When it comes to sexism in language1, there are all sorts of examples. On the one hand, you get the male/female differentiation in occupations. Sometimes this is well-established (waiter/waitress, actor/actress), sometimes still accepted but on the way out (stewardess—there are no “stewards” anymore but the right term is now “flight attendent”), and sometimes it just sounds ridiculous (there are no “aviatrices” any more, although to be fair there aren’t really “aviators” either.2) For my part, I try not to use the -ess forms of the words; I don’t see a reason why “waiter” or “actor” shouldn’t…
Phones and Photographs
Often times people will decry the loss of basic math skills, thanks to the widespread use of calculators, or basic knowledge, thanks to the easy accessibility of the Internet. To some degree these are both true, and to some degree it is also true that, yes, you can get away without memorizing facts and being good at mental or paper arithmetic in the modern world, and not be a worse person for it. (Take it to its logical progression, though, and you get…“The Feeling of Power” by Isaac Asimov. Don’t worry, it’s short.)
What worries me, though, is…
Dinosaur Comics meets Twitter
Dinosaur Comics has recently had a string of randomizer-related posts — because every strip has the same form, they can be mashed up in extremely flexible ways. The latest is to take a random Twitter post and DC second panel and put them together…and someone subsequently wrote a script to do that. Result: potential for hilarity?
This one came up on my first try. Well, technically my second, since one loaded on the DC page itself.
Real updates ought to start up again soon. The summer’s been very busy!