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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Change???!
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
What sort of changes do you find it really difficult to cope with? My most problematic change is the general move towards more informality and excitability which permeate both sacred and secular gatherings these days - I was much more comfortable with a more formalised and ritualised set formula / liturgy and way of doing things, that everyone knew and expected. Far from finding it boring, I found it reassuring ('we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may find rest in thy eternal changelessness'), but there now seems to be an endless need to chop and change things almost at a whim and to be terribly jocular and casual about everything, not to say noisy to boot.
YMMV.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
Electronics everywhere! People interrupting whatever they're doing, including talking with another human, to answer the damned phone. People walking down the street -- or worse, driving down the street -- while texting. Everyone assuming that everyone else has a smart phone, a tablet, and whatever else the latest gadget is. I have a cellphone for emergencies and have no desire for any of the rest of that crap. I have difficulty coping with the rest of the world passing me by and leaving me in the dust because of it.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
Electronics everywhere! People interrupting whatever they're doing, including talking with another human, to answer the damned phone. People walking down the street -- or worse, driving down the street -- while texting. Everyone assuming that everyone else has a smart phone, a tablet, and whatever else the latest gadget is. I have a cellphone for emergencies and have no desire for any of the rest of that crap. I have difficulty coping with the rest of the world passing me by and leaving me in the dust because of it.
An extension of that is people using electronic devises around you where not paying attention is rude - eg at dinner. I think because people use smartphones to use the internet, they see it as using the phone (texting at dinner is generally acceptable unless a romantic date IMO) when really it's the equivalent of pulling out a laptop. I find ignoring someone to play a game on one's phone or tablet incredibly rude.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I noticed a table of five twenty-somethings out to dinner in a restaurant who were all deeply entranced by their smart phones. Some had one hand on the phone, the other holding a fork. No eye contact was being made, and conversation seemed to comprise occasional questions and monosyllabic answers. I wouldn't have thought it impossible that they were communicating more often through facebook page updates than verbally during the course of the evening.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
A lack of changes. Particularly in a institution that has seen a long term decline.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
(texting at dinner is generally acceptable unless a romantic date IMO)
Really? Assuming you're not talking about texting your missing friend to tell him how to find the restaurant, I don't really see the difference between being disengaged from your dinner companions because you're texting people, or because you're playing whichever facebook timesink people play these days, or because you're at a good bit in the novel you're reading and don't want to stop.
On the other hand, I have on multiple occasions whipped out laptops, pads of paper, backs of napkins or whatever over dinner as part of a discussion that we were having at the dinner table.
For me, it's a simple question - are you engaged with your dinner companions, or not? There's nothing special about electronics - they're just one example of a fairly pervasive distraction.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I don't really see the difference between being disengaged from your dinner companions because you're texting people, or because you're playing whichever facebook timesink people play these days, or because you're at a good bit in the novel you're reading and don't want to stop.
I think it is the length of time and focus. A text message in response to an urgent message on your phone takes 30 seconds and you can keep talking. Playing on facebook can absorb all your attention, last indefinitely, and it is hard to claim it was a response to an urgent message.
I wouldn't think it rude if, at a group dinner, a guest briefly texted someone then joined the discussion again. I would if they spent 20 minutes texting and receiving messages, and the threshold would go down the fewer guests there were.
If I was meeting one other person for dinner (romantic or not) I'd expect a brief excusing explanation - "Sorry, I must just text my wife to say I'll be late home" or something. It's harder to see how that works for a novel - "Sorry, conversation is a bit slow really, and I'm desperate to see if Lady Bracknell has any more one-liners in the next bit."
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
I find it hard to cope with these changes (sounds a bit like a hell rant though)
1. People interrupting conversations to take phone calls without so much as an apology. I often excuse myself at that point as clearly they've got more important people to talk to and things to do
2. All those ads on with puppets in them.
3. Car ads. Especially car ads using cars clearly not built for the British market (ie shown as left hand drives)
4. The assumptions that people make. Far from change bringing diversity, there's (to my eyes at least) increasing assumptions bringing homogeneity to the point of stereotype. You're a man you like football with the lads, drink beer, like cars, wear your shirt outside your trousers, moisturise and cleanse after shaving. Er, no.
5. The disneyfication of life. Today there isn't a tough event in the world that can't be reduced to the level of a cute kids story with nice furry animals and (ahhhh) puppets as the main leads.
Bleagggghhh.
6. The use of puppets (the spawn of satan). Have I emphasised that enough?
7. The apparent inability of anyone to sell you a black coffee without a multiple choice questionnaire first. No it's not sodding Americano, it's black
8. People using "in" jargon thinking it's smart and hip. In church circles there's a trend towards the adverbial - missional, intentional: the use of a lot of smart words are IME generally inversely proportional to the impact you have. Oh yes and the use of the word "movement" reminds me of a question that you get asked in hospital and it isn't to do with walking about ....
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
Puppets... I so agree with you, Exclamation Mark! -the cult of what the Japanese call Kawaii (cute). And electronics everywhere. And the growing informality all around, yes, that too.
And to add one myself: the ever lower standard of education. The kids that join my university know nothing, are generally incapable of generating a single original thought, have an attention span of two milliseconds and have all curiosity and critical thought carefully removed
I think it all boils down to the same general trend: Infantilisation. On one hand, we are allowed to behave like spoiled brats (lack of manners everywhere). On the other, we are systematically dumbed down, by "education", the media and our employers, who fear nothing more than a critical, intelligent mind (hence the nauseating focus on "teamwork" and these proto-fascist "teambuilding weekends out" etc).
And that in an increasingly complex world, where the individual should be educated in the art of living.
I find that all very dangerous. I see it here in France. This country is going to the wall-fast.
Unless we do something aboiut the way children are educated -old-fashioned stuff like manners, discipline, and encouraging them to think for themselves- we will all end up as a big, homogenised, dumb, mass of office drones and mindless consumers. Who will fall easy prey to populist politicians.
**shudder**
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
When Windows brings in a new version.
My muscle memory is far stronger than my brain memory so it takes me ages to stop trying to click in the old places.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Another odd one is skyping with the youngsters (my sons and GFs). It's nothing like a phone call! They leave it on in the room all evening and get on with life, chatting now and again. I find it VERY odd - but it's normal life to them having 'remote' people 'sitting' in the room.
I am unsure how to end such conversations!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 06. November 2013, 07:18: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
(texting at dinner is generally acceptable unless a romantic date IMO)
Really? Assuming you're not talking about texting your missing friend to tell him how to find the restaurant, I don't really see the difference between being disengaged from your dinner companions because you're texting people, or because you're playing whichever facebook timesink people play these days, or because you're at a good bit in the novel you're reading and don't want to stop.
On the other hand, I have on multiple occasions whipped out laptops, pads of paper, backs of napkins or whatever over dinner as part of a discussion that we were having at the dinner table.
For me, it's a simple question - are you engaged with your dinner companions, or not? There's nothing special about electronics - they're just one example of a fairly pervasive distraction.
What mdijon says - it's the length of time spent on something. Sending one text is a very small distraction, and I don't think that is a problem if it's a group of friends or family. I think it depends on how familiar one is with the company.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
I can relate to almost all of the above--though feel less passionately opposed to the puppets. I'm with Desert Daughter about the dumbing down; read new editions of classics written for today's students and they will be helpfully annotated with things like "Paris: capital city of France" and such. So many cultural references are no longer understood..
Re devices, yes, their ubiquitousness and people's addiction to them is very disturbing. Though (as is all too evident here on the Ship!) I love my laptop.
But I see time as divided up into separate activities. I think it's because I didn't grow up with a TV. For me, the TV is never background: left to myself, I would only turn it on when I have found a TV programme in the TV guide that I know I want to watch. Like going to the cinema. Programme over--TV off. Similarly, time to do emails and check on the Ship etc....then, time to close the laptop and do something else (only I find I am having more and more trouble with this bit! Especially if the "something else" is correcting a piece of writing or something on the computer, so I can't in fact close it....need to get that software where you lock yourself out of stuff! ).
Time to have a live typing chat or a video chat with offspring or sibling? Have chat, focus on it properly, end chat (like a telephone call to my dinosaur mind!)--but they drift in and out of chat, long pauses between comments, doing other things, etc.
And what about email? This is the biggest change of all. Actually, I took to email quite fast--letter-writing, but instant! As someone who has long lived far from many dear family members and friends, it was a life-line. For a brief while there, it was crucial in solidifying, enriching and deepening relationships with offspring, siblings, and friends.
But. Now, hardly anyone writes emails for the sake of communication!! They are all doing tweets and facebook comments and such instead. Which means, no deep considered chunks of writing (not that emails always were that, but you know what I mean).
Hm..that's part of the attraction of the Ship, I guess.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Cara: quote:
...read new editions of classics written for today's students and they will be helpfully annotated with things like "Paris: capital city of France" and such. So many cultural references are no longer understood..
Well, you do realise that a lot of them probably weren't understood when I were a lass either? For example, I recently reread 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot and 'got' about 90% of the obscure 19th century cultural references without having to look anything up (I admit, I don't know much about Baltic Sea trade in the 19th century). I read a lot of the great Victorian novelists (including George Eliot) when I was in my teens and had more spare time, but I didn't understand all their cultural references as a teenager; I just enjoyed the books as stories.
Nowadays people expect to be able to look up stuff that they don't understand, and either they are less tolerant of not understanding what the author's on about or publishers think the books won't sell unless the meaning of every passing remark is laboriously explained.
And middle-aged people have forgotten just how ignorant they themselves were as teenagers.
(I did know that Paris is the capital city of France, though. I even knew that Canberra is the capital city of Australia.)
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Well, you have a point, Jane R--of course I didn't get all the obscure 19th century references in George Eliot et al, asa teenager, either, and probably wouldn't understand them all today .
But"obscure" references--that's one thing; it seems to me that annotations now include things that previously would have come under the rubric of general knowledge. Basic geography, basic Bible references, basic French sayings that have become part of the English language, etc.
It was understood that certain things one just knows--or ought to know, as an educated reader of English.
(And if you didn't know, you went and found out. Or just got on with the story anyway, as you describe, and as I did too when I didn't understand something).
I think you're right when you say readers are less tolerant now of not understanding everything, and also publishers feel everything has to be laboriously explained--well, that's a change I really think is for the worse.
Reminds me of the way the Harry Potter books (and many others) are "translated" in the US to remove much that is specifically English or British--an infuriating practice! Unfair to the books--and the whole point is that when you read a book set in a certain place, or (as in the case of HP) springing from the culture of a certain place, you want the reading experience to be redolent of that place and make you feel as if you are there!
grrrr. Must stop ranting.
By the way, Jane, Middlemarch is more wonderful on every reading, don't you think?
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cara:
Well, you have a point, Jane R--of course I didn't get all the obscure 19th century references in George Eliot et al, asa teenager, either, and probably wouldn't understand them all today .
But"obscure" references--that's one thing; it seems to me that annotations now include things that previously would have come under the rubric of general knowledge. Basic geography, basic Bible references, basic French sayings that have become part of the English language, etc.
It was understood that certain things one just knows--or ought to know, as an educated reader of English.
(And if you didn't know, you went and found out. Or just got on with the story anyway, as you describe, and as I did too when I didn't understand something).
I think you're right when you say readers are less tolerant now of not understanding everything, and also publishers feel everything has to be laboriously explained--well, that's a change I really think is for the worse.
Reminds me of the way the Harry Potter books (and many others) are "translated" in the US to remove much that is specifically English or British--an infuriating practice! Unfair to the books--and the whole point is that when you read a book set in a certain place, or (as in the case of HP) springing from the culture of a certain place, you want the reading experience to be redolent of that place and make you feel as if you are there!
grrrr. Must stop ranting.
By the way, Jane, Middlemarch is more wonderful on every reading, don't you think?
But surely there's a lot of general knowledge now that wasn't or couldn't have been general knowledge in the past?
Also ideas of what an 'educated reader of English' ought to know are surely very much tied up with race and class - and isn't it actually a very good thing to lose that? There are lots of things 'uneducated' people whose first language isn't English will know that 'educated' English speakers won't. And I don't see why readers have an obligation to know anything.
As for books being translated into American English, it's a different language so naturally translation is necessary. Changing jumpers to sweaters for example is a change that doesn't impact the atmosphere of the book (sweaters existing in the UK is quite normal) and stops the reader from unwittingly imagining the character in a pinafore dress (the American meaning of jumper). I can't see why change that helps people outside the 'norm' is something to be avoided.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
<Middlemarch tangent> Yes, definitely! <\Middlemarch tangent>
I think part of the problem is globalisation. Publishers are more aware that their books are reaching a world-wide market and that they can't assume everyone has the same set of general knowledge.
Teenagers and children haven't become more stupid. They just know different things now. In the UK at least, they are expected to learn stuff that I covered in my first year of secondary school in (primary) Year 3 - four years earlier. Fifty years ago - or even thirty years ago - it was safe to assume that anyone you met would have studied similar books in school and know the same things about history and geography. Nowadays it isn't; there is too much ground to cover. Teaching schoolchildren the rudiments of British history in 11 years was just about possible; giving them an overview of all recorded history for the whole world is much harder. Teaching them using modern methods is also more time-consuming than sitting them in rows and getting them to parrot lists of dates; it might not get them as far in a general knowledge test, but it is more likely to give them an understanding of history and an interest in the subject.
I do wonder sometimes about this Golden Age when everyone knew everything. When was it? Certainly not the 1920s-30s, judging by 1066 and all that. According to Sellars and Yeatman, back then most people only knew two dates in English history.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
re. teaching: My problem is not so much what they know, of course the canon of knowledge changes through the generations.
But I fear that they are nowadays less able to think , as in: conceptual thinking leading to asking critical questions, figuring out how to find answers, thinking across disciplines and inductively (!), being able to analyse (and not just describe) an issue, understanding, and seeing, the context.
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Desert Daughter:
But I fear that they are nowadays less able to think , as in: conceptual thinking leading to asking critical questions, figuring out how to find answers, thinking across disciplines and inductively (!), being able to analyse (and not just describe) an issue, understanding, and seeing, the context.
I'm not sure that they have ever been more 'able to think' - mass education has only been around for a few generations, and I'm not sure that modern teenagers are less coherent than - say - the baby boomer generation was during it's own teenage years (unless you want to posit the 1960s as the height of joined up thinking).
Rather these skills have become more important in a certain set of jobs that didn't really exist previously and popular thought has tended to exaggerate the 'importance' of these skills.
Which isn't to say that these skills aren't important - I'd just contend that they have always been relatively rare - hence the ability of past mass movements to manipulate people.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
One spectator's infantilization of annotations is another's democratization. I know plenty of kids growing up in the inner city whose families sure as hell aren't talking about Paris -- have you considered that not everyone's life experience has prepared them for education in the same way yours did?
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
Should I be worried that I'm beginning to have sympathy with this letter?
Yes. Count the number of times he says 'I' and then consider "It's all self, self, self, moan, moan, moan". ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Higgs Bosun:
Should I be worried that I'm beginning to have sympathy with this letter?
Yes. Count the number of times he says 'I' and then consider "It's all self, self, self, moan, moan, moan".
Yes, that made me think it's a parody, along the lines of Poe's Law.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
When Windows brings in a new version.
My muscle memory is far stronger than my brain memory so it takes me ages to stop trying to click in the old places.
Another odd one is skyping with the youngsters (my sons and GFs). It's nothing like a phone call! They leave it on in the room all evening and get on with life, chatting now and again. I find it VERY odd - but it's normal life to them having 'remote' people 'sitting' in the room.
I am unsure how to end such conversations!
Click the red phone icon in Skype - this ends the call ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
OK I'm probably going to be completely on my own in saying this, but wrt the phone/tablet at dinner thing - it's rude if someone at the table thinks it's rude and you go against those feelings. It's not inherently rude. You should probably assume that most people aren't ok with it, and err on the side of caution - this seems to be the way of things.
Mr Liopleurodon and I are usually plugged in to our electronic devices in restaurants, and that probably gives the impression that we don't enjoy each others' company, which is not the case. There are two main reasons why we do this. One only applies to me: with my ASD hearing I find crowded restaurants unpleasant unless I'm wearing ear defenders. I can't make out individual voices in the din anyway so intimate conversation is very difficult. These days I have combined ear defenders and headphones (which incidentally are the greatest thing ever invented) so I can put on soothing music which helps. The other reason - and this one applies to both of us - is that we're both hardcore introverts who enjoy our own headspace which we leave to talk when we have something to say. This may, I suppose, reflect a rather aspie attitude to restaurants too. If I'm in a restaurant, I'm probably there because I was away from home and I was too hungry to wait until I got home to eat. I'm there to eat not to socialise. I don't like socialising in restaurants and I cannot for the life of me understand the point of pubs. (Seriously - anyone wants to explain why pubs are good? I'm not trolling. I genuinely don't understand.) I will say the things I need/want to say to Mr Liopleurodon as they occur to me - getting ready to leave the house, in the car, on the street and so on. I find the idea of going to a restaurant specifically in order to sit there and talk to people a bit weird.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
In terms of knowledge I find that working with church congregations mainly of 'a certain age' the default setting of many is that the 'educated leader' has the answer and should be listened too. I have been trying to encourage more questioning of the fool up the front and more respect for the insight from their own experience.
They are generations for whom teaching was absorbing what the teacher said, whereas my own generation and younger are likely to question everything especially presumed authority - one aspect of the disconnect with sermon/lecture style services.
Regarding the OP question the changes I struggles with are when it is a copying of the latest fad regardless of its relevance to the particular context. (Particularly in church stuff)
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
Posts: 1305 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
?
But surely there's a lot of general knowledge now that wasn't or couldn't have been general knowledge in the past?
Also ideas of what an 'educated reader of English' ought to know are surely very much tied up with race and class - and isn't it actually a very good thing to lose that? There are lots of things 'uneducated' people whose first language isn't English will know that 'educated' English speakers won't. And I don't see why readers have an obligation to know anything.
As for books being translated into American English, it's a different language so naturally translation is necessary. Changing jumpers to sweaters for example is a change that doesn't impact the atmosphere of the book (sweaters existing in the UK is quite normal) and stops the reader from unwittingly imagining the character in a pinafore dress (the American meaning of jumper). I can't see why change that helps people outside the 'norm' is something to be avoided. [/QB]
Well, some good points here--also made by Jane R and Bostonman--about class, race, education, and democracy...food for thought...but...I dunno. I think there is still a certain dumbing down, but don't have the resources--or energy--to prove it!
Re translation, well, of course your example of jumpers to sweaters is one where the change makes absolute sense, and is fine by me because sweaters is still British English. It's when a British character or place or whatever is described by a supposedly British character or narrator in terms that would never be used in Britain that I get annoyed.
I don't think British publishers do this to American books, do they? I think they trust us to work it out.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
OK I'm probably going to be completely on my own in saying this, but wrt the phone/tablet at dinner thing - it's rude if someone at the table thinks it's rude and you go against those feelings. It's not inherently rude. You should probably assume that most people aren't ok with it, and err on the side of caution - this seems to be the way of things.
Mr Liopleurodon and I are usually plugged in to our electronic devices in restaurants, and that probably gives the impression that we don't enjoy each others' company, which is not the case. There are two main reasons why we do this. One only applies to me: with my ASD hearing I find crowded restaurants unpleasant unless I'm wearing ear defenders. I can't make out individual voices in the din anyway so intimate conversation is very difficult. These days I have combined ear defenders and headphones (which incidentally are the greatest thing ever invented) so I can put on soothing music which helps. The other reason - and this one applies to both of us - is that we're both hardcore introverts who enjoy our own headspace which we leave to talk when we have something to say. This may, I suppose, reflect a rather aspie attitude to restaurants too. If I'm in a restaurant, I'm probably there because I was away from home and I was too hungry to wait until I got home to eat. I'm there to eat not to socialise. I don't like socialising in restaurants and I cannot for the life of me understand the point of pubs. (Seriously - anyone wants to explain why pubs are good? I'm not trolling. I genuinely don't understand.) I will say the things I need/want to say to Mr Liopleurodon as they occur to me - getting ready to leave the house, in the car, on the street and so on. I find the idea of going to a restaurant specifically in order to sit there and talk to people a bit weird.
Well firstly, many Aspies love to socialise, love chatting to people in the pub etc - they're not all introverts. My best friend is married to an Aspie who loves big parties and lots of people. I kind of get not getting the 'point' of socialising at restaurants, although I'm very introverted and enjoy it. For me it's because I do not enjoy dinner parties (people in my home = no thanks) but do enjoy socialising with people over food, it seems to be quite a natural human instinct and it brings people together (especially good if you're with people who don't know each other).
As for pubs, not all pubs are good ones or are for the same purpose - gastropubs are so you can enjoy a proper pint with your food for example. Other pubs (including my favourite 'local' although it's not that geographically local to me) are for enjoying a pint or three of real ale or real cider (or even some country wine) with friends, having a good chat and playing board games.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Because I can't resist commenting on the book-related bit here: As I understand it, the de-Briticization of the Harry Potter books was only done to #1, because American readers were quite offended at the implication that they couldn't figure out British terms.
I bought the U.K. editions of all of them after I heard what they did to The Philosopher's Stone (even the title was changed). I just assumed they had messed with all of them.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
It does seem that constant change has become a sacred cow, and that people who see the value in the building of experience and proficiency over time are automatically maligned as old-fashioned or dinosaurs.
On a separate note.......I do have a gripe about how everything seems to be shifting earlier and earlier in the morning. Even in my youth, not too long ago, one expected church services to be at 10:30 or 11:00. Now, it's becoming more common to shift them to 9:30 or 9:00. The highways are jammed with traffic by 6am each and every day. This is ridiculous!
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
It does seem that constant change has become a sacred cow, and that people who see the value in the building of experience and proficiency over time are automatically maligned as old-fashioned or dinosaurs.
On a separate note.......I do have a gripe about how everything seems to be shifting earlier and earlier in the morning. Even in my youth, not too long ago, one expected church services to be at 10:30 or 11:00. Now, it's becoming more common to shift them to 9:30 or 9:00. The highways are jammed with traffic by 6am each and every day. This is ridiculous!
Re church service times, it seems to be the other way around in the UK. That is interesting.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Because I can't resist commenting on the book-related bit here: As I understand it, the de-Briticization of the Harry Potter books was only done to #1, because American readers were quite offended at the implication that they couldn't figure out British terms.
Mrs. Cniht has been reading US versions of some fairly well-known detective stories in which the characters seem to spend a fair amount of time putting cream in their tea, and so has been producing rather perplexed frowns in the metaphorical direction of the "translator".
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Because I can't resist commenting on the book-related bit here: As I understand it, the de-Briticization of the Harry Potter books was only done to #1, because American readers were quite offended at the implication that they couldn't figure out British terms.
Mrs. Cniht has been reading US versions of some fairly well-known detective stories in which the characters seem to spend a fair amount of time putting cream in their tea, and so has been producing rather perplexed frowns in the metaphorical direction of the "translator".
Seriously, what is cream in tea all about in American books? Does it actually happen in the US, or is it confusion about a 'cream tea'?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Because I can't resist commenting on the book-related bit here: As I understand it, the de-Briticization of the Harry Potter books was only done to #1, because American readers were quite offended at the implication that they couldn't figure out British terms.
I bought the U.K. editions of all of them after I heard what they did to The Philosopher's Stone (even the title was changed). I just assumed they had messed with all of them.
I was recently re-reading the American edition of one of the later ones, and I noticed it contained the word 'underpants'. This is an Americanism; the Brits would just say 'pants'. However, I think in this case the change was justified. To an American 'pants' means trousers.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
We say underpants around here. Or undercrackers, trollies, underkegs...
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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marzipan
Shipmate
# 9442
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Posted
I read a book a while ago, set in a fantasy world but not too dissimilar to this one, where the characters kept having biscuits for breakfast... with gravy I think (so maybe those dumplingy things)
While I know about americans having another kind of biscuit to this side of the ocean, it jarred every time I read it.
What's wrong with eggs!
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formerly cheesymarzipan.
Now containing 50% less cheese
Posts: 917 | From: nowhere in particular | Registered: May 2005
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
Change? Well, the changes that bother me most relate to development. I live in a distant suburb. When i moved here, there were two shopping centers, each with a handfull of stores. The main roads off the highway were two lanes wide, and there was exactly one traffic light within i think 5 miles or more. Forests and fields dominated the landscape. Now.... Multi lane roads, stoplights every few yards. Huge swaths of forest stripped away, and hills leveled inorder to build housing developments of cookie cutter houses or new car dealerships and huge shopping centers. All this within a decade, and despite a marked slowdown in construction after the economy tanked. All this deforestation and constriction has caused massive erosion into the river, such that many larger boats cant het out of the harbour and down the river except duting the peak of high tide. And there is no end in sight. New lanes being added to the highway as well, so that more people can clog the roads after deciding to buy a house in one of these new neighborhoods. The same story can be told of all the distant suburbs around the arean and around most cities large and small. Meanshile city centers, other than a few gentrified areas, are either becoming slums, or are emptying out alltogether. Im able to tellecommute a lot of the time, so i dont have to face the traffic, thank God.
Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
I read a book a while ago, set in a fantasy world but not too dissimilar to this one, where the characters kept having biscuits for breakfast... with gravy I think (so maybe those dumplingy things)
While I know about americans having another kind of biscuit to this side of the ocean, it jarred every time I read it.
What's wrong with eggs!
Different regions of the U.S. have different customs and different vocabulary. I've never had biscuits and/or gravy for breakfast and don't intend to do so. Or grits.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Eggs, biscuits, country gravy, and sausage. Yum!
And I'm from SoCal not the South.
(Grits- ew)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
I read a book a while ago, set in a fantasy world but not too dissimilar to this one, where the characters kept having biscuits for breakfast... with gravy I think (so maybe those dumplingy things)
While I know about americans having another kind of biscuit to this side of the ocean, it jarred every time I read it.
What's wrong with eggs!
Lots of Americans have eggs with their biscuits, you know Biscuits are a bread replacement, not a protein replacement.
Anyway, having eggs for breakfast every day seems just as alien to me and I'm in the UK - popping toast in the toaster is the only cooking I do at breakfast time on a weekday, and to be honest most weekends too. Unless I'm reheating leftovers to have for breakfast....
(I do like breakfast food, usually not at breakfast though)
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Us antipodeans are ace translators - doesn't matter where the book comes from there will be bits we might not immediately get. This is particularly true of cookbooks - I had to look on the internet when I came across "2 sticks of butter." That's not a measurement I understand.
In regard to the above posts about answering phones/texting, etc., I work in a job where I am on call all the time, 24/7. After 6 years I still struggle with the idea that I MUST answer the phone if it rings when I'm with other people. I spend a lot of time apologising. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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OddJob
Shipmate
# 17591
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Posted
The growing tendency in the last 20 years to call Britain the United Kingdom. It is neither of those things.
Posts: 97 | From: West Midlands | Registered: Mar 2013
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Rev per Minute
Shipmate
# 69
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OddJob:
The growing tendency in the last 20 years to call Britain the United Kingdom. It is neither of those things.
Although, in a strict legal sense, there is no 'Britain', so it depends on whether the use is political or geographic. Talking about 'the Parliament of Britain' - or even 'the Parliament of Great Britain, unless used historically - would be incorrect, for example.
Of course, speaking as a Welshman, the tendency of reporters to talk about UK Ministers when, in fact, their writ only runs to policy in England often gets me shouting at the TV and radio
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"Allons-y!" "Geronimo!" "Oh, for God's sake!" The Day of the Doctor
At the end of the day, we face our Maker alongside Jesus. RIP ken
Posts: 2696 | From: my desk (if I can find the keyboard under this mess) | Registered: May 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OddJob:
The growing tendency in the last 20 years to call Britain the United Kingdom. It is neither of those things.
Sometimes I wonder about the "United" part of the United States of America, myself.
Some people from countries in the Americas, especially in South America, enjoy ribbing us Yanks sometimes pointedly about calling ourselves Americans. Someone will ask a United States citizen if they are an "American", hear a yes, then say that they are also an American. If the said Yank falls into the trap and asks where they are from, they'll smirk in superiority and say Argentina or Peru or whatever. I'm not sure if they want us to reply to such questions with "I'm a citizen of the United States of America" in full every time, make up a new word- "Unitedstatesian", or what.
Sorry guys, we got into the independence stakes first, and got first dibs on including America in our name, Them's the breaks. But go ahead and refer to yourselves as Americans. You are in a geographical sense.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Much of the world refer to the denizens of the United States as Americans. Those north and south of its borders are given short shrift as far as choice. However, I have not heard other inhabitants of the Americas refer to themselves as American other than when disputing the US claim to the title. Not saying it does not occur, just that I have not encountered it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Which is what I was illustrating: the dispute by some people in the Americas on our use of the name in our country's full name. I doubt any of the folks who have pointed this out in a rather snide way actually self identify as "Americans" rather than as citizens of their own countries except when identifying themselves as people who come from the continents and regions of North America, South America, and Central America.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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