Way to get girls (?!): the new column for the new Dragon.

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think with the new Dragon there's going to be less of a difference between the two than you think there is.

What is really the difference between a blog and a regular column? I think it's mostly the medium (Internet vs. Paper). The rest is all determined by how much time and effort the writer actually takes to write down his thoughts (which includes deciding how to represent them).

In related news, I liked the article. I am not a girl/woman/female humanoid, but maybe I will even consider pickung up the "Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress" book, because now it sounds like an entertaining, funny read.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

* - This is a polite way of saying that all of their products taste like absolute crap. I have yet to taste a Kashi anything that was worth the experience.

I like their honey puffed cereal (kind of like Sugar Crisp with more variable flavour and texture) and their snack crackers. I'm not fond of ranch-flavoured anything (I can't imagine wanting something to taste like a ranch anyway), but the honey-flavoured snack crackers are tasty.

"Bite it" means "die." It's such a ridiculously old piece of slang that I'm shocked anyone doesn't understand it.

It might be worth pointing out that it's a fairly recent corruption of "bite the dust," which is probably more recognizable.

Onomotopeia. It's also a reference to Wayne's World, a popular skit on the show Saturday Night Live.

It's not onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is when a word is formed in such as way as to describe the sound it references, like "knock" or "boom". Schwing (and variations thereof) are suggestive of an action, not a sound. Also, not everyone watched late-night American television in the 90s.

*snort, chuckle, guffaw*

Brownies, my snooty English friend.

Learn them, live them, love them.

Define the following foods (mostly from Wikipedia):

Grinder
Jimmies
Beavertail
Toad In The Hole
Rarebit
Sweetbread
Bunny Chow
Beef Olives

Not that I think you can't, but it illustrates the importance of regional naming conventions.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It was both, but it wasn't aimed at any one person. Honestly, the thread is rife with veiled sexist references. Those have tapered off and now it's Extreme Style Deconstruction (premiere next week on The English Speaking World Channel!) Everyone seems so jumpy about it. Why can't those who dislike it register a polite, non-judgmental comment? Instead some posters are pillorying the author. Others are clearly having fun. Some are just making popcorn and waiting for this to slide toward threadlock. I guess I need to go make popcorn since I really don't want to contribute to that possibility.

FWIW, I thought that Wil Save was hellishly boring, and couldn't figure out why it was taking up valuable pagecount. This is a similar situation.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

FWIW, I thought that Wil Save was hellishly boring, and couldn't figure out why it was taking up valuable pagecount. This is a similar situation.

You're worried about page count?

 

[wgreen]

It's not onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is when a word is formed in such as way as to describe the sound it references, like "knock" or "boom". Schwing (and variations thereof) are suggestive of an action, not a sound. Also, not everyone watched late-night American television in the 90s.

It's supposed to mimic the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, actually.

-Will

 

[fuindordm]

I am a native English speaker in the UK. Amongst other media I have read, on average 2-3 books a week for the past 30+ years. I may have encountered 'ribald' once or twice, but have until now not encountered 'conflate'. The more common 'vulgar' and 'blend' may be be more meaningful to a wider audience even if they are less precise.

Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that these words are uncommon in the UK.

I first encountered ribald probably in my early teens, and met it frequently enough that it sunk in. The phrase 'ribald humor' is really quite common.

I met conflate in college, and it comes up frequently in academic writing of all kinds.

Anyway... it's certainly chock-full of personal references which might not be easily interpreted. I didn't know what Kashi was, but it was clearly a food and I didn't feel the urge to go look it up. 'ISO of dungeon master' took me a minute to figure out too--it wasn't immediately obvious to me that she was imitating a personal ad.

I do some work as a French->English translator, I live in France, and my wife is French, but I will never have the depth of cultural knowledge that growing up in a country confers. When I try to read "chatty" French, I'm often totally at sea. I wouldn't take that as a deficiency in the writing, however, unless I encountered it in a medium where some other style was clearly called for.

Cheers!

 

[Cadfan]

Define the following foods (mostly from Wikipedia):

Grinder
Jimmies
Beavertail
Toad In The Hole
Rarebit
Sweetbread
Bunny Chow
Beef Olives

Not that I think you can't, but it illustrates the importance of regional naming conventions.

I agree that some of those are beyond me. But I'm not demanding that people refrain from using those terms when writing on the internet.

 

[Wormwood]

When I try to read "chatty" French, I'm often totally at sea. I wouldn't take that as a deficiency in the writing, however, unless I encountered it in a medium where some other style was clearly called for.

I would say that 'chatty English' is entirely appropriate for a Dragon Magazine columnist to use.

 

[TerraDave]

I think this is worth clarifying:

You can find "brownies", "cheese cake", and "cookies" in other countries. I have, in a number of countries on a number of continents. (what suprised me was fajitas...but that was in a very particular restraunt).

They may not get it right, but America's few culinary contributions, or at least things with the same name, have spread.

 

[Nellisir]

I am a native English speaker in the UK. Amongst other media I have read, on average 2-3 books a week for the past 30+ years. I may have encountered 'ribald' once or twice, but have until now not encountered 'conflate'. The more common 'vulgar' and 'blend' may be be more meaningful to a wider audience even if they are less precise.

Vulgar and ribald are not the same. Bawdy would be a better choice. I've encountered both ribald and conflate; I've frequently seen ribald as a description for some of Shakespeare's characters and passages.