using here. This is not a Sunday column, nor your blog, this is a BBS and people won't read more than about five paragraphs, if that. It just encourages the "I've not read the rest of this thread but..." thing which is also, I agree with Haus, very irritating.

Of course, I'd never do that.

e randy: at least it's not like Livejournal or AIM where everyone's name ends in 69... for some reason, on LJ people put "x" round a phrase for their username, "xbongwaterx". That is extremely annoying too.

00:08 / 19.11.02

Heh. Fridge said "69".

*titter*

wembley can change in 28 days

08:05 / 19.11.02

I'm in with the 'they' crowd. I'm irked by the appearance of 'hir' or 'ze,' probably because the incorrect plural form has been used by myself and those around me ever since (and before, in fact) I started speaking English. I'm accustomed to it and I never have to think about what the speaker or writer means. I don't see the point of introducing new terms when the ones in common usage are understandable.

And if we wanted to get very correct, we ought to be using thence and whither, too. Why drop the genetive and accusative forms from language? I actually kind of miss them. 'You' in English means you singular and you plural. How do we ever figure it out?

I'm usually a stickler for grammar, and I do submit that I hesitate every time I use a sentence with 'they' or 'them' as indicative of a singular entity. But why not go back to 'one'? And does anyone here use ze or hir in their spoken language?

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

08:24 / 19.11.02

Wembley: I think all your questions have been addressed here. Take a look.

Briefly, the inflected genitive and accusative do still exist in various languages including, I think, your own adopted Finnish. We can't go back to "one" partly because "one" is a living language component, and partly because "one" has a very specific pronominal meaning which is not the same as "he", "they", "I" or any supplement or replacement thereof.

Otherwise you seem like many others to be assuming that the needs of language are fixed at the point that you learn it and do not subsequently change. The question of the value of an epicene pronoun in spoken English is a very interesting one (although a look at the previous page would tell you that Jack Fear for one apparently does). New terms are introduced to English all the time to replace or supplement other things - how many otiose words are there that could simply be represented by the neat single word "love"? Not saying that there is a good argument for an epicene pronoun, only that that isn't a good argument against. Also not sure why the same idea of "correctness" is being made to include neologisms and archaism.

Then again, I do use thence and whither (or, more precisely, thence and whence and whither and thither), albeit only where the sentence demands it.

wembley can change in 28 days

10:38 / 19.11.02

whoops Haus - I just caught on to the other thread and will relegate everything else there, except to say, I had not meant to suggest that we all get rid of cases in all languages (as frankly, I dig 'em). I was rather lamenting/commenting on their apparent disappearance from the English language.

But trust me - you wouldn't want to go overboard with them like in Finnish. Today I learned, for example, how to put the blue hat into the white pail:
Minä laitan (I put) sinisen hattun (blue and hat, both in accusative case) valkoiseen ämpäriin (white pail, both genetive case). Then if it's in the pail, it's valkoisessa ämpärissä (both in adessive case). If I take it out, it's another case, and if any part of the sentence is negative, the whole thing switches to the partitive case, and by the way, the word 'no' is conjugated like a verb.

Enough thread rot. I just had to vent.

10:40 / 19.11.02

Otherwise you seem like many others to be assuming that the needs of language are fixed at the point that you learn it and do not subsequently change.

[yawn]

Before you go, you should know that no one actually said this. Bit of a red herring.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

11:21 / 19.11.02

the incorrect plural form has been used by myself and those around me ever since (and before, in fact) I started speaking English. I'm accustomed to it and I never have to think about what the speaker or writer means

They're already used in this context.

While we do of course have different vocabularies for different audiences, I'd rather not have to change something as basic as the pronouns that I use.

Especially as we already have a working alternative in the use of the plural

But what, really, is the point in adding "hir" and "ze" if, like myself and apparently a lot of other people here, you are quite happy using the plural?

All of this is beside the point, of course, because a gender-neutral pronoun is already widely used in the West.

I think you can pick the bones out of that herring...

13:28 / 19.11.02

Deric pretty much hit the nail on the head. In a similar vein, also not a word or phrase, but any post which undermines the discussion in a thread in which the underminer clearly has no intention of participating any further, to paraphrase, "This is stupid, you're all dumb mother fuckers for even being interested," or posts which chide people for asking questions about the topic that haven't already been covered.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:46 / 19.11.02

It just encourages the "I've not read the rest of this thread but..." thing which is also, I agree with Haus

Hey! this was me.

posts which miss my exciting and important contributions...

15:00 / 19.11.02

Ok, OK, Haus, you're right, technically "they" is not supposed to be used as a gender neutral pronoun, but I use it as such, and many other folks do the same, and as we know language is fluid, eventually it probably will be considered proper usage of they, I'd guess over "ze" and "hir" but you never do know.

But, back to topic at hand: things that make my skin crawl include people saying things like, "And if anyone thinks [insert badly made, racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. statement here] is racist/sexist/prejudiced/homophobic/etc., it's NOT, OK?"

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

15:36 / 19.11.02

Hey, Bengali in Platforms said that!

Oh, all right, no ze didn't. But do pile into the Head Shop thread, Cherie. Lawrence LBIMG is about to scream and scream again, and we could probably do with a voice of reason.

15:42 / 19.11.02

bengali: shit, sorry

Haus: please don't tell me you can't tell the difference between those statements and "assuming that the needs of language are fixed at the point that you learn it and do not subsequently change".

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

15:47 / 19.11.02

Hey, Bengali in Platforms said that!

Oh, all right, no she didn't. But do pile into the Head Shop thread, Cherie. Lawrence LBIMG is about to scream and scream again, and we could probably do with a voice of reason.

With you on the "And don't anybody call in saying that's racist, because it's not" front. To which I'd like to add its sister, "I suppose that makes me a racist, does it?" Because it so often invites the answer "well, actually, yes, at least as far as the statement you just made goes", but to say so would just lead to a great big shouting match and commensurate bundle of no fun.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:19 / 19.11.02

Hey, I say "they" as a gender neutral pronoun...
...but then I also use "shit" as all undefined nouns I couldn't be bothered to mention in my actual sentence.

Seems to work, though. (btw- I actually prefer "hir" to "ze". For no apparent reason, really. Except I'm uncomfortable with the letter "z".)

16:42 / 19.11.02

I'll tell you why I don't like "ze". It's the American way of referring to the letter "Z", and as such it reminds me of watching Sesame Street as a child. And being reminded of Sesame Street at that basic level brings back my primal fear of the Snuffaluffagus. Damn that shit was scary.

21:00 / 19.11.02

'Ze' was originally coined by Timothy Leary, I understood. Personally, I'm not a one to loathe words and phrases. Circumlocutory argument and pomposity, on the other side, make me aaaaangry...

21:28 / 19.11.02

I thought Leary proposed the use of SHe, not ze (I well could be wrong, someone's borrowed the book I've seen it mentioned in).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:21 / 20.11.02

ccrdng t bby gllsp, ll vwls r prt f sme fscst cnsprc.
Srry, tht ws cmpltly rrlvnt.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:53 / 20.11.02

Back on topic - the "Barbelith clique/in-crowd/Board Royalty". No matter how many times whoever alleges the existence of such a thing is asked to define the boundaries of such a group or list its members, they never do - possibly because deep down, in the same place we all know we'e going to die someday, they know that said list would include people who never agree on anything, can't stand each other, or are barely aware of each other's existence, thus discrediting the entire speculation...

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