| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 5/24 |
| 2005/7/6-8 [Recreation/Dating] UID:38438 Activity:kinda low |
7/6 Dear motd. My married friend listens to his wife all the time. She
controls the entire family finances. She inspects every single bit
of credit card and bank transactions, and questions him. He wants to
change his job, but his wife forbids him. She tells him to clean up
the bathroom, throw out trash, and take a bath with the baby, and he
does it. He has to drive his [yuck] INLAWS a few times a week, and
dines with them every other day. The way I see it is that he is more
like a slave to his wife, children, and mortgage. However, he
disagrees and tells me that he's happy. Here's a question for you
married men. Is this normal, and can you possibly be happy with that
kind of totalitarian lifestyle?
\_ How old is your friend and his wife? This sounds like people far
to immature to handle marriage.
too immature to handle marriage.
\_ Don't know if it's normal. It sure isn't necessary. I've been
married for 5 years, and we have totally seperate finances and no
one tells anyone what to do. We trust eachother, but joining
finances always just seemed like a waste of time. If one of us
wants to give the other money for some reason, the giver will write
a check. Your friend's shitty life has nothing to do with
fundamental problems in the institution of marriage.
\_ Assuming you're not a troll, /any/ relationship which has compulsion
is in serious trouble.
\_ some people like being whipped.
\_ are you the same guy from a couple weeks ago complaining that you
never got to hang out with your guy friend anymore?
\_ yes that's me. His wife tells him who he can get to hang out
with. Everytime I call, she would answer, and lately it's
more and more like an inquisition or a friendship interview
from her. She seems like a controlling freak, and he seems
like a brainwashed spineless octopus. -op
\_ gee, if you're going to ask for advice from the motd, at the
very fucking least don't stomp over people's replies to your
own damn post.
\_ I'm sorry, I'm just trying to be anonymous in case he
checks the web motd
\_ You don't think he'll recognize his story?
\_ Sounds like you're a jealous friend. Get over it. Your
account of his life is hardly unbiased.
\_ Maybe his wife is so very hot that he's willing to put up with all
this shit and still be happy. Seriously, I've been going through
similar shit, and if my wife were hot enough I'd still be happy too.
Now I'm still putting up with it, but I'm just not happy.
\_ Looks fade and even great sex gets stale. This guy is in a
lot of trouble. It's normal for a husband to be a slave to
his wife/kids/mortgage. It's not normal when one's wife
decides where you are going to work and what you are going
to do. I wonder if the wife works in this instance or if
she's just a housewife.
\_ It's not insane to ask hubbie to have a job lined
up that doesn't require moving before quitting.
My buddy's wife convinced him to talk to a headhunter, where
he ended up with much higher-paying job with much lower hours
at a more well known company and much closer to home.
\_ It's insane when his "wife forbids him" from getting
another job. It's his life, too. Sure, there are
circumstances where one's wife might not want one to
take that job in Alaska, but "forbids" sounds
take that job in Idaho, but "forbids" sounds
unhealthy. Granted, the OP is probably not unbiased
and maybe doesn't know the whole story.
\_ Yeah, I think op is biased. Remember the story you
read here has been through 2 filters. Him and his
friend. Sometimes people over state things to
increase effect, etc.
\_ Yeah, "biased" means "forbid" might actually be "don't
quit if you don't have something lined up, you dumb
web designer!"
quit if you don't have something lined up in this
market"
\_ Sure, but not necessarily.
\_ That's what "might" means.
\_ No shit. However, the composition of your
sentence makes it seem likely. It could
just as easily be "might not".
\_ The context of the discussion is that "might
not" had already been put forth, and that
"might" was newly introduced -- not that
"might" was more likely (this is left up to
the reader).
I don't blame you: Many CS people have
contextual problems.
\_ Dude, he says he's happy. Believe and leave him alone. Lend an
ear if and when you can, but stop trying to mess with his life.
\_ He's concerned for his friend. Maybe it's selfishness, maybe
it's justified. But to watch a friend who feels trapped without
saying anything is to not be a friend.
\_ have you ever seen shallow hal?
\_ Saving Silverman is a better example. And Amanda Peet is
hotter.
\_ What are you going to do? Break up his marriage?
\_ Did I say that? Did he say that? God you people are too
stupid to live.
\_ It's called FAMILY responsibilities.
\- OP: while your friend probably has problems, based what your
description says about you, you have some problems yourself.
You should seek professional help.
\_ maybe if he just got a girlfriend, he wouldn't have to
obsess about how his friend doesn't have time for him anymore.
\- M-x psychonanalize-motd
well look at details like this: it's one thing to say
the wife makes him to all the household chores while she
does none but "take a bath with the baby" [instead of
"give the baby a bath"]? or to say he is the slave of not
just his wife but also his children? This is even more
clear in his posting of 6/30. I think it is kind of an
interesting subject-object reversal. OP: instead of
listing specific things your friend does, why dont you
take a stab at stating in simple language what you
think is wrong ... dont use meaningless words like
"totalitarian" and "enslavement". Are you an Asian?
\_ Heh. psb imploring the use of 'simple language.'--ilyas
\-http://sundials.org/about/humpty.htm
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html
\_ Are you gay?
\_ You have way too much time to think about your friend's problems. Maybe
you can help him out by doing some of his chores.
\_ OP might be a straight woman.
\_ You have way too much time to think about your friend's problems.
Maybe you can help him out by doing some of his chores.
\_ If you think he has it bad now, just wait till she gets him into
divorce ct on some bogus claim. Then the true pain starts, the
eternal fires of hell will be a welcome change after he endures
the living nightmare that she will turn his life into.
The reason she is driving you away is that you might be able to
give him the advice he needs to put his life in order (think
irrevocable trust) before she plunges in the knife.
\_ W00t! Welcome back to the motd, BDG! -BDG #1 fan |
| 5/24 |
|
| sundials.org/about/humpty.htm Theyve a temper, some of them - particularly verbs: theyre the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Now you talk like a reasonable child, said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. I meant by impenetrability that weve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if youd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you dont mean to stop here all the rest of your life. Thats a great deal to make one word mean, Alice said in a thoughtful tone. When I make a word do a lot of work like that, said Humpty Dumpty, I always pay it extra. Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called Jabberwocky? This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:- Thats enough to begin with, Humpty Dumpty interrupted: there are plenty of hard words there. Brillig means four oclock in the afternoon - the time when you begin broiling things for dinner. You see its like a portmanteau - there are two meanings packed up into one word. Well, toves are something like badgers - theyre something like lizards - and theyre something like corkscrews. They are that, said Humpty Dumpty: also they make their nests under sundials - also they live on cheese. |
| www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html -> www.resort.com/%7Eprime8/Orwell/patee.html Orwell: Politics and the English Language Politics and the English Language 1946 M ost people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language - so the argument runs - must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes. Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written. These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad - I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen - but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. Professor Harold Laski Essay in Freedom of Expression Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder . Professor Lancelot Hogben Interglossia On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; It is often easier to make up words of this kind deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth than to think up the English words that will cover ones meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality , as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. Xs work is its living quality, while another writes, The immediately striking thing about Mr. Xs work is its peculiar deadness, the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living , he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy , not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality . Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes : I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; Here it is in modern English: Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. Exhibit 3 above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations - race, battle, bread - dissolve into the vague phrases success or failure in competitive activities. This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing - no one capable of using phrases like objective considerations of contemporary phenomena - would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase time and chance that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes . As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. It is easier - even quicker, once you have the habit - to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think . If you use ready-made phrases, you not only dont have to hunt about for the words; In 4, the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning - they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another - but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentenc... |