anna_wing

I seem to recall that in my distant youth the process of preserving fruit or vegetables in sealed glass containers was called 'bottling'. There was also Richard III, the bottled spider (I remember wondering as a child why anyone would want to put a spider in a bottle, it seemed a rather cruel thing to do). When did it become 'jarring', a word with a useful existing meaning of its own that didn't need another one?

As a matter of principle I don't like terms that describe people by their skin colour, because I consider them racist. I don't use 'black' and 'brown', (easy in this part of the world since no-one except a few internet types who've received that ideology would think of themselves like that - it would be like a Wiccan referring to Hindus and Buddhists as'pagans' and expecting them to be happy at how 'inclusive' he's being...) and I'm trying to avoid 'white' wherever I can."Person of colour" of course is so awful I would choke on it.

Proper ethnonyms and nationalities of varying degrees of regional specificity are always available descriptors. FOr "white", "Caucasian" is the commonest substitute one that I know of; it's clumsy and obviously a term of art, but usable everywhere except presumably in the actual Caucasus. I prefer to use "Westerner" to refer to a (very) general ideological position, not skin colour or ethnic origin. I suppose one could use 'European-origin' in its non-political sense, as referring to the indigenes of that particular area.

This is obviously my own personal usage. What other people in other places do is their business, and none of mine. I accept diversity even if I don't think of it as automatically a good thing in all contexts.

"Gratitude journals" have been in vogue for a while, the trendy version of my dear departed grandmother's advice to "count your blessings when you're down". This is, obviously, quite a good time for it, and I consider it a reasonable and sensible mental exercise. What I dislike is the specific term 'gratitude', though, since it does seem to imply having to be grateful not just for something, but to someone. Possibly this is simply a cultural remnant of Abrahamic monotheism.

I prefer 'appreciation', which does not require a third party to be even implicitly involved. I have many things to appreciate. My job, my lifestyle, decent wifi, my friends and family, my professional colleagues and the people of my household, my cats, my current state of health, my cup of fresh roselle tea, the country that I am in (and the countries that I am not in, thanks to career decisions made years ago). I appreciate it all.

Yes, I know you're upset, horrified and concerned. That doesn't make you "broken". Are you a person or a plate?

(and if you're a plate,what sort of plate are you?)

It's spelt 'extraversion', The Guardian.

Also, you don't need an apostrophe when you are adding an 's' to make a plural. Or when you are adding 's' to 'it' to make the possessive of 'it'.

I've seen a popular phrase referring to sleeping positions for couples: "big spoon, little spoon". It nagged at me for a long time, until I realised that it is because the usage makes no sense at all as a metaphor: spoons only fit together properly when they are exactly the same size, as the most cursory glance at a properly organised cutlery drawer would demonstrate.

Is not leather. Manufacturers should just be honest and call it whatever it is, plastic, or cork, or compressed paper pulp or whatever. Or even, at a pinch, "artificial leather".

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Entries tagged with words

'Jarring' is jarring

Race-based descriptors

Gratitude and appreciation

Oh,come off it....

Just saying....

A random thought about spoons

Vegan leather...

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May 2025

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