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Post by Phalon on Feb 25, 2016 6:55:29 GMT -6
Well, it certainly does sound like a sh!thole of a place to live.
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Post by stepper on Feb 25, 2016 19:38:35 GMT -6
One can't help butt wonder if the doctors there specialized as proctologists, which would mean their favorite diagnostic is the colonoscopy?
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Post by Phalon on Feb 28, 2016 8:38:56 GMT -6
Colon is known as the Magic Capital of the World. Seriously; I'm not making that up. Apparently way back, a large colony of magicians settled there, and began delighting residents by pulling rabbits out of their asshats.
Ok, that was really bad. Moving onward...
Did you know that laundromat was once a trademarked name? It was trademarked by Westinghouse in the 40s (before then, they were called washaterias or launderettes). Once the trademark expired the word became a genericized trademark or a generic term.
Other genericized trademarks are aspirin, heroin, escalator, zipper, and flip phone.
Kitty Litter, btw, along with Ping Pong, Popsicle, Kleenex, Realtor, and Q-tip, are still trademarked names.
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Post by stepper on Feb 28, 2016 15:22:05 GMT -6
I heard 'washateria' at some point, but I don't remember launderette.
'Realtor' is trademarked? That seems odd since it's generally and broadly in use as an occupation. I didn't know you could do that. I'm surprised someone has tried to trademark "football" and "football player".
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Post by Phalon on Feb 29, 2016 6:38:04 GMT -6
It might not be surprising you've heard "washateria"; it's commonly used even still in Texas.
Realtor is a name trademarked by the National Association of Realtors - you have to be a member in order to call yourself a Realtor, otherwise you're a real estate agent, and are legally required to refer to yourself as such. The organization actively attempts to prevent the word from becoming a generic term, and distributes guidelines to the media and such on the correct usage of Realtor vs real estate agent.
Thinking back, it all makes sense now. Whenever I'd write something regarding selling Mom's house, I'd always be confused about why I'd get a red-underline when I typed 'realtor' - I knew I was spelling it correctly. Because it's trademarked though, Realtor must be capitalized.
The same thing happened a couple of Word versions ago with laundromat - I typed the word, and got a red-underline, and although I was sure I'd spelled it correctly, spell-check changed it to "Laundromat". The trademarked name must have expired within the last few years.
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Post by stepper on Feb 29, 2016 18:37:20 GMT -6
By golly! Learn something new everyday!
"Brand names and other copyrighted names should always be capitalized unless they have become common nouns (e.g. nylon)."
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Post by Phalon on Mar 1, 2016 6:44:11 GMT -6
That proper nouns must be capitalized is something learned in grade school - you know you'd never type "kleenex" or "tylenol" for example; even if you did by mistake, you'd get an automatic red underline signaling it's wrong. Some of the words though - like Realtor and Popsicle- are so commonly misused as generic terms, it's weird to learn they're trademarked brand names. Velcro is another one; type velcro and it's underlined in red; Velcro though, is free and clear, (the generic term when referring to Velcro-like products that aren't made by the Velcro company are "hook-and-loop fasteners" - who knew?). Wikipedia has a list of genericized trademarks; some of them are surprising: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
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Post by stepper on Mar 1, 2016 20:38:57 GMT -6
Unless you do what I do...overcome short comings of the dictionary by adding its omissions to your personal dictionary. Those silly little red lines are only a minor irritant but still...
I can't help it if there are so many missing words.
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Post by Phalon on Mar 4, 2016 6:45:28 GMT -6
ACK! I couldn't live like that! I've gotta see those red underlines, even if I blatantly ignore them.
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Post by stepper on Mar 4, 2016 19:18:06 GMT -6
Do you have the system doing word and grammar checks?
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Post by Phalon on Mar 5, 2016 7:25:20 GMT -6
It's not anything I told it to do, it just does it. Here, I get a red underline if I misspell something, but no grammar check green underlines. In Word, I ignore green underlines as much as I ignore the red ones.
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Post by stepper on Mar 5, 2016 12:51:53 GMT -6
It's settings in Word - spell check and grammar. You can turn them off if you wish. I have grammar turned off but to be honest, I don't know if it would work anywhere other than Word if I turned it on. As a matter of fact, the spell check function doesn't work everywhere - Notepad for instance - but it will flag words here in the Whoosh posting block.
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Post by stepper on Mar 5, 2016 12:54:35 GMT -6
Got this at work a few days ago...
ONLY The Irish could put this topic to music.
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Post by Phalon on Mar 6, 2016 8:41:00 GMT -6
I have to admit, I found that kind of funny. Poor proctologists - the butt of everyone's jokes; I bet there a lot of @sses in the profession, though. All this talk of colons, and nothing mentioned about the poor lowly semicolon. It figures. Misunderstood, and even maligned, it is often ignored. Even the semicolon itself seems confused, "Am I a comma, am I a period? WTF am I?" LX has a professor who would eliminate them from use completely. "Use a dash instead", he lectured, "Who uses them anymore anyway? When was the last time any of you used a semicolon?" LX raises her hand. "This morning." "You would", he rolls his eyes, "Anyone else?" Here's an interesting article on the history, usage, and possible extinction of the semicolon. www.grammarly.com/blog/2016/why-do-we-use-the-semicolon/
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Post by stepper on Mar 6, 2016 12:40:17 GMT -6
Lx is lucky. I know a guy who answered an opinion question on the first day of class. The professor kicked him out right then and there. The question was basically - you are in a foreign country and you see someone beating a child. What do you think you should do?
His answer was 'nothing'. Having been in the military you know it's not the U. S., their rules in their country take precedence. You're in a foreign country, you know nothing about the area, the people, the religion, or their traditions. On top of this, you do not know the circumstances - maybe the child was caught stealing something and this is proper punishment. Evidently the prof didn't like the answer.
One thing I remember from Turkey was the admonishment to parents - don't spank your kids in public because you can be arrested and will probably be detained. If you're really desperate, find a local cop and have them do it. That's legal and expected - but if you want to discipline your children physically (at all - even slapping a hand) wait until you are on base and preferably in the privacy of your home.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 26, 2016 8:35:09 GMT -6
Well, the people have spoken, and the polls have been tallied: for the eighth year in a row, "whatever" used as a dismissal, tops the list as the most annoying word in America. Whatever.
I admit to using it on occasion; BP though is the 'whatever' addict in the house...though you'd be hard pressed to actually hear her say it, because it's most often muttered under her breath only barely audible, but just audible enough to know you're being dissed.
Seriously?
That's my annoying word addiction - always posed as a question with just a tinge of sarcasm attached. LX uses it a lot also, but interchanges with "Really?", as in:
"Really, Mom? Whatever."
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Post by Phalon on May 28, 2020 4:47:37 GMT -6
One of my word annoyances I keep hearing more often is "conversate". My kids have been using the word off and on for a few years, and it literally makes me cringe. I always correct them - "the word is converse. 'Conversate' isn't even a real word." Or is it? www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-conversate-a-real-word
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Post by Mini Mia on May 28, 2020 23:01:46 GMT -6
Interesting.
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