The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Charity:

Show all comments by Charity.

Posted on entry The honor of your assistance is requested in a small matter of language ::: August 21, 2008, 05:32 PM:
Do socio-economic terms count, or just racial ones? Thinking "chav" for the UK Additonal list.

Also... Making Light is always thought-provoking, but I think the time is particularly ripe for some introspection when I can read a list like that and think "what will be left for people to talk about on that service?"
Posted on entry Pope Rat, Professor X, red-state politician sex ::: December 12, 2007, 11:56 PM:
I have a hazy memory of the US Bicentennial celebrations. I don't remember the actual event, but I remember quite firmly deciding that I was going to live to be 104 so I could see the next one. (I can't imagine why, though I love fireworks to this day.)

My first clear and detailed memory is of Reagan getting shot in '81 (I was 9). News coverage pre-empted afternoon cartoons, so I watched the news because darned if I'd give up my allowed hour of tv-watching. =P
Posted on entry Strike plate ::: November 12, 2007, 09:28 AM:
In a reversal of name brand appropriation of the "Kleenex" and "Xerox" sort, I spent most of my adolescence not knowing that little yellow stickies were actually Post-Its.

Google gives lots of plural nouns for cats, but (as I type impeded by a fluffy tail) my favorite is a "nuisance".

The bubbles in antique, handblown glass are occlusions.
Posted on entry I'm Dreaming of a White Ziti ::: November 08, 2007, 12:03 AM:
Wow, talk about cognitive dissonance... FWIW, I now know what it must feel like to be a smoker and have people telling me, "Don't you know that causes lung cancer?" as if the commentary on my vice were of any usefulness or interest to me.

FWIW, from the viewpoint of a food_pornista, the non-tomato-sauce pasta thingie sounds nice and porny. If you're worried about your cholesterol, go eat a salad. Dry. I'll be over here with the creamy pasta goodness. =)

(By way of introduction... I read the RSS feed but hardly ever comment because y'all have usually already said it better than I ever could. This thread just struck me as a nifty case of interests colliding.)

Also, a sooper sekret tip that I've used successfully for going on 4 years... omega 3 supplements can work wonders on good and bad cholesterol, even absent dietary restraint.
Posted on entry Dreadful phrases ::: May 01, 2006, 02:15 PM:
Frequent reader, new poster here... and I can't quite belive I'm piping up to disagree with JMD and other honored regulars here, but I just don't see how these can be spellcheck mistakes. If you choose the wrong homonym, it's still a valid word... thrown/throne, shuttered/shuddered, etc. The ony way the spellchecker can be blamed is if the author had a near-miss typo for the wrong word in the first place. (The one exception is prostate/prostrate; the former is mysteriously absent from most software dictionaries.)

It's neat for me to see you professional writerly-type-people enjoying these eggcorns (and thanks! I hadn't known of that site either), because from my POV as a complete amateur, they're really wince-worthy. I read a lot of fanfiction (hey, it's free) and homonym abuse is everywhere, even in stories that are otherwise pretty good. I've tried puzzling out the reason, but I think Theresa has the likeliest idea... those of us who grew up with arual saturation from TV/radio just remember sounds with more clarity than words. I know I find that snippets of songs can bring up memories just as powerfully as certain smells.
Posted on entry Open thread 51 ::: October 07, 2005, 06:07 PM:
Stefan: it's not so bad if you're allowed to use tongues.

Uh oh, I better hide from Smoot et al.
Posted on entry Not An Imaginary Story ::: September 05, 2005, 11:37 PM:
I've lived in Texas for about a decade now, and am not a native. My Texan-to-English is pretty fluent, and my guess is the "this" she's talking about isn't being flooded, losing everything, enduring inhuman conditions, etc... "this [coming to Texas, rather than any other shelter they might have ended up at] is working very well for them."

I don't think it's a socio-economic disdain she's showing... it's just the blood-deep conviction that Texas is better than anywhere else on God's green earth. It was still a shocking thing for her to say, because she should know that most of the world's population doesn't speak Texan, but I do truly think it was just her national pride showing. "Texas is a whole other country", as the tourism ads remind us, and in and of itself a good reason why a native Texan should never be president of the USA.
Posted on entry Katrina ::: September 01, 2005, 05:10 PM:
Via Caitlin R Kiernan's blog, this article? op/ed? about the possible death toll, tough choices, and the uselesness of pointing fingers:
Pompeii on Ole Miss: Facing Katrina's Toll, Fully

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