A Modern Interaction

As a pale freckled ginger gent, I have been frequently addressed in London as to directions somewhere.
My confessions of ignorance, expressed in a profound upper US MidWestern twang, result inevitably in facial expressions I’d normally associate with revelation of a terminal illness.
Except, of course, within the walls of this fine establishment.

EXquisite, not exQUISite

According to the folks at Merriam-Webster (heh), it’s both
According to Schroedinger’s Dictionary, it’s both until I speak. “EXquisite.” There now.

I was once stopped in London a good few years ago by a lovely elderly couple obviously from the States asking me where was the Tower of London.
Where was I? The north side of Tower Bridge. I pointed out the Tower to them, just off to the left, and from the somewhat disappointed look that flashed across their face, I suspect they’d been expecting something g a bit larger and more flamboyant…

What I find amusing and annoying is trying to understand what streets the Google voice is trying to pronounce while using Google Maps for navigation in Montreal.

My sister’s best friend in college went on to work for Harlequin Romance…and admitted that a lot of the formulaic turn-the-crank novels were written by a small number of male writers under an assortment of pseudonyms.
I have heard that this recently caused a political uproar among the female ranks of the professionally easily offended.

What I find amusing and annoying is trying to understand what streets the Google voice is trying to pronounce while using Google Maps for navigation in Montreal.
If you set your iPhone’s location to Montreal, and then speak to Siri in English, the answer is always “Je ne parle pas Anglais”.

Last year, a branch of Spain’s Women’s Institute listed Mola’s The Girl, a part of the trilogy, as one of the must-read books and films by women that “help us understand the reality and the experiences of women”.

We know that one man can overcome his toxic masculinity by getting in touch with his female side, by silencing his mansplaining instincts, by the somatic praxis of keeping his knees together and his elbows in on public transport. An example is the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, a creative writing exercise that took on a life of its own.
We know that two men with good intentions can overcome their toxic masculinity by having cosy chats where they “open up” about their vulnerabilities.
But three men, without female supervision, is a different kind of male sociability, a terrorist cell of Locker Room Talk, a cancer cluster of toxic masculinity. Surely they’d have been egging each other on to introduce the most objectifying and misogynist themes into the books. How could female readers not intuit?
a lot of the formulaic turn-the-crank novels were written by a small number of male writers under an assortment of pseudonyms.
A book written by three people needs a style guide, explicit meta conversations about whether it would be on-brand for Carmen Mola to write it this way or that way, perhaps even a checklist of “female writing style” tells.

seems to stem from pure snobbery
He is not of the body!

Girl-ness. At least that is what a hasty internet search reveals.

Huh. So, being designated a Boy’s blouse, small or large, is what, sort of an encomium?
It’s funny, isn’t it, how certain words and expressions are used only in one form and never in the antonym form. Feckless, for instance.

Incorrigible.
And then there is the strange story of how “inflammable” was officially replaced by “flammable”: When I was very young warning signs would say “danger: inflammable”, but some public safety activists claimed that this was dangerously ambiguous: People would think that because “incomplete” means “not complete” then “inflammable” must mean “not flammable” and they would happily carry open flames around gasoline tanks.

“Disheveled …”
Well, that’s interesting. My initial thought (and the reason I started this comment) was that “dis” in that context was probably, as it can be, an intensifier. But then I looked it up.
It’s from the medieval French deschevelé, meaning “without headdress”. And it’s been in English, without its antonym, for quite a while. Chaucer used it.
“Uncouth …”
“Couthy” was widely used in Scotland with a meaning not unlike the German “gemütlich” or (perhaps even more closely) Danish “hygge”, although over the years it’s taken on connotations of tweeness or corniness and fallen out of favour. But I think most of us would know the word.

Similarly, ‘turpitude’. Never seen it used, except maybe forcefully, without ‘low moral’ preceding it.
Words that are themselves their exact opposites are what get me. For quite some time as a youngster the word ‘sanctioned’, and variations, confused me as to what was being conveyed. Yet for all their insistence on the necessity for clear communication, I never had an English teacher..mmm…sanction it.

David, I got an error 503 while previewing the last comment. Happened once yesterday, too. Have you been feeding the hamsters a proper diet?

Purina can also keep your pet alien healthy and strong.