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All Souls Night (Part 30 of 31)

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CONTINUED TOMORROW. (For those who came in late: The first sentence was posted here on October 1 and a new sentence was posted every day thereafter, to make a complete story.)

 

Above: Every Autumn, I write a Halloween story, write it out on leaves (one word per leaf), photograph the leaves, and then leave them where.I found them. The story is then serialized, starting on October 1 and concluding on the 31st--All Souls Day.

 

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Don 039 t mess with Acorns

Don 039 t mess with Acorns



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Estonia 039 s National Animal

Estonia 039 s National Animal



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3 Children, 3 Women Missing After 10 Suspected Kuki Militants Killed In Encounter In Manipur's Jiribam - NDTV

  1. 3 Children, 3 Women Missing After 10 Suspected Kuki Militants Killed In Encounter In Manipur's Jiribam  NDTV
  2. Manipur on boil: 2 more bodies found, 6 missing  The Times of India
  3. Additional paramilitary forces rushed to Manipur amid spike in ethnic violence  Hindustan Times
  4. Letters to The Editor — November 13, 2024  The Hindu
  5. 2 men found dead, 6 of family missing day after militants killed in Manipur  India Today




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w0w b1g f0rtune

Today on Married To The Sea: w0w b1g f0rtune


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2024/10/25 - Дугин о будущем

Тут интересна не сама идея русских воздушных городов (мы все читали «S.N.U.F.F.» Пелевина), а БПЛА. Дугин очень последовательный. Много лет открыто продвигает идею о ключевой миссии России в деле финального закрытия человеческого проекта для перехода в царство божье. И конечно же призыв переместить русских внутрь БПЛА является продолжением его идей. Разумеется, он знает расшифровку аббревиатуры. Если бы знал, что такое /dev/null, возможно, выразился бы ещё тоньше.




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2024/10/25_lyzhi - О лыжниках

Дом, семья, любовь и помощь ближним — это и должно быть на уме. Но не может настоящий лыжник не мечтать о ядерной зиме! Это же лыжня длиной в экватор! Это же сезон длиною в год! И прохожих тоже маловато, и подсветка из-под снега прёт. Низкие оплавленные Альпы, навсегда замёрзший океан, и доступны для Елены Вяльбе все лыжни закрытых прежде стран!




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2024/10/28 - Про уют и мою нынешнюю комнатку

Мне с детства нравились маленькие уютные помещения — всевозможные антресоли и особенно верхние полки вагонов. Я прекрасно спал даже на третьей полке — багажной. Бывало в студенчестве беру «сидячий билет» старого типа — это когда в плацкартное купе набивали в полтора раза больше народа, чем полок, и народ не мог договориться, кому достанется верхняя, а кто двое будут всю ночь сидеть на нижней, поэтому обычно сидели внизу все втроем. Я эту систему ломал: сразу объявлял попутчикам, что претендую на третью багажную, а им достанутся верхняя и нижняя. Я стелил там куртку и сладко спал, двое счастливых попутчиков тоже спокойно спали подо мной. В жизни на мою долю не выпало бездомных скитаний и квартирных проблем — я жил в Чертаново в отдельной квартире, бывало, даже в трех сразу на одном этаже, жил в элитной коммуналке Дома Писателей, жил в Питере в самых экзотичных местах, даже в музее. Короче, никаких нищебродских комплексов, что квартира непременно должна быть огромной, с золотым ковром и последней модели телевизором, у меня не сложилось. Напротив: многокомнатные пафосные отели с золотом по мрамору, гардинами и гулким эхом я люто ненавижу с тех пор, как был блогером и меня в таких постоянно селили. Считаю, что квартира должна быть наполнена близкими людьми, родственниками и друзьями — вот это, пожалуй, единственное требование к квартире. Так или иначе, мне уютнее всего в маленьких помещениях. За последний месяц во время поездки по США, помимо ночевок в палатке в кемпинге, наиболее запомнилась микро-мансарда в доме Миши и Вероники в Нью-Йорке:

Не то, чтоб они мне не предлагали спальню побольше. Но я выбрал эту, там было прекрасно, и воздух свежий прямо из окна. А недавно я и в родных краях нашел себе совсем симпатичное место — вот она, идеальная микрокомнатка под лестницей. Я называю ее «палатка номер 6»:
Туда влез стандартный матрас, ноги вытягиваются полностью, еще место остается. Обитаю там уже который день. Хотя мою келью не все домашние одобряют — они хотят там вместо меня хранить старый хлам, вёдра, коврики и ящики с говном. Но я пока держу оборону, придумываю каждый день новые отмазки: ах, гость приехал, уступил ему на время свою комнату, ах, гость уехал, белье надо постирать, пусть сохнет, ах устал сегодня, нет сил идти на второй этаж... Порой думаю: вот было бы классно здесь еще и полочку раскладную приделать, монитор поставить и книгу писать. А какие у вас уютные места?




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2024/10/31 - Посоветуйте шапку на зиму

Всем спасибо за помощь в выборе! Максимальное число голосов набрали эти 4 шапки, и я 3 из них купил. Как придут, фото в них выложу:

114

94

127

109

Уж извините, шапку Йоды брать не стал — но не только потому, что мне она не в стиль, просто ее цена (я сейчас посмотрел в корзине) оказалась не в районе 350-750 руб, а аж 1400, самая дорогая из всех. Было: Вот пытаюсь выбрать себе шапку на зиму, а то заморозки. Нашел на Алиэкспрессе с десяток подходящих в районе 500 руб, но не могу выбрать. Помогите: ======== [ ГОЛОСОВАНИЕ ] ======== недоступно при трансляции в соцсети, зайдите на сайт ======== [ /ГОЛОСОВАНИЕ ] ======== Все остальные какие-то пидорские.




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2024/11/03 - Разговоры с высшим разумом о мышах

Заехал в гости товарищ Чук, пили пиво с раками. По этому поводу спросил у ЧатГПТ заведомую хуйню и получил очень умный ответ:

Спросил ещё более чудовищную хуйню и получил ещё более убедительный ответ:
Дуглас Адамс полагал, что сверхинтеллектуальная машина на вопрос о жизни и Вселенной ответит «42». Он ошибался. Ответ будет гораздо более подробный и бессмысленный. Но я верю: всё-таки вырастет поколение, которое будет ссылаться даже не на Википедию, а на ЧатГПТ. Возможно, имеет смысл уже сейчас позволить ЧатуГПТ вносить свои правки в Википедию и модерировать чужие. Чатгппедия станет самым убедительным источником знаний на планете!




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2024/11/05 - Трамп vs Харрис

Очень мне этого не хочется, но я считаю, что Америка выберет Трампа. Почему? Не потому, что ей симпатичен 80-летний вздорный старик. И даже не потому, что он уже был президентом (средний американец, как любой другой казуал, готов голосовать за старое). А просто потому что американцы не готовы выбрать своим президентом черную бабу. Вы скажете — как же так, это же Мекка политкорректности, дивёрсити и мультикультуризма. Так вот именно поэтому. Нарратив о равенстве женщин и рас, который Америка транслирует громче всех, на самом деле означает, что слишком многие там с этим не согласны и их требуется переспорить. Любая агрессивная декларация прав — не баловство, а болезненная реакция общества на существующие проблемы. Никому ведь не придет в голову устраивать демонстрации в поддержку лыжников — нет у лыжников проблем. Проблемы есть у женщин: им действительно реже удается построить высокооплачиваемую карьеру (не важно, по какой причине), они действительно часто сталкиваются с насилием и дискриминацией. Проблемы есть и у черных: их действительно постоянно убивают американские полицейские. Их действительно называют ниггерами. Многие их действительно считают людьми второго сорта. Да, среди них есть прекрасные люди, музыканты, учёные и айтишники. Но большая масса черных живет в своих гетто и предпочитает не учиться, не работать, а заниматься криминалом и наркотой. Это не я придумал, это бессердечная сука статистика. Впрочем, тут не важна причина, важно, что есть в американском обществе такое отношение, и всё. Именно поэтому чем громче пропагандистские вопли о том, что лыжники имеют такие же права, как гребцы и велосипедисты, тем чётче следует понимать, что это крик о проблеме: лыжников, получается, действительно не любят. А значит, и в президенты не выберут. Всё это нетрудно видеть и в исторических фактах: у Америки не было опыта женщины-президента, и уж особенно черной женщины-президента. В Британии с этим норм, там испокон веков были королевы или Тетчер, в Германии — Меркель, в ортодоксальном Израиле — Голда Меир, про современную Европу не говорю, даже в сверхпатриархальной гипермаскулинной Грузии президент сейчас женщина. Даже в истории России были великие императрицы, хотя советская и постсоветская власть, тяготеющая к старым хрычам, сильно пошатнула народную готовность поклоняться верховной женщине. Но в США изначально с 1789 года, со времён первого Джорджа Вашингтона, президентом всегда был только белый мужик с очень серьезным хлебальником. И чем громче кричат о своих правах американские темнокожие феминистки, тем понятнее, что им реально есть за что и с кем бодаться. Поэтому я думаю, что у Харрис шансов нет. И во многом — именно по причине дискриминации, которую наконец-то средняя масса сможет проявить абсолютно прозрачно и безнаказанно. А жаль.




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2024/11/06 - Вот тоже раздобыл себе книгу

Вообще у меня принцип: в доме не должно быть ни одной бумажной книги, даже своей. Но решил, что всё-таки одна какая-нибудь книга у меня должна быть.




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2024/11/06_SITE - Мой сайт временно не открывается из России

Мой сайт временно не открывается из России у большинства провайдеров (у меня из Питера открывается). И это нормально. Мы этого ждали, мы с вами к этому давно готовы. Но спешу успокоить: связано это вовсе не с моим скромным сайтом. Он не под запретом и не под санкциями. Связано это с тем, что он, как сотни тысяч других сайтов, проксируется через CloudFlare. CloudFlare — крупнейший мировой сервис (ему, например, принадлежит IP 1.1.1.1), который, скажем так, сильно помогает владельцу строить доступ к своему сайту. С недавнего времени там используется новая технология соединения под названием ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) на TLS версии 1.3, и вот ее Роскомнадзор принялся блокировать. Простыми словами: когда вы открываете ссылку https (вместо старого протокола http), то ваше соединение шифрованное. И Роскомнадзор не видит, что за данные вы читаете-передаете. Он просто видит, что идет обмен какими-то зашифрованными данными с сайтом по имени lleo.me Это Роскомнадзор сильно огорчает. https именно для этого и придумали ещё в прошлом веке. Но раньше Роскомнадзору было хотя бы видно имя сайта. В новом протоколе обмена имя сайта тоже не видно. Пользователь пошел куда-то и прочитал там три килобайта чего-то. Это совсем расстраивает Роскомнадзор. Поэтому пару дней назад он начал тупо блокировать протокол ECH, как минимум — для CloudFlare. Не блокируются только заходы с браузеров, которые не поддерживают TLS 1.3 (например, wget). Думаю, теоретически посетитель может отключить у себя в браузере TLS версии 1.3, но я не пробовал и вам категорически не советую — много чего может рухнуть. А советую раздобыть уже наконец VPN. Владельцы сайтов могут это поправить на своей стороне: в своих настройках на Сloudflare выключить ECH — но только если вы платный абонент CloudFlare. Зато бесплатные владельцы сайтов могут в настройках CloudFlare просто выключить TLS 1.3 в разделе «SSL/TLS» / «Edge Certificates» / «TLS 1.3», и будет тот же эффект. Однако я не побегу это делать сразу. Почему? У меня в ближайшие дни до 12 числа адова дохерища работы и все равно нет времени писать новые посты в дневник. Но и чисто из педагогических соображений спешить не следует. Во-первых, VPN должен стать таким же элементом личной гигиены как мыло в каждом доме. Каждая новая проблема, созданная Роскомнадзором, должна лишь напоминать об этом. Во-вторых, говноеды Роскомнадзора должны сперва вдоволь наесться говна. Ведь через CloudFlare завязан не какой-то там никчемный lleo.me, а сотни тысяч сайтов, в том числе критически важные: заводы, магазины, поликлиники, детские садики, билетные кассы, и всё это точно так же наебнулось. Так что теоретически даже есть мизерный шанс, что фраер сдаст назад. В общем, если у вас действительно проблемы с моим сайтом, просто советую недельку подождать и не заходить. Я постараюсь, чтобы до 13 ноября здесь не было ничего, достойного вашего внимания. А 13 ноября мы что-нибудь с этим придумаем, и я новый рассказ, например, выложу.




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2024/11/07 - А принимал посильное участие

Смертная казнь и мировая война — это очень хорошо для меня Сера, пентаграмма и кипящий котел — это очень хорошо для меня Черные рога, копыта и хвост — это очень хорошо для меня А Царство Божье — ня ня-ня-ня-ня А Царство Божье — ня ня-ня-ня-ня




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2024/11/08 - Борща вам в ленту




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The Hardest Part About Moving into 2014

Prepare to make this fix a lot.




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TIFI WIN: The 10-Speed Lamp

Here we see a nice little floor lamp made from old bicycle parts. Be sure to lock it up or someone might steal it!

Check out more theft-worthy WINs here!




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Tropicana Field can be fixed by 2026, but Rays must play elsewhere in 2025

A detailed assessment of the hurricane damage to Tropicana Field concludes that the home of the Rays is structurally sound and can be repaired in time for the 2026 season, but not by 2025 Opening Day.




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C.J. Stroud tops the list of best-selling NFL jerseys midway through 2024 season

Three quarterbacks lead the way in top NFL jerseys sales so far this season.




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Mavs' Klay Thompson cheered by 400 Warriors employees in return to Golden State

Klay Thompson was greeted by some 400 cheering Warriors employees showing their love and appreciation for the former Golden State star and lined up along his path to the Dallas locker room




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College Football Playoff Rankings: Oregon, Ohio State on top; Alabama enters top 10

The second set of College Football Playoff Predictions were released Tuesday night, with Oregon, Ohio State and Texas listed in the top three spots. See the complete rankings!




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Tom Brady’s 3 Stars of Week 10: Lamar Jackson, Ja'Marr Chase, Leo Chenal | DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE

Tom Brady gave his 3 stars of Week 10 which included Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, Cincinnati Bengals WR Ja'Marr Chase and Kansas City Chiefs LB Leo Chenal.




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Tom Brady's 3 Stars of Week 10, including Ravens' Lamar Jackson

Week 10 of the 2024 NFL season had a few memorable and exciting finishes as several stars showed out! Check out FOX Sports lead NFL analyst Tom Brady to name his latest 3 Stars of The Week.




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John Hugley IV records a NASTY block to help Xavier hold on to 40-25 lead at halftime vs. Jackson State

John Hugley IV recodrded a NASTY block to help Xavier hold on to 40-25 lead at halftime vs. Jackson State




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2024 Fantasy football: Top performers in Week 10

Check out which players had the top performances in Week 10 of the fantasy football season.




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2024-25 NBA championship odds: Celtics, Thunder favored; Cavs rising

A number of contenders are chasing the defending champion Celtics on the oddsboard. Check out where things stand, with insight from Jason McIntyre.





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Из Бангкока в Саваннакхет на автобусе 2023. Расписание Мукдахан - Саваннакхет и обратно

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Въезд в Таиланд из Камбоджи через КПП Ban Pakkad / Phsar Prum. 2024

В Таиланд через КПП Бан Паккад (на фото) - как практически осуществить, чтобы без платы за такси тут и там? Этот вопрос меня интересовал в феврале 2024, когда я возвращался из Камбоджи в Таиланд.

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Цены в Сепоне (Xepon, Laos) в 2024 году: гестхаусы и еда

Я позавчера оббегал гесты в Сепоне, и, вот, решил поделиться.

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UK-to-US Word of the Year 2022: fit

Having let the year run its course, I'm now am ready to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year for 2022. As ever, there are two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US.  To be a SbaCL WoTY, the word just needs to have been noticeable in some way that year in the other country. 

For past WotYs, see here. And now...

The 2022 UK-to-US Word of the Year is: fit

Now, of course the word fit is general English when we use it in contexts like The shoes fit or I'm going to get fit this year. But those fits are not my UK-to-US Word of the Year. The fit I'm talking about is the informal British usage that means 'attractive, sexy'. A close (orig.) AmE synonym is hot

Ben Yagoda, on his Not One-Off Britishisms blog, first noticed this sense of fit in an American context back in 2013, but it seems to have taken hold in the US in the past couple of years. I assume this is due to the international popularity of the British television (BrE) programme/(AmE) show Love Island

Here's a clear example of this sense of fit from another UK reality series, Made in Chelsea.*


I like that video just because it's clearly fit meaning 'hot' rather than 'healthy and/or muscular', but if you'd like to hear it said on Love Island, then you can hear it here at 1:38 (though the YouTube automatic subtitling mishears it as fair).

 

This use of the word is new enough to the US that it's included in glossaries for American Love Island fans, like this one and this one. The Oxford English Dictionary added it in 2001:

  British slang. Sexually attractive, good-looking.

1985   Observer 28 Apr. 45/1   ‘Better 'en that bird you blagged last night.’ ‘F—— off! She was fit.’
1993   V. Headley Excess iv. 21   ‘So wait; dat fit brown girl who live by de church ah nuh your t'ing?!’ he asked eyebrows raised.
1999   FHM June (Best of Bar Room Jokes & True Stories Suppl.) 21/1   My first night there, I got arseholed, hit the jackpot and retired with my fit flatmate to her room.
2000   Gloucester Citizen (Nexis) 14 Feb. 11   I would choose Gillian Anderson from the X-Files, because she's dead fit.

Green's Dictionary of Slang has one 19th-century example, but notes that "(later 20C+ use is chiefly UK black)." 

I can't give statistics on how often this fit is use in the US because (a) the word has many other common meanings, making it very difficult to search for in corpora, and (b) this particular meaning is not likely to make it into print all that often. (Slang is like that.) Ben Yagoda considers fit "still an outlier" in AmE. But Ben's probably not in the right demographic for hearing it. 

An anonymous blog reader nominated it, and it struck me as apt for 2022—the popularity of "Love Island UK" (as it's called in the US) was hard to miss on my visit to the US this summer. I got to hear my brother (whose [AmE] college-student daughter loves the show) imitating the contestants, throwing in words like fit. I can easily find young US people using and discussing 'sexy' fit on social media (though I won't share their examples here because those young people didn't ask for the attention). And it made it onto Saturday Night Live, in a sketch about Love Island. You can hear proper fit at 1:11:




So Happy New Year to you! I wrote this post after watching the fireworks (on tv) at midnight. Now I'm (BrE humorous) off to Bedfordshire, so I'll leave the other WotY for tomorrow. Stay tuned for the US-to-UK WotY! 


*Update: I'm told that the Made in Chelsea video does not play in the US. Here's a quick transcript of the relevant bit:

Scene: Two male cast members on a sofa, commenting on this video shot of a female cast member:

M1: God, she's fit. 

M2: She is so hot.

M1:  So fit.

 




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2022 US-to-UK Word of the Year: homer

Yesterday, I declared the UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year. You can read about it here

The US-to-UK one may be as controversial as it was the first time (a)round (in May). But here goes: 

2022's US-to-UK Word of the Year is: homer


Why? 
  • Because it is possibly the most talked-about Americanism in British social media this year.
  • Because if I chose the other finalist,* I'd get too many "that's not a word!" complaints.
  • Because it alludes a huge, wordy phenomenon of 2022.
That phenomenon is Wordle, the word game invented by a Welsh engineer in the US, an added transatlantic bonus. 

Homer was the Wordle solution on the 5th of May, setting off a lot of grumpiness on social media. The cartoonist Stephen Collins provides a good illustration of the depth of feeling on the matter on the part of many committed UK Wordlers:




So, this isn't a Word of the Year because British people have taken on the word to refer to baseball home runs. There is very little need to talk about baseball in Britain. It's US-to-UK Word of the Year because it was an Americanism talking point in Britain, demonstrating how separate our vocabularies can be.

But is it an Americanism? The thing is, British people do say homer for lots of other reasons. In various BrE dialects or jargons, it can be a homing pigeon, a (BrE) match played on the home (BrE) pitch in some sports, or "a job that a skilled worker, such as a house painter or a hairdresser[..], does for a private customer in the customer's home, especially when they do this in addition to their main job and without telling their employer or the tax authorities" (Cambridge Dictionary). It's also the name of an ancient Hebrew measurement. But none of these uses are as common in BrE as homer meaning 'home run' is in AmE, and so the word was definitely perceived as an Americanism by British Wordle players. 

Now, this choice isn't exactly original on my part. Cambridge Dictionary made homer their Word of the Year back in November. It's also been noted as one of the most Googled words of the year. But that's another reason why it feels right as the US-to-UK Word of the Year. It not only spiked high in their look-up statistics on the day, it continued to be looked up in their online dictionary for months after—perhaps because BrE speakers just can't stop talking/tweeting about it. Homer was again showing up in tweets about losing one's Wordle streak on 27 December, when the answer was the tricky HAVOC. (And I imagine it was showing up in the less searchable social media as well.)  It'll be interesting to see if it's still being put to these purposes next year, or if it'll have been forgotten. The chances that it'll be forgiven seem thin.

I do encourage you to have a look at Cambridge's Word of the Year site for more on this word, British–American linguistic relations and how Wordle's been affecting dictionary usage. 




*My other "finalist" was them's the breaks, as spoken by Boris Johnson in his resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street. I was sure in July that that would be my "Word" of the Year, but, two Prime Ministers later, this well and truly feels like ancient news now.




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what 'polite' means: Culpeper, O'Driscoll & Hardaker (2019)

I've studied the word please off and on for a few years now.* Currently, I'm trying to finish up a study that I started an embarrassing number of years ago. Now that I've returned to it, I have the pleasure of reading all the works that have been published on related topics in the meantime. They couldn't inform my study design, but they must now inform the paper I hope to publish. One of these is a chapter by Jonathan Culpeper, Jim O'Driscoll and Claire Hardaker: "Notions of Politeness in Britain and North America," published in the book in From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness, edited by Eva Ogiermann and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (Cambridge UP, 2019). 

Their question, what does polite mean in the UK and US, was a research project on my to-do list. When I was a younger scholar, I'd have been (a) royally annoyed with those authors for getting to it first, (b) sad, sad, sad that I didn't get to do a fun piece of research, and (c) consumed with self-loathing for not being quick enough to do the project myself. It is both the blessing and curse of middle age that I now look at anything anyone else has done with gratitude. Good! Now I don't have to do it! 

Let's start with why it's interesting to ask about "notions of politeness" in the two countries. Here's a clue from an earlier post about use of please when ordering at restaurants. I asked:
So, how can it be that Americans think of themselves as polite when they fail to extend this common courtesy word?
I argued that Americans (subconsciously) find the lack of please in these contexts "more polite." In the comments section for that post, some people—mostly British people—could just not accept that a food order without a please could be described as polite. To them, to be polite includes saying please. If you're not using the word please, it's just not polite. 

Now, part of the reason for that disagreement is that I was using the word polite in linguistic-theory-laden ways. The distinction between how the word politeness is used in linguistic discussions and how it's used in everyday life has become such a problem for us linguists that we now talk about polite1 and polite2 to distinguish commonplace understandings of polite (1) from our theoretical uses (2). The failures of communication in my previous blogpost probably stemmed from having three understandings of politeness at play: the linguist's polite2, American polite1, and British polite1. 


Postcard from the How to be British series


 

Culpeper et al. set out to contrast British and American polite1. They point out that academic research on the topic of British/American politeness is "full of stereotypes that have largely gone unexamined." These stereotypes hold that British culture favo(u)rs maintaining social distance by using indirectness and avoidance in interaction, while Americans are more interested in creating interactional intimacy by being informal and open. The authors asked: how do AmE and BrE speakers use the word polite? If differences exist, then do they conform to the stereotypes, or do they tell us something new? To investigate this, the authors used two sets of data.


Part 1: clustering 'polite' words in the OEC

First, they searched the Oxford English Corpus, where they found thousands of instances of polite. In AmE, it occurs 6.8 times and in BrE 8.8 times per million words. They then used corpus-linguistic tools to determine which words polite was most likely to co-occur with in the two countries' data. They then used statistical tools to group these collocates into clusters that reflect how they behave linguistically. (I'll skip over the detail of the statistical methods they use, but it suffices to say: they know what they're doing.) For example in the British data, words like courteous, considerate, and respectful form a courteous cluster, while words like cheery, optimistic, and upbeat are in the cheerful cluster. 

The British and American datasets were similar in that polite co-occurred at similar rates with words that formed cheerful and friendly clusters. This seems to go with the common stereotype of American politeness as outgoing and inclusive, but contradicts the British stereotype of reserved behavio(u)r. 

The most notable difference was that British polite collocated with words in a sensible cluster, including: sensible, straightforward, reasonable, and fair. This cluster didn't figure in the American data. The British data also had a calm cluster (calm, quiet, generous, modest, etc.), which had little overlap with American collocates. British polite, then, seems to be associated with "calm rationality, rather than, say, spontaneous emotion." 

Other clusters seemed more complex. Courteous and charming came up as British clusters, while American had respectful, gracious, and thoughtful clusters. However, many of the words in those clusters were the same. For example, almost all the words in the British courteous cluster were in the American gracious cluster. That is, in American courteous and attentive were more closely associated with 'gracious' words like open-minded and appreciative, while British courteous and attentive didn't intersect with more 'gracious' words. Respectful is a particularly interesting case: it shows up in the courteous cluster for the British data, but has its own respectful cluster in American (with words like compassionate and humane). 
 
Looking at these clusters of patterns gives us a sense of the connotations of the words—that is to say, the associations those words bring up for us. Words live in webs of cultural assumptions. Pluck one word in one web, and others will reverberate. But it won't be the same words that would have reverberated if you'd plucked the same word in the other web. It's not that compassionate wasn't in the British data, for example—it's that its patterns did not land it in a cluster with respectful.  In American, respectful seems to have "a warmer flavour" with collocates relating to kindness and positive attitudes toward(s) others, while in the British data respectful has "older historic echoes of courtly, refined, well-mannered behaviour." 

Part 2: 'politeness' and sincerity on Twitter

Their second investigation involved analy{s/z}ing use of polite and its synonyms in a particular 36-hour period on Twitter. The data overall seemed to go against the stereotypes that American politeness is "friendly" and British is "formal", but once they looked at the data in more detail, they discovered why: US and UK words differed in (in)sincerity. In the British data, respectful seemed to "be used as a vehicle for irony, sarcasm and humour", while in the American data friendly "appears to have acquired a negative connotation" about 17% of the time, in which "friendly" people were accused of being untrustworthy or otherwise undesirable. This also underscores the idea that American respectful has a "warmer flavour" than British respectful. It's intriguing that each culture seems to be using words stereotypically associated with them (American–friendly; British–respectful) in ironic ways, while taking the less "typical of them" words more seriously.  

Yay for this study! 

I'm grateful to Culpeper, O'Driscoll and Hardaker for this very interesting paper, which demonstrates why it's difficult to have cross-cultural discussions of what's "polite" or "respectful" behavio(u)r. The more we're aware of these trends in how words are interpreted differently in different places, the better we can take care in our discussions of what's polite, acceptable, or rude. 


*If you're interested in the fruits of my please labo(u)rs so far, have a look at:




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UK-to-US Word of the Year 2023: if I'm honest

Each year since 2006, this blog has designated Transatlantic Words of the Year (WotY). The twist is that I choose the most 'of the year' borrowings from US-to-UK and from UK-to-US.  The question this year raises is: does 2023 deserve SbaCL Words of the Year?

The eligibility criteria remain:

  • Good candidates for SbaCL WotY are expressions that have lived a good life on one side of the Atlantic but for some reason have made a splash on the other side of the Atlantic this year. 
  • Words coined this year are not really in the running. If they moved from one place to another that quickly, then it's hard to say that they're really "Americanisms" or "Britishisms". They're probably just "internetisms". The one situation in which I could see a newly minted word working as a transatlantic WotY would be if the word/expression referenced something very American/British but was nevertheless taken on in the other country.
  • When I say word of the year, I more technically mean lexical item of the year, which is to say, there can be spaces in nominations. Past space-ful WotYs have included gap year, Black Friday, and go missing. I've also been known to declare a pronunciation the Word of the Year.

The UK > US WotY was nominated by Nancy Friedman and endorsed by Ben Yagoda. It is most definitely a phrase:

if I'm honest

In Ben's post the phrase is associated with Great British Bake-Off (AmE: Great British Baking Show) judge Paul Hollywood. When I looked for it on YouGlish, there were a whole slew of examples from the British (BrE) motoring show Top Gear, on which they review cars. In both program(me)s, the phrase is useful in softening criticisms (which both shows have a lot of) by framing them as a truths expressed with some reservation. If I'm honest marks something as an admission of some sort. It's similar to to be honest, which has long been said in the US (and the UK) for much the same reason. (And then there's honestly, which I'll come back to.)

Here are some recent American uses of the phrase:
  • Ryan Gosling, on being cast as Ken in Barbie:  "I just decided I was going to Ken as hard as I can. I Kenned in the morning; I Kenned at night. If I’m honest, I’m Kenning a little right now.”
  • A Real Housewife of Potomac, on getting divorced: "I've just been a little bit complacent about it, if I'm honest, because there are benefits to being married."
  • A Manhattanite writing about an experiment in sustainable living: "If I’m honest, part of me hoped to find the challenge untenable so I could say the cure was worse than the disease and give up."
  • A Chicago police officer commenting on the city's mayoral race: “If I’m honest, I think Catanzara may have some blame here”

These kinds of phrases are discourse markers. They do not add factual meaning to the sentence they're in, but rather make a comment on the speaker's attitude, or stance, toward(s) what they're saying. 

Is it a British phrase? Yes. Here is if I *m honest (i.e., if I'm honest or if I am honest) in the 2012 data of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, where it occurs 7.6 times more often in BrE than in AmE. (Click on the images to embiggen them.)


And here it is in British sources in the News on the Web Corpus: 


In the 2012 data, the phrase occurs at a much higher rate in GloWbE than in NOW—the NOW number only reaches GloWbE's rate (1.8 per million words) in 2023—because the types of texts in the two corpora are different—there's more variety and informal language on GloWbE. That's something worth keeping in mind when we look at the US numbers. Speaking of which, here they are:


A few things to notice here:
  • Yes, the phrase is going up in AmE news, from 0.08 per million words to 0.19 over the past 13 years. 
  • But it's still below the 2012 GloWbe number (0.24 pmw). One would imagine that if we had current data that was collected in the same way as GloWbE, we'd see a lot more there. 
  • And it's wayyyyyy below the British numbers.
  • A country music album had the title If I'm Honest in 2016, which helps (to) account for the higher number then.

Here's a view of the Google Books numbers, comparing If I'm honest with To be honest (though keep in mind that to be honest here is not necessarily the discourse marker. It could be in any number of sentences about honesty.)

And a comparison of it with the equivalent if I'm being honest, which is less common, but making a move in AmE.



The pictures (and numbers) tell the story of a British expression that's become more and more common in BrE, and that has raised American exposure to (and use of) it. But note that it's rising far faster in BrE than in AmE. So, does it meet the first of my eligibility criteria? Maybe not. But it's what I've got for this year!


P.S.  Honestly

Honestly, used as a discourse marker in a sentence seems to be more common in AmE. But as a stand-alone expression of exasperation, it seems more common in BrE (Honestly!). It's definitely more common from the BrE speakers in my house than from me, but maybe I'm just more exasperating to live with than they are. Here are searches with punctuation from GloWbE:







Will there be a US-to-UK WotY?  To be honest, it's unclear at this point! 




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What’s Wrong With Today’s Society Captured In 20 Brutally Honest Illustrations

This illustrator, John Holcroft, is genius! check out his website for more.

 





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30 Middle Class Memes For Lighthearted Suburbanites

Do you take pleasure in converting old doors into coffee tables or old coffee tables into pallets? Do you spend a lot of time carefully crafting email responses? Does grabbing a beer or two at the local Chili's after a Sunday at Home Depot sound appealing to you? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you might get a kick out of these neat memes by novelty memelord @middleclassfancy. We're big fans of this hilarious account and love to share these tongue-in-cheek gems every chance we get.




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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Translated Picture Books

They come and they go into our bookstores and libraries and out again without a whisper of awards or significant praise. Yet the true mark of whether or not you are opening up your child to the world is to show them books made internationally. Today we celebrate translations. Even the weird ones. I take that back. ESPECIALLY the weird ones!



  • 31 Days 31 Lists
  • Best Books of 2018
  • 2018 translated children's books
  • 31 days 31 lists
  • translated picture books
  • translations

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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Books with a Message

The earliest American picture books had only one goal: To provide some form of moral instruction. These days books with clear messages are exceedingly common. The ones that do it well? Much rarer. Here are the 2018 titles that knew what they were doing this year.




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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Fabulous Photography Books for Kids

Every year I try to keep an eye out for any children's book that gives ample attention to photographs in some way. Thanks to advances in technology and printing, it's never been easier to make books with photographic images. Yet despite this, few come out. Today's list is a small one, but I'm grateful that each and every single one of these books exists.



  • 31 Days 31 Lists
  • 31 days 31 lists
  • photography
  • picture book photography

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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Fairy Tales, Folktales, and Religious Tales

Interestingly, 2018 turned out to be a very strong year for folktales, fairy tales, and religious stories. Why? Well, look closely and you'll see that this is nothing so much as a gathering of small publishers. It's like I always say. The more the big guys consolidate, the more cracks and fissures remain for the little folks to sneak through. Here then are the titles published in 2018 that really stood out and shone:




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31 Days, 31 Lists: Oddest Children’s Books of 2018

What one person might consider "odd" could easily be another's cup of tea. It's important, then, to clarify that I don't see "odd" as a bad thing at all. It's healthy for a kid to see a book written for their age level that's outside the norm and dares to get a little bit freaky.Here then, are the 2018 titles that dared to be strange in some way. May they inspire others in the future!



  • 31 Days 31 Lists
  • 31 days 31 lists
  • weirdo children's books

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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Poetry Books

Poems used to be the sole property of April a.k.a. Poetry Month. Now that's changing. Publishers are rapidly putting more faith into the poetry books they produce. So let's take a look at what we saw this year, and the wide range of topics that were touched.




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31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Easy Books

I think you've heard me say before that in many ways easy books are the most difficult titles to write. They are most perfect when they are most simple. And they are most simple, when they limit their text complexity. Can you make complex characters and plots with such small words? You can. These did.



  • 31 Days 31 Lists
  • Best Books of 2018
  • 31 days 31 lists
  • easy books