aesmael

Sometimes I make pretty bad typos, often the sort where I mean one word and accidentally type an entirely different but correctly spelled word.

This time where I meant to address my girlfriend by name I instead said to her 'power drill'.

Bizarrely, my mother refuses to believe me that I am not watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day tonight because it is a bit of a tear-jerker and I don't feel like crying tonight.

Also, I want to start using these. This only reinforces my contention that our language could be far richer, or even possibly is far richer than common use would suggest.

Stumbled across something interesting recently. Here's how it begins:

I no longer recognize marriage. It’s a new thing I’m trying.

Turns out it’s fun.

Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend.

She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,”
“Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.”

The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,

“How’s your longtime companion, Jill?”
“She’s my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.”

Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs.

It is an approach I had considered idly, vaguely. I hadn't thought would be very effective since there is nothing backing up that invalidation - whoever it was directed at could simply move on to the next person and have their social position reinforced, dismiss from eir consideration the person who would not recognise eir marriage.

Perhaps I underestimated the sting people feel at having their accustomed privileges questioned. Certainly I have seen plenty of outrage over supposedly minor matters in the past. I also wonder if it is as effective at being illustrative and persuading people to reconsider as the writer suggests, or if it does only produce momentary outrage. No evidence to say either way whether this is any good at producing long-term effect. Seems worth trying to find out, and could be satisfying in itself even if not. So, this is now something I may give a try, though I have few opportunities in my life at present.

Besides marriage it is also something to try with pronouns, applying neutral ey / eir / em to persons of unknown preference and asking where possible[1]. Not quite the same thing, but we could switch to failure to recognise for people who also do so.

Now I wonder what other things could be applied to the population-at-large in such a way?

For reference, link was originally found here in genderqueer.

[1] "Have you a pronoun preference?" ?

Listening again to the episode of Are We Alone listed with this post. The guest speaking now is William Crossman. He is talking about his belief that talking computers will replace reading and writing by 2050.

His claim as I understand it is that verbal and oral communication will be facilitated by computers such that there is no need for being able to read or to write, and the population overall will become functionally illiterate. This, he is advocating as literacy being superseded, and humans as a naturally oral computer, not issuing a warning of the dangers ahead.

I think this is it and that I have conveyed what is going on but... the show is still playing and it is really difficult for me to think or to focus. Which brings me to the point of this post: no, please no. Although Crossman indicated several times that signing would be something these computers could handle, so that deaf people would be able to participate, and although he talks about making communication and access easier for people with disabilities who are not well able to write or read, the elimination of text from society would make things much harder for me and probably for a great many other people.

There is a reason I tend to skip podcasts when they come on in my playlists and, increasingly, songs with words. Verbal communication tends to shut me down. Hearing voice very often has a nearly paralytic effect on me as processing it often takes away my ability to do anything else and I tend not to be able to ignore it enough to be able to function. Speech too can be difficult for me, taking a long time to find and to say words, especially if I am under any stress. Unless I am so stressed I begin babbling and not making sense.

Text, reading and writing, are far easier for me. I tend to lose words as soon as I hear them; often I retain the sense of it but often also I need to ask people to repeat themselves one or a few times. It is not rare for voices to be unpleasant or painful to hear, though generally I can block out this fact. In text I tend to be more fluent in conversation, or better able to pick up again if something has happened and I lost focus, because the words are right there for me to read again and respond to.

Auditory and verbal difficulties are I believe common among people on the autism spectrum. Most of the time I pass for neurotypical and manage fine, but the impression I have is that I am about as verbal as it gets. The world Crossman envisions would severely hamper my ability to communicate and access information, but many others would be worse off.

Infloration: The process of being overtaken by a plant infestation adapting to better accommodate plant-life. Often considered undesirable in humans.

Sibling.

Stolen from metaquotes:

Cutlery and Utensils: A Brief Taxonomic Study of the Evolution of Eusociality in the Kitchen
Trojanhorse Heales-Shadowfax, BSc (Hons)


The oldest known members of the Order Utensillida (Kingdom; Objecta, Phylum; Kitchenae, Class: Preparata) are those of the Family Incisidiformes; the Knives. Today the only common extant genus of incisids is the nominate genus Incisa, which are brood parasites.
From basal incisids arose the two groups of higher utensils; the nominate family Utensillidiformes, which includes the rarer and more solitary forms such as Whisks (Miscidae), the Slicers (Egg-Slicers, Ouefcoutidae, and Cheese-Slicers, Fromagecoutidae), and the predatory Meat-Tenderisers (Carneidae) and Garlic-Presses (Alliumsativumidae); and the large family Plataeiformes, or Spoons. The plataeids have two basic modes of life; monogamy (practised by the Spatulidae) and eusociality (as seen in the Plataeidae). The tendency for the more advanced plataeids to be smaller than their less specialised cousins is well documented.

Incisa cuculia, the Steak Knife Cuckoo.

Incisa cuculia is the most common of the incisids. Adults form colonies living in wooden blocks, and may be highly diverse in form. In general, females are slender, gracile forms known as boning or filleting knives. Males are heavier, and dominant males may become cleavers in later life. Juvenile forms are steak knives and seek shelter in the cutlery drawer amongst colonies of Plateus eusocialus, the spoon-bee, where they masquerade as soldiers until maturity.


Misca misca, the Common Whisk

This utensil is a parasitoid, ultimately responsible for the demise of any utensil drawer or jar. It draws nourishment from entangling other utensils and may end up snarling so many hapless victims in its maw that it can no longer function itself.

Meat tenderisers, garlic presses, cheese and egg slices, (genera Carna, Alliumsativum, Ouefcouta and Fromagecouta)

Most utensil drawers will have only one or two of these hermit utensils; they do not cohabit easily and there is usually fierce competition between them until their numbers are reduced to a sustainable level in any one kitchen.

Spatula pisca; the Faithful Spatula

Technically, the spatula is the female of the species, where the fish-slice is the male form. This level of sexual dimorphism is responsible for their being placed often in separate species by early taxonomists. Interestingly, this genus practices live birth of young; young spatulas resemble the female closely but will be smaller and more rubbery, thus making them both easier to give birth to, presumably, and more useful to the cook.

Plateus eusocialus; the Spoon-Bee

These are an indispensible kitchen organism, eusocial with the ladle as queen, knives as soldiers, spoons of various types as workers, forks as drones and teaspoons being the larval stage. The spork is a sad hermaphrodite mutation, the increase of which is probably due to increased use of pesticides in food. Often, cooks will find measuring spoons (Plateus sucraetcetera) in spoon-bee colonies; thi is an example of symbiosis; by using the measuring spoon the cook is giving it more food, and the use of it for the task of measuring means more time in the hive (cutlery drawer) for the teaspoon larvae. If there is more than one ladle in the drawer, they will fight to the death and often wreck the drawer at the same time. This fight to the death may take years; it works by one ladle being pushed towards the front of the drawer, inducing the cook to use it more often and thus wear it out faster.

More research is being conducted as this article goes to press.

This is the kind of thing which prompts me to try and restrict delicious postables to other such gems[1]. Perhaps interestingly, biology is blue while chemistry is white and physics yellow.

[1] Although 'gems' is privileging the value of inorganic matter over organic as something to be treasured I did not find a suitable alternative. At least they are both reducible to impure carbon.