So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I’ve always struggled with “foreign” languages. It might be related to my profound lack of musical ability. It’s an auditory processing deficiency, I think, seeing how I can diagram sentences in the Romance languages but unless that sentence is in very basic Spanish I can’t tell you what it means.

For a couple months now I’ve been using an app called Duolingo in an attempt to attain at least a minimally conversational competency in Spanish. It’s kinda fun. The exercises as short and simple and somewhat tailored to the individual user. They keep going over the stuff I got wrong in earlier attempts before they move me up a level. We haven’t gotten to verb conjugation yet. Everything has been in present tense.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The problem with that is that there are a lot of people who, for some reason, are unable to read maps regardless of whether they're printed on paper or displayed on an electronic screen. For those people "Navi" and any other GPS systems are pretty much useless.

But they don´t need any map/screen, they just need to listen to the voice of Mrs. Navi.

I mean, voice-navi is standard since the mid 2000s, isn´t it?

 

[Trenchfriend]

and there is no doubt in my mind that the classwork of today is more rigorous in every way than what I was dealing with in the 1970s. If I were to enroll in high school today I'd wash out before lunch.

But aren´t the differences from state to state very different?

 

[Ticklishchap]

I know a few people who are part of the LGBT community, and even they can't keep up with the terms and acronyms and everything else that ever-expanding community wants more recently. I tend to treat everyone I meet with the same general level of courtesy and respect, and as I meet people I'll decide on a case-by-case basis who I'll cater to and who I won't. But for such a small minority (one to four percent last I checked) to start issuing demands to the rest of us is unreasonable in my opinion.

That is another bugbear: the “LGBT” thing - along with LGBTQ+; LGB; L&G; LGBTQWERTYUIOP+*^#%•. F**k that. Or rather don’t in my case, because I don’t do ‘gender fluid’ and am only attracted to masculine men.

The whole thing annoys the Hell out of me. What am I supposed to have in common with a female who is attracted to other females? Or a man or woman who has changed sex or wishes to do so? Or a ‘feminine’ gay man for that matter? I have nothing in common with these people. As I’m British I suppose I could talk about the weather. But I can’t think what else.

My best friends and strongest allies as a gay man have always been my straight male friends.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Indeed, that sort of thing is really revealing. Here in East London there's a long, popular tradition of romanticising the cockney 'gore blimey' speech pattern, and in some quarters performatively mourning its apparent passing. The reality is, of course, that it was never as common as Mary Poppins would have you believe, and back in the late 19th century here in Whitechapel you'd have been as, if not more, likely to hear someone speaking Yiddish rather than 'cockney'. Oy vey! One of the things that makes this part of town so rich. Not far from here, there's a Mosque on Brick Lane that used to be a Synagogue, and before that it was built as a Hugonaut church. An area always in flux.

I like genuine working class accents and cultures very much. And the Yiddish language: I’m a North London boy after all.
My point was not about authentic working class, but the trashy, lumpen, ersatz working class accents on current British TV and radio.

 

[Ticklishchap]

As far as accents go, I adamantly refuse to adopt "standard American TV announcer English" in my everyday life. I'll use it playing a character, but when I'm me, I was born Northeastern Non-Rhotic, and I will die Northeastern Non-Rhotic. And if some tourist can't understand me when I tell them the place they want is "rate up byta ahhhht gal'ry," that's just too friggen bad.

As far as "they" and "them" go, doesn't bother me a bit. Been doing that all my life --"I don't know where he is, they'll get here when they get here" -- and it amuses me to hear so many people getting uptight about it now that it has acquired a sociocultural significance that perhaps they find incomprhensible. I have several friends who go by "they" and "them", and while I am admittedly not of this century enough to fully grasp the concept, if that's what they want to do, who am I to say otherwise? It costs me absolutely nothing, and it makes them feel more comfortable with who they are, so more power to them.

I think you’re taking my comments out of context. I was not talking about the small number of people who are intersex/non-binary/hermaphrodite, etc., but the attempt to impose ‘gender-neutral’ language on the whole population to be ‘politically correct’ and pretend that differences between male and female were somehow a figment of the imagination. The overwhelming majority of human beings are either male or female and this is a crucial aspect of our identity. And we are not interchangeable parts. Even those who wish to change sex identify themselves primarily as male or female.

Which brings me to a delicate issue. I am only here speaking as a gay man, but I cannot fully endorse the slogan ‘trans men are men’. Unfortunately it is just not as simple as that because I could never be attracted sexually or emotionally to such a person because she (and I use that pronoun deliberately) would still be the wrong sex, have the wrong physical attributes, the wrong emotional responses, wrong voice, wrong smell. I don’t think I need to continue.

A large section of the “LGBT” movement now says that I should count such a person as a full male and that it is “prejudiced” not to do so - and to rule that person out as a potential partner. To me this is as sinister as the “conversion therapy” promoted by the religious right. Indeed it is even more insidious because it is using the language of “equality” and “inclusion”.

The new ‘woke’ version of ‘1984’: BIG SIBLING IS WATCHING YOU.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can't speak for the members of those groups myself -- but at least here in the US, the sense I get from observation of the passing scene is that the unity of such disparate groups is based more on the need to band together in a "Popular Front" sort of approach against the dangers of political/legal discrimination, especially given the fact that the United States itself is not really one country, but a collection of individual political entities, many of which don't really seem to like each other very much, and under those circs, the idea is that rights, even hard-fought ones, are frangible.

I don't know how it goes in the rest of the world, but that seems to be the picture here: identity-based alliances driven by necessity rather than by personal affinity. And I can sympathize with that -- the world is full of people I'm not sexuallly, intellectually, or even socially attracted to, but I'd absolutely walk a picket line with them.

 

[Ticklishchap]

^^^^^
I’m not “uptight” about it. People are free to identify any way they wish, but they aren’t free to tell other people how they are to perceive them.

Perhaps what’s needed is a gender-neutral singular pronoun. But, as I already mentioned, the war is likely already lost. I accept it, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I do not accept it and, as I said yesterday, I send documents back if ‘they’ is used where it should say ‘he or she’. As I am paying for these documents- which are usually contracts with clients - I can have them worded in any way I want as long as it is professional.

 

[Zombie_61]

But they don´t need any map/screen, they just need to listen to the voice of Mrs. Navi.

I mean, voice-navi is standard since the mid 2000s, isn´t it?

Maybe. The only time we ever used them was when we were on vacation and driving in unfamiliar territory, and I could never hear it because my wife had the music turned up too loud. Besides, most people here in the U.S. don't listen anyway.

 

[The one from the North]

I'm constantly amazed about the quality of these discussions. Whether it's about english language (that I can't fully follow, not being native), gender issues (highly sensitive in today's social media) or whatever, discussion is always polite, rational and intellect. You, my fellow loungers are a rare breed indeed! And all this in a forum dedicated to the Golden Era.
Thank you for being antidote to my growing cynicism about humanity!

 

[Ticklishchap]

I'm constantly amazed about the quality of these discussions. Whether it's about english language (that I can't fully follow, not being native), gender issues (highly sensitive in today's social media) or whatever, discussion is always polite, rational and intellect. You, my fellow loungers are a rare breed indeed! And all this in a forum dedicated to the Golden Era.
Thank you for being antidote to my growing cynicism about humanity!

Thank you Sir and welcome.

 

[Turnip]

^^^^^
I’ve always struggled with “foreign” languages. It might be related to my profound lack of musical ability. It’s an auditory processing deficiency, I think, seeing how I can diagram sentences in the Romance languages but unless that sentence is in very basic Spanish I can’t tell you what it means.

…

One of the few advantages of Latin is that it’s got a pretty schematic grammar, so rather a mathematical than a musical approach.
To me it’s been a pure industriousness subject, cramming vocabulary and grammatical schemes.

Nowhere near as complicated and sometimes illogical as German…

 

[Turnip]

Disadvantage is the frequent cringing when folks use Latin vocabulary in inappropriate context and/or translate sayings wrong…

 

[Zombie_61]

I'm constantly amazed about the quality of these discussions. Whether it's about english language (that I can't fully follow, not being native), gender issues (highly sensitive in today's social media) or whatever, discussion is always polite, rational and intellect. You, my fellow loungers are a rare breed indeed! And all this in a forum dedicated to the Golden Era.
Thank you for being antidote to my growing cynicism about humanity!

I think many (if not most or all) of us think of The Fedora Lounge as a refuge from the impolite, irrational, and intellect deficient world we live in these days, so we all try to keep it that way. We have our occasional "heated debates" like any other group, but even then we "debate" as politely as possible and try to find a resolution as quickly as possible. Okay, that last part isn't true, but it doesn't happen often.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I think many (if not most or all) of us think of The Fedora Lounge as a refuge from the impolite, irrational, and intellect deficient world we live in these days, so we all try to keep it that way. We have our occasional "heated debates" like any other group, but even then we "debate" as politely as possible and try to find a resolution as quickly as possible. Okay, that last part isn't true, but it doesn't happen often.

I agree with everything Zombie said. And I would even take it farther. In ”the real world” I am mostly surrounded by people who are very shallow and not curious about anything. conversation topics are about as dull and mundane as you can get. If I want to discuss ancient history or the latest scientific discoveries, I’m out of luck. So… oh, you lucky people!… I use the lounge to float interesting stuff that I find unusual or fascinating, but which the real people I know wouldn’t know how to approach. The fact that Loungers are intelligent, articulate, and polite is a breath of fresh air. (My one small gripe is that I do find the “No politics” rule is enforced too heavy handedly on occasion. Shrugs.) I probably do spend more time reading the lounge than I should. And I try to limit my posts so that they are “not excessive”.

 

[tonyb]

It’s not that this is a mutual admiration society. I avoid certain characters here, and I have every confidence the reverse is true as well.

I’m not privy to whatever criteria the operators have for 86ing a person, but it appears it happens from time to time. It seems more common that others recognize they’ve overstayed their welcome and show themselves the door.

Perhaps the thing that most keeps me coming back is that despite our differences, most everyone here came here as fans of the material artifacts of times gone by and the culture that produced them. So, unlike too much of what is encountered online, the participants here exhibit little interest in the latest trends.

The population here skews on the senior side. We aren’t all decrepit (far from it), but many of the regulars here are my age and older. I don’t find that in many other places. Alas, as with any group of the not-young, we suffer the ravages of advancing years. We’ve lost some of my favorites; others are currently dealing with life-threatening conditions. Most I’ve never met in the “real world,” but they’ve nonetheless been a part of my world, and I feel for them.

 

[MisterCairo]

Humidity.

 

[tonyb]

Humidity.

Very little of that here, thank the god of your choice, seeing how it’s pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit today.

 

[GHT]

Disadvantage is the frequent cringing when folks use Latin vocabulary in inappropriate context and/or translate sayings wrong…

Stercus Accidit

 

[Tiki Tom]

I do worry about the drought and heat in the southwest. Colorado river drying up, great Salt lake disappearing, etc.
when I was growing up in L.A., we used to comment about how future archaeologists would one day marvel that that desert environment had ever been the location of such a megalopolis.