Happy New Year from the last place to let go.
April Goodwin-Smith
68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
April.
--
Yea, verily, for it is written, wherever two or three are gathered
together, they shall kick the shit out of the little one.
~ Tiny Bulcher on afp ~
Nigel Stapley
> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>
> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>
It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
time, I don't know.
It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's hope for a
bit more 'go' in it this year.
HNY.
--
Regards
Nigel Stapley
<reply-to will bounce>
OG
"April Goodwin-Smith" <agoodw...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:7q518c...@mid.individual.net...
>I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>
> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>
> April.
>
Dunno where you've been, but it's only just January here!
Off to see 'Nation' at the NT later today. All the best to everyone
Reader in Invisible Writings
Cinema live screening, but NewsNight Review was not favourable about the
adaptation.
--
Reader in Invisible Writings.. Something to Ponder upon!
Sabremeister Brian
MuCdnQo3QMsTxaDW...@brightview.co.uk,
Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> said:
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there
>> are only 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
Yes, Happy New Year!
> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I
> think. Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine
> or ten of us left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet,
> the supposed primacy of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that
> cods, or just the attrition of time, I don't know.
I have LJ, but it's not the same as AFP. I sometimes have
facebook, but can't really stand it. And I've not been posting in
the last couple of months because life has been rather shitty to
me, and I couldn't get motivated to do anything.
> It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's
> hope for a bit more 'go' in it this year.
>
> HNY.
--
www.sabremeister.me.uk
www.livejournal.com/users/sabremeister/
Use brian at sabremeister dot me dot uk to reply
Have Sword & Sorcery: Will Travel (TM)
Now available at http://stores.lulu.com/brian1173 and amazon.com
GaryN
news:MuCdnQo3QMsTxaDW...@brightview.co.uk:
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>
>
> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
> time, I don't know.
>
> It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's hope for a
> bit more 'go' in it this year.
>
> HNY.
>
I think a lot of us had a pretty bad year one way or another and weren't as
active as we usually are, I know for certain that at least two of us spent
time in hospital and recuperating afterwards.
However let us not hark back to what has been
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utiFFGBSWlo&feature=related
let us look forward to what may be...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdkCkIaDf2U&feature=related
gary:-)
--
DILLIGAF
GaryN
news:hhkkk9$ita$1...@mud.stack.nl:
You will find Lizzy's and my own opinions in the "Nation at the National
Theater" thread from a while back - I took up the spare ticket offer and
went down to The Smoke to have a look. As a precis of the show - it was an
impressive production technically, the actors did their best, but somehow
it wasn't quite right (IMO).
I left early to ensure that I could get back home at a reasonable hour and
the honest truth is that I didn't really mind. In the case of a really
excellent production I'd have stayed the course and then found somewhere to
kip - even if it meant sleeping rough (again).
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lesley Weston
> In a speech called
> MuCdnQo3QMsTxaDW...@brightview.co.uk,
> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> said:
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there
>>> are only 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>
>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>
> Yes, Happy New Year!
>
>> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I
>> think. Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine
>> or ten of us left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet,
>> the supposed primacy of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that
>> cods, or just the attrition of time, I don't know.
>
> I have LJ, but it's not the same as AFP. I sometimes have
> facebook, but can't really stand it.
I haven't tried LJ, but Facebook is a lot of fun, mainly to do with
farming. A rather sanitised form of farming where harvesting turkeys
means collecting their feathers.
> And I've not been posting in
> the last couple of months because life has been rather shitty to
> me, and I couldn't get motivated to do anything.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope things improve for you now that it's a
new year, and that one consequence of improvement is that we see you
here more often.
--
Lesley Weston
The addy above is real, but I won't see anything posted to it for a long
time. To reach me, use leswes att shaw dott ca, adjusting as necessary.
Lesley Weston
> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
I'm doing my best...
>
> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
GaryN
$2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>
> I'm doing my best...
>>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>
> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>
For what?
In the 100yard sprint? To hear about slood? To find out that George Davis
*WAS* innocent (again:-)?
Look on the bright side - you'll be among the first to know when the new
ice age starts and the glaciers start moving.
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lesley Weston
> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote in
> news:MuCdnQo3QMsTxaDW...@brightview.co.uk:
>
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>
>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>
>> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
>> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
>> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
>> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
>> time, I don't know.
>>
>> It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's hope for a
>> bit more 'go' in it this year.
>>
>> HNY.
>>
>
> I think a lot of us had a pretty bad year one way or another and weren't as
> active as we usually are, I know for certain that at least two of us spent
> time in hospital and recuperating afterwards.
>
> However let us not hark back to what has been
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utiFFGBSWlo&feature=related
Oh I don't know... I'm trying to find Adrian Henri's poem with the line
"the Red Army will go full time into show business", but no luck. I
think it's in the one with "For you, they'll wallpaper the buildings",
but I can't find it on line, nor can I find our copy of the Liverpool
poems. V. annoying.
Daniel Orner
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>
>
> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
> time, I don't know.
>
> It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's hope for a
> bit more 'go' in it this year.
>
> HNY.
>
FYI, I'm still reading, I just have a tendency not to comment on things
I know little about, which encompasses pretty much all of the discussion
topics recently. 8-\
--
http://roleplayingjew.blogspot.com/ - An Orthodox Jew who plays Japanese
role-playing games? Strange but true!
jester
<dmo...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> FYI, I'm still reading, I just have a tendency not to comment on things
>I know little about,
Good grief. This is altnet, you're *required* to comment on things you
know little about. Preferably loudly, and claiming that you're an expert.
:-)
--
Andy Brown
"I had to kill him -- he was starting to make sense."
Rocky Frisco
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>
>
> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
> time, I don't know.
>
> It'd be a great shame if the froup faded out like that. Let's hope for a
> bit more 'go' in it this year.
I think it could be said that I (and people like me) breathed some
life into the group for a number of years, until I got disgusted by
all the Baaaa-ing and BS.
I used to think that any group that loved TP's books had to be
somewhat superior. I'm not sure about that any longer. I reckon the
books are so excellent they have a tendency to attract all sorts of
people, even some who are opinionated, miseducated fools. It only
takes a little poison to ruin the pancakes.
I can't really understand why anybody who believes government
propaganda and embraces socialism would want to read Terry's work, but
there's much in the modern world that resists my comprehension.
If there are only nine or ten of us left, I'm coming back into the
group with all my accustomed caustic irascibility. That means I
reserve the right from now on to tell somebody to fuck off and die and
then not ban myself from the group.
I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
You have been warned.
-Rocky Frisco
--
Government is Crime because humans are corrupt.
Rocky Frisco
Like, now?
OG
"Reader in Invisible Writings" <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:hhkkk9$ita$1...@mud.stack.nl...
The stage version doesn't live up to the book - and it's hard to see how it
could. Having seen the previous National Theatre adaptation of His Dark
Materials, we were disappointed that the staging was /so far/ off the
quality of the original book.
There are some good parts, but the depth of thought provoked by the book
just isn't carried through. Emotion is there, and humour; and if you know
the story you'll be able to keep up (though it attempts to give a motivation
for one character that is a complete invention).
I just don't know how well it would work if it was shown on a screen
compared to actually being there in the auditorium - there is a connection
to being in the same space that doesn't exist when seen on the stage and I
fear that its absence would diminish the experience even more - we were
fortunate to see the RSC Hamlet with Patrick Stewart and David Tennant on
stage at Stratford and again on television recently, and the stage
performance was much more gripping and involving.
Sorry, if this sounds negative - but with such a high quality original book
it was a shame that the play was just not as stunning as we expected it to
be.
April Goodwin-Smith
> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
<snip>
>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>
I think so. I can never remember whether or not Hawaii is
after us or lumped in with New Zealand as part of the first.
But we got to watch Air Farce last night, so that's okay. :)
April.
Janaina Rudberg
Andrew Nevill
wrote:
>Nigel Stapley wrote:
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> It's been pretty dead here for the last three or four months, I think.
>> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
>> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
>> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
>> time, I don't know.
>
> FYI, I'm still reading, I just have a tendency not to comment on things
>I know little about, which encompasses pretty much all of the discussion
>topics recently. 8-\
I'm still here <waves>
But like Daniel, I tend to read but comment. I'm think I'm turning into
a lurker in my middle age
Happy New Year everyone.
--
Andrew Nevill B.F. D.W. FdV. Reply address: ane...@ntlworld.com
AFPWorshipper to Spooky, AFPfiance to Sarah (Nanny Ogg) pia & Esmeraldus.
AFPUncle to James Vaughan. You cannot value friends as pennies,
nor can you replace them as easily (Spooky in email, Aug 2001.)
GaryN
news:UZt%m.705$ay....@newsfe02.iad:
> Nigel Stapley wrote:
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are
>>> only 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>
>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>
>>
<snip>
>
> If there are only nine or ten of us left, I'm coming back into the
> group with all my accustomed caustic irascibility. That means I
> reserve the right from now on to tell somebody to fuck off and die and
> then not ban myself from the group.
Oh Bugger! See what you've done now April! There I was being the leading
proponent of swearing on the group and now you've convinced a past master
to rejoin...:-)
> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
Fair doo's, call a spade a spade, unless it's a fucking shovel.
> You have been warned.
>
> -Rocky Frisco
Good to see you back Rocky.
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:hhl3qa
> $2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
>
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>> I'm doing my best...
>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>
>
> For what?
>
> In the 100yard sprint?
No, we don't come last, we always come fourth.
Lesley Weston
> "Lesley Weston" wrote ...
>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
> <snip>
>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>
>
> I think so. I can never remember whether or not Hawaii is
> after us or lumped in with New Zealand as part of the first.
Actually, I checked. It looks like Alaska comes after us, but they're
America so they don't count. My father is still in the rehab place after
his hip replacement. They had a New Year's party and watched New York's
countdown, since that was at 9.00 pm local time.
>
> But we got to watch Air Farce last night, so that's okay. :)
We taped it but we haven't watched it yet. Looking forward to it.
Lesley Weston
If that means that you won't keep disappearing, then I'm all for it.
>
> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
Oh come on! My father is 90 and has just had his hip replaced. He's now
talking about what will happen when he needs the replacement replaced in
twenty years.
Nigel Stapley
> GaryN wrote:
>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:hhl3qa
>> $2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
>>
>>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>> I'm doing my best...
>>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>>
>>
>> For what?
>>
>> In the 100yard sprint?
>
> No, we don't come last, we always come fourth.
>
Except when chemically assisted.
Rocky Frisco
> Rocky Frisco <webm...@liberty-in-our-time.com> wrote in
> news:UZt%m.705$ay....@newsfe02.iad:
>
>> Nigel Stapley wrote:
>>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are
>>>> only 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>>
>>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>>
> <snip>
>> If there are only nine or ten of us left, I'm coming back into the
>> group with all my accustomed caustic irascibility. That means I
>> reserve the right from now on to tell somebody to fuck off and die and
>> then not ban myself from the group.
>
> Oh Bugger! See what you've done now April! There I was being the leading
> proponent of swearing on the group and now you've convinced a past master
> to rejoin...:-)
Thanks for upholding the Standard while I was away, Grasshopper.
>> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
>> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
>
> Fair doo's, call a spade a spade, unless it's a fucking shovel.
We can't say that in Murkia, since "spade" is a euphemism for the n-word.
>> You have been warned.
>>
>> -Rocky Frisco
>
> Good to see you back Rocky.
Thank you, my friend. I promise to keep it interesting.
Rocky Frisco
I have sworn off leaving for 2010.
>> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
>> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
>
> Oh come on! My father is 90 and has just had his hip replaced. He's now
> talking about what will happen when he needs the replacement replaced in
> twenty years.
It's not the years, Les, it's the miles, or in my case the light years.
Rocky Frisco
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> GaryN wrote:
>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:hhl3qa
>>> $2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
>>>
>>>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>> I'm doing my best...
>>>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>>>
>>>
>>> For what?
>>>
>>> In the 100yard sprint?
>>
>> No, we don't come last, we always come fourth.
>>
>
> Except when chemically assisted.
"Come Forth!"
Nigel Stapley
> GaryN wrote:
>>
>> Oh Bugger! See what you've done now April! There I was being the
>> leading proponent of swearing on the group and now you've convinced a
>> past master to rejoin...:-)
>
> Thanks for upholding the Standard while I was away, Grasshopper.
>
Does that mean that Gary can take those ping-pong balls out of his eye
sockets now?
Rocky Frisco
> Rocky Frisco wrote:
>> GaryN wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Oh Bugger! See what you've done now April! There I was being the
>>> leading proponent of swearing on the group and now you've convinced a
>>> past master to rejoin...:-)
>>
>> Thanks for upholding the Standard while I was away, Grasshopper.
>>
>
> Does that mean that Gary can take those ping-pong balls out of his eye
> sockets now?
What? And stop looking like Little Orphan Annie?
From Mad magazine: "Shut up, or I'll paint dots on your eyeballs."
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> Rocky Frisco wrote:
<snip>
>>> If there are only nine or ten of us left, I'm coming back into the
>>> group with all my accustomed caustic irascibility. That means I
>>> reserve the right from now on to tell somebody to fuck off and die
>>> and then not ban myself from the group.
>>
>> If that means that you won't keep disappearing, then I'm all for it.
>
> I have sworn off leaving for 2010.
Good! I hope this one lasts better than most New Year's resolutions.
>
>>> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
>>> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
>>
>> Oh come on! My father is 90 and has just had his hip replaced. He's
>> now talking about what will happen when he needs the replacement
>> replaced in twenty years.
>
> It's not the years, Les, it's the miles, or in my case the light years.
There's many a vintage car can outrun this year's model.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> GaryN wrote:
>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:hhl3qa
>>> $2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
>>>
>>>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>> I'm doing my best...
>>>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>>>
>>>
>>> For what?
>>>
>>> In the 100yard sprint?
>>
>> No, we don't come last, we always come fourth.
>>
>
> Except when chemically assisted.
>
your Russians.
Free Lunch
<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
>Nigel Stapley wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>> GaryN wrote:
>>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in news:hhl3qa
>>>> $2p6h$2...@mud.stack.nl:
>>>>
>>>>> April Goodwin-Smith wrote:
>>>>>> I can't believe it - I've been away for eight days and there are only
>>>>>> 68 messages. Are you guys feeling okay, or what?
>>>>> I'm doing my best...
>>>>>> In any case: Happy New Year to you all!.
>>>>> Yes indeed! Are we really the last place?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For what?
>>>>
>>>> In the 100yard sprint?
>>>
>>> No, we don't come last, we always come fourth.
>>>
>>
>> Except when chemically assisted.
>>
>He was Jamaican. And anyway, our Russians are better hockey-players than
>your Russians.
I remember when you didn't need Russians to play good hockey.
CCA
> Don't know why, but there appears to be only about nine or ten of us
> left. Whether this is due to ISPs dropping Usenet, the supposed primacy
> of LJ, Facebook, Twitter and all that cods, or just the attrition of
> time, I don't know.
I think it's been a number of factors. For me, it was mainly a
combination of
a) No threads to which I felt I could make a contribution
b) Lack of fun threads. (Anyone remember afper jeopardy? That was
fun!)
c) Lack of people likely to respond to a fun thread (as far as I could
tell, anyway)
d) People I knew well had drifted away.
Anyway, let's hope it won't be that way in the New Year.
CCA
CCA
wrote:
> I have LJ, but it's not the same as AFP. I sometimes have
> facebook, but can't really stand it. And I've not been posting in
> the last couple of months because life has been rather shitty to
> me, and I couldn't get motivated to do anything.
Livejournal has its advantages in that you can pretty much do and say
what you want with your 'space', without having to adhere to any
unwritten rules that may be around. The large disadvantage is that,
within a few days, your post is so far down people's friends pages
that it gets forgotten, which is a shame.
Facebook is fine for short messages, but I know a lot of people get
irritated at certain aspects of it, especially the applications.
(Incidentally, you can hide those if you want to.)
Twitter is okay, but the 140 character limit puts me off a bit (plus
the fact that it's *very* slow on this computer! It's okay on my own
one, but I do most of my internet use on my parents' one, especially
when it's flipping cold upstairs...)
#afp (and other IRC channels too) is great, but a lot of people find
the 'real time' format a bit hard to keep up with when it's busy.
Plus, it can become hard to get a word in edgeways when most of the
chat is based around something you can't really make a decent
contribution to - like, for me, cars. (In other words, just like a
real-life conversation, only between quite a lot of people). Plus, a
lot of people prefer having the time to consider what they say before
they post it, which you don't really have on IRC unless the
conversation is slow.
CCA
CCA
wrote:
> I haven't tried LJ, but Facebook is a lot of fun, mainly to do with
> farming. A rather sanitised form of farming where harvesting turkeys
> means collecting their feathers.
Farmville is just one Facebook application. There are many, many
more. (You can hide these if you'd prefer your friends list not to be
full of '(Name) has a new exhibit in Zooville' or whatever)
Facebook itself is more comparable to blogging and networking at the
same time. Like Livejournal, but more widely used.
CCA
GaryN
> GaryN wrote:
>> Rocky Frisco <webm...@liberty-in-our-time.com> wrote in
>> news:UZt%m.705$ay....@newsfe02.iad:
<snip>
>> Fair doo's, call a spade a spade, unless it's a fucking shovel.
>
> We can't say that in Murkia, since "spade" is a euphemism for the
> n-word.
Yeah - I realised after I'd sent it. The sentence is actually a
combination of the last two lines of an oldish joke in UKia.
<start The contemplative routine of the convent was being disrupted by
the presence of workmen converting the electrical service from overhead
lines to buried cable. Mother Superior called the electric company's
complaint department to ask for help.
"The profanity these men use constantly is unsuitable for our community.
You must make them stop cursing so much.", said the nun.
"Very well, sister. But you must make allowances for their habits. Even
when they are trying to be tactful, they will still tend to call a spade
a spade.", said the company spokeswoman.
Mother superior then observed, "No they don't they call it a fucking
shovel" end>
Although it begs the question: What do USian servicemen call a
collapsible/folding spade as carried on the side of a Bergen (or
whatever pack GIs use)?
Somehow "Please launch ballistically in my direction the folding
manually operated earth inverting device, foxhole digging for the use
of."
sounds a lot more hard work than
"Chuck us a spade Fred" :-)
I know it's officially an 'entrenching tool' but I've never met anyone,
of any race, colour or creed in the British forces who called it
anything but a spade. Possibly because that particular perjorative term
isn't in wide use in UKia - to us all foreigners other than the Frogs,
Krauts and Spics are Wogs if we intend to be insulting. In fact IME you
don't often hear the n word over here either. Different social paradigm
I suppose.
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lizzy Taylor
> I know it's officially an 'entrenching tool' but I've never met anyone,
> of any race, colour or creed in the British forces who called it
> anything but a spade. Possibly because that particular perjorative term
> isn't in wide use in UKia - to us all foreigners other than the Frogs,
> Krauts and Spics are Wogs if we intend to be insulting. In fact IME you
> don't often hear the n word over here either. Different social paradigm
> I suppose.
My ex-army colleague also uses the term "towel heads".
Lizzy
Lesley Weston
I remember when this were all fields. I've actually heard someone say
that, except that, this being Vancouver, she said "bush", not "fields".
Lesley Weston
> On Jan 1, 3:17�pm, Lesley Weston <brightly_coloured_b...@yahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> I haven't tried LJ, but Facebook is a lot of fun, mainly to do with
>> farming. A rather sanitised form of farming where harvesting turkeys
>> means collecting their feathers.
>
> Farmville is just one Facebook application. There are many, many
> more.
Oh, I know! I'm playing Lexulous with April [1] and not playing a whole
bunch of other games because I'm already spending more time than
actually exists sitting at this computer. I'll send you a Canada Goose
if you like, or maybe just stick to the Pink Presents.
> (You can hide these if you'd prefer your friends list not to be
> full of '(Name) has a new exhibit in Zooville' or whatever)
I was telling it not to post those notices until I discovered that other
players could get bonuses from them.
[1] She always wins.
GaryN
news:4b420776$0$2539$da0f...@news.zen.co.uk:
I remember "Ragheads" being used by a friend in the RAF Regiment early
in this stupid war.
I think part of it, in conflict, is the need to define "Us" and "Them".
Most people aren't very good at killing other people unless under direct
threat so dehumanising the enemy is a major part of the whole process.
UKians have fought the French, Germans (usually in defence of the
French) and Spanish so often in history that the epithets come easily;
the various peoples subdued under the Empire don't seem to have got a
specific because we largely walked over them (don't get me wrong, I'm
not necessarily proud of that).
In fact the only people we've fought but don't seem to have a specific
name for is the Dutch, despite two Anglo-Dutch wars. Possibly because
of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_the_Medway
which was embarrasing - maybe we're trying to forget...
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lesley Weston
<snip>
> I know it's officially an 'entrenching tool' but I've never met anyone,
> of any race, colour or creed in the British forces who called it
> anything but a spade. Possibly because that particular perjorative term
> isn't in wide use in UKia - to us all foreigners other than the Frogs,
> Krauts and Spics are Wogs if we intend to be insulting. In fact IME you
> don't often hear the n word over here either. Different social paradigm
> I suppose.
"Spade" used to be widely used to describe people of African descent (is
that this week's PC term?), at least in southern England, but it was
never pejorative. I expect there were plenty of people who wanted to
insult them, England being the way it is, but they used other words to
do so; "spade" was just a simple descriptive term. I agree about the
n-word, though.
Sabremeister Brian
Xns9CF6932C35A6Bg...@212.23.3.119,
I would have thought Dagoes would have been more usual here than
Spics, having heard Spics mostly only on USAlien shows.
--
www.sabremeister.me.uk
www.livejournal.com/users/sabremeister/
Use brian at sabremeister dot me dot uk to reply
Sign on a gate:
"Sod the Dog -
Beware of the Kids!"
Kevin Wells
GaryN <ga...@scaryriders.com> wrote:
>
>In fact the only people we've fought but don't seem to have a specific
>name for is the Dutch, despite two Anglo-Dutch wars.
Cloggies?
--
Kev Wells http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
http://kevsoft.co.uk/ http://kevsoft.co.uk/AleQuest/
ICQ 238580561
Useless Fact 02 In the artic the sun sometimes appears to be square.
Dom
> CCA wrote:
>>
>> Farmville is just one Facebook application. There are many, many
>> more.
>
> Oh, I know! I'm playing Lexulous with April [1] and not playing a whole
> bunch of other games because I'm already spending more time than
> actually exists sitting at this computer.
Is Lexulous the replacement for the Scrabble(TM) equivalent? I used
to play that occasionally via the Scrabulous website (I don't use
Facebook at all, I just stick to LJ). It was fun.
[1] NMF
--
Dom
Nigel Stapley
> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>
Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
"We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
Rocky Frisco
> Rocky Frisco wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>> Rocky Frisco wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>>> If there are only nine or ten of us left, I'm coming back into the
>>>> group with all my accustomed caustic irascibility. That means I
>>>> reserve the right from now on to tell somebody to fuck off and die
>>>> and then not ban myself from the group.
>>>
>>> If that means that you won't keep disappearing, then I'm all for it.
>>
>> I have sworn off leaving for 2010.
>
> Good! I hope this one lasts better than most New Year's resolutions.
>>
>>>> I'm ten years older than Terry and currently hovering on the edge of
>>>> oblivion, so I'm not about to censor myself in the time I have left.
>>>
>>> Oh come on! My father is 90 and has just had his hip replaced. He's
>>> now talking about what will happen when he needs the replacement
>>> replaced in twenty years.
>>
>> It's not the years, Les, it's the miles, or in my case the light years.
>
> There's many a vintage car can outrun this year's model.
That's definitely true of Minis.
Rocky Frisco
Some of my friends in the military use "rag-head" and some even use
"sand-n-word." Some call all desert people "Hadjii."
If you habitually show contempt and disrespect for certain people, it
seems to make it easier to kill them.
Rocky Frisco
Murkia has lots of pejoratives for the Dutch: "Dutch Rub," "Dutch
Treat," "In Dutch," etc.
Rocky Frisco
> GaryN wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I know it's officially an 'entrenching tool' but I've never met
>> anyone, of any race, colour or creed in the British forces who called
>> it anything but a spade. Possibly because that particular perjorative
>> term isn't in wide use in UKia - to us all foreigners other than the
>> Frogs, Krauts and Spics are Wogs if we intend to be insulting. In
>> fact IME you don't often hear the n word over here either. Different
>> social paradigm I suppose.
>
> "Spade" used to be widely used to describe people of African descent (is
> that this week's PC term?), at least in southern England, but it was
> never pejorative. I expect there were plenty of people who wanted to
> insult them, England being the way it is, but they used other words to
> do so; "spade" was just a simple descriptive term. I agree about the
> n-word, though.
Murkia: "Black as the Ace of Spades."
Rocky Frisco
In Darkest Murkia, "spic" is Spanish, while "Dago" or "Wop" or
"Guinea" is Italian.
There is a very funny short story, "Pigs Is Pigs," written by Ellis
Parker Butler. First published as a short story in The American
Magazine in September 1905, It's based on a disagreement about Guinea
Pigs, which the main protagonist calls "Dago Pigs."
It's worth looking up.
Free Lunch
<webm...@liberty-in-our-time.com> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:
I grew up in a heavily Dutch area. "Hollander" was the dismissive name
of choice.
Nigel Stapley
Tell her to stop wearing one then.
SteveD
>Livejournal has its advantages in that you can pretty much do and say
>what you want with your 'space', without having to adhere to any
>unwritten rules that may be around.
Welcome to LiveJournal!
1) No icons depicting breastfeeding.
2) Journals and communities which have any connections with "underage" and
"romance", including posts of fanfic for practically any teen series, may
be randomly mass-deleted without warning because they are obviously
distributors of child pornography.
3) Your journal or community may be tagged by anyone else in the world as
adults-only. Even if it has nothing in it above a G rating. You cannot
untag it. Ever.
4) You may be banned and/or your journal or community deleted without
warning.
5) If we say we will never, ever do something (put advertising on your
journal; ditch the original creators; sell LJ to Russian interests), it
means we're in the process of working out how to do it right now.
6) Search results may be altered or filtered without indication, warning,
or consistency.
7) Communities where anyone, even a non-regular, posts anything (even
once) which someone claiming to represent an American business interest
complains about, shall be completely and entirely deleted without warning.
This applies even if the community has nothing to do with the posted
content, the poster was an anonymous sockpuppet journal, and the community
has existed for years without any complaints.
8) TOS content and enforcement shall be random.
9) You have no avenues of appeal.
LiveJournal's lack of user consultation and history of introducing
massively unpopular policies and changes is so well-known that when a
rumor went around recently that all users would be forced to identify
themselves as male or female, it was swallowed hook line and sinker.
Because it's /precisely/ the kind of ill-advised stupidity that
LiveJournal management is famous for.
-SteveD
GaryN
d_WnZ2dnU...@brightview.co.uk:
> A.Reader wrote:
>
>> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>>
>
> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>
> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>
> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>
I thought the Spanish were Spics and the Italians Dagoes (or possibly
Wops)? Ho Hum.
*Note for anyone lurking:
Welcome to afp where we can entertain ourselves for days trying to work out
which insults apply to members of which nation, according to which nation
you come from. It's all language and therefore within our remit.
gary
--
DILLIGAF
CCA
> On Mon, 4 Jan 2010 04:53:53 -0800 (PST), CCA <sphira9...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Livejournal has its advantages in that you can pretty much do and say
> >what you want with your 'space', without having to adhere to any
> >unwritten rules that may be around.
> Welcome to LiveJournal!
>
> 1) No icons depicting breastfeeding.
(snip other Livejournal constraints)
Yes, good points.
The 'unwritten rules' I was thinking of, with regard to Usenet, are
mainly things that have been levelled at various afp friends of mine
over the years, including myself. For instance, using afp (and
probably other newsgroups too) to talk about your personal life has
become something of a no-no, whereas on Livejournal people do it all
the time. (Though I take your point about journals being tagged as
Adults Only by a third party)
CCA
GaryN
> GaryN wrote:
<snip>
>> In fact the only people we've fought but don't seem to have a
>> specific name for is the Dutch, despite two Anglo-Dutch wars.
>> Possibly because of:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_the_Medway
>>
>> which was embarrasing - maybe we're trying to forget...
>
> Murkia has lots of pejoratives for the Dutch: "Dutch Rub," "Dutch
> Treat," "In Dutch," etc.
Those are all descriptive of a process or service though, like "Going
Dutch" for sharing the bill for a date. I'm not aware of any
derogatory/diminutive term for the Dutch. We've even got one for the
Belgian Sprout-Eaters; whose only function in European wars is to get
invaded whilst an army is on the way somewhere else.
Maybe we should make one up:-)
gary
--
DILLIGAF
GaryN
Does that mean that you can't buy Motorhead albums in USia?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6401215701212562265#
I thought the 'Young Ones' performance might be more fun than the original.
Yez can all find the original somewhere on the Wibbly Wobbly Web...;-)
Still one of the best heavy metal tracks ever.
gary
--
DILLIGAF
GaryN
<snip>
> I remember when this were all fields. I've actually heard someone say
> that, except that, this being Vancouver, she said "bush", not
> "fields".
Depilated in certain areas is she?...;-)
gary
--
DILLIGAF
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> CCA wrote:
>>> Farmville is just one Facebook application. There are many, many
>>> more.
>> Oh, I know! I'm playing Lexulous with April [1] and not playing a whole
>> bunch of other games because I'm already spending more time than
>> actually exists sitting at this computer.
>
> Is Lexulous the replacement for the Scrabble(TM) equivalent?
I think so, it certainly seems to be Scrabble.
> I used
> to play that occasionally via the Scrabulous website (I don't use
> Facebook at all, I just stick to LJ). It was fun.
It is.
Nigel Stapley
> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote in news:Msadncm_DKsH-
> d_WnZ2dnU...@brightview.co.uk:
>
>> A.Reader wrote:
>>
>>> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>>>
>> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>>
>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>
>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>>
>
> I thought the Spanish were Spics and the Italians Dagoes (or possibly
> Wops)? Ho Hum.
My understanding is that 'Spic' comes from the phrase "No speak-a di
English!" (supposedly much used by first generation Italian immigrants),
and that 'Dago' is a corruption of 'Diego'.
>
> *Note for anyone lurking:
>
> Welcome to afp where we can entertain ourselves for days trying to work out
> which insults apply to members of which nation, according to which nation
> you come from. It's all language and therefore within our remit.
>
A necessary caveat, I think.
Kevin Wells
Rocky Frisco <webm...@liberty-in-our-time.com> wrote:
>
>If you habitually show contempt and disrespect for certain people, it
>seems to make it easier to kill them.
>
Or it is easier to show contempt and disrespect for certain people if
they are trying to kill you.
--
Kev Wells http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
http://kevsoft.co.uk/ http://kevsoft.co.uk/AleQuest/
ICQ 238580561
Its nice to be important but Important to be nice.
Rocky Frisco
I ain't Belgian, but I LURVE sprouts!
On the way to the Mini Meet some years ago, we stopped in a Pizza
place in Belgium. I ordered by pointing to a veggie pizza on the menu.
When the painfully attractive brunette waitress pointed at my leftover
pizza at the end of the meal and raised her eyebrows, I said "Doggy
bag?" She wagged her finger at me and corrected me: "Bunny bag," she said.
Rocky Frisco
> In message <vjv0n.733$AO4...@newsfe02.iad>
> Rocky Frisco <webm...@liberty-in-our-time.com> wrote:
>
>> If you habitually show contempt and disrespect for certain people, it
>> seems to make it easier to kill them.
>>
>
> Or it is easier to show contempt and disrespect for certain people if
> they are trying to kill you.
That too, I suspect.
SteveD
>The 'unwritten rules' I was thinking of, with regard to Usenet, are
>mainly things that have been levelled at various afp friends of mine
>over the years, including myself. For instance, using afp (and
>probably other newsgroups too) to talk about your personal life has
>become something of a no-no
First I've heard, but I've only been on usenet for fourteen years...
Lizzy Taylor
> On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 04:49:56 -0800 (PST),
> CCA <sphir...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> For instance, using afp (and
>> probably other newsgroups too) to talk about your personal life has
>> become something of a no-no,
>
> loonies, isn't it? It's not 'belt up 'cos we don't want to
> know'. Or at least I've never seen any such uncharitable
> reaction (perhaps I don't move in the wrong circles?).
Some newsgroups are VERY fussy about off topic posting and thread drift,
others less so. IME afp uses tags - but rarely retitles threads once
they have drifted (which can mean reading a lot of unnecessary guff),
rctq (another of my haunts) uses "OT" as a marker and usually retitles
threads so you can easily see the branch you want to follow (or ignore).
Lizzy
Richard Bos
> On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:03:53 -0600, Rocky Frisco
>
> >Murkia has lots of pejoratives for the Dutch: "Dutch Rub," "Dutch
> >Treat," "In Dutch," etc.
>
> I grew up in a heavily Dutch area. "Hollander" was the dismissive name
> of choice.
Believe me, in the rest of the Netherlands, "Hollander" can be a
pejorative as well, just as "Englishman" can be in Scotland.
Richard
Richard Bos
> GaryN <ga...@scaryriders.com> wrote:
>
> >In fact the only people we've fought but don't seem to have a specific
> >name for is the Dutch, despite two Anglo-Dutch wars.
>
> Cloggies?
I don't think I've ever seen that used outside Usenet. Come to think of
it, I don't think I've seen it outside AFP and the Shedde.
Richard
Richard Bos
> A.Reader wrote:
>
> > I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>
> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>
> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>
> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
or one Italian and two Spanish?
Richard
[1] Don't ask a Dutchman why anyone would _need_ a nickname for them,
since plain "Belgian" is a term of mockery in itself...
Nigel Stapley
> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> A.Reader wrote:
>>
>>> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>>
>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>
>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>
> She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
>
> Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
> Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
> or one Italian and two Spanish?
>
It could be that 'wogs' is a reference to Portugal (for whom I don't
think the Brits have a specific pejorative - 'sardines' doesn't fit the
bill, apart from having the 'wrong' derivation). And, as I stated
elsewhere on the fred, 'Spics' is Italians and 'Dagoes' Spanish.
Lizzy Taylor
>
> Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
> Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
> or one Italian and two Spanish?
>
> Richard
>
> [1] Don't ask a Dutchman why anyone would _need_ a nickname for them,
> since plain "Belgian" is a term of mockery in itself...
This is pretty comprehensive, but still nothing particular for Belgians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_slur
Lizzy
Lesley Weston
> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> A.Reader wrote:
>>
>>> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>>
>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>
>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>
> She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
>
> Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
> Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
> or one Italian and two Spanish?
WOGs were Western Oriental Gentleman originally, so Middle Eastern and
thus not in the Common market anyway. But it later came to mean anybody
foreign, as in "Wogs begin at Dover", so she's still got it wrong.
Doesn't stop the original joke being funny, though all this analysis might.
steveski
I always thought that 'spic' was a term for Greeks. Years ago, two of my
flatmates had Greek boyfriends and that's what they, jokingly, referred to
them as.
--
Steveski
Kevin Wells
ral...@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) wrote:
>Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> A.Reader wrote:
>>
>> > I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>>
>> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>>
>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>
>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>
>She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
>
>Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
>Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
>or one Italian and two Spanish?
>
>Richard
Wog
Westernised Oriental Gentleman.
>
>[1] Don't ask a Dutchman why anyone would _need_ a nickname for them,
> since plain "Belgian" is a term of mockery in itself...
--
Kev Wells http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
http://kevsoft.co.uk/ http://kevsoft.co.uk/AleQuest/
ICQ 238580561
Real Stupidity beat Artificial Intelligence 11 times out of 10.
Rocky Frisco
> Richard Bos wrote:
>> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
>>
>>> A.Reader wrote:
>>>
>>>> I fort Dagoes, like Wops, wuz Eye-talians.
>>> Nah, Dagoes is Spanish.
>>>
>>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>>
>>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and Dagoes."
>>
>> She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
>>
>> Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks are
>> Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all Spanish,
>> or one Italian and two Spanish?
>
> WOGs were Western Oriental Gentleman originally, so Middle Eastern and
> thus not in the Common market anyway. But it later came to mean anybody
> foreign, as in "Wogs begin at Dover", so she's still got it wrong.
> Doesn't stop the original joke being funny, though all this analysis might.
Worthy Oriental Gentlemen, no?
Alec Cawley
So far as I assign any meaning to such words, to me "wogs" would be from
the Eastern or Southern Mediterranean: a general dismissive term for
everyone from Turkey to Morocco, put possibly most strongly Egyptians.
Alec Cawley
> Wog
>
> Westernised Oriental Gentleman.
A back-formation. Hence variant of "Wily O. G".
Daibhid Ceanaideach
wrote:
> Richard Bos wrote:
>> Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
>>> I've quoted it before, but back in the dim-and-distant, the
>>> impressionist Janet Brown (doing - as it were - M. Thatcher) had the
>>> following line in a sketch on "The News Huddlines":
>>>
>>> "We must remember that the Common Market doesn't just include us. It
>>> also includes Wogs, Frogs, Krauts, Sprouts, Micks, Spics and
>>> Dagoes."
>>
>> She's got a double in there, doesn't she?
>>
>> Frogs are French, Krauts are Germans, Sprouts are Belgians[1], Micks
>> are Irish, IIRC... but surely Wogs, Spics and Dagoes are either all
>> Spanish, or one Italian and two Spanish?
>
> WOGs were Western Oriental Gentleman originally, so Middle Eastern and
> thus not in the Common market anyway. But it later came to mean
> anybody foreign, as in "Wogs begin at Dover", so she's still got it
> wrong. Doesn't stop the original joke being funny, though all this
> analysis might.
I'm wondering if the confusion is that, I think, "wop" was a term for
Italians. Presumably the Huddlines elided it to "wog" because it rhymed
with "frog".
--
Dave
There's an old Earth saying. A phrase full of power and wisdom, and
consolation to the soul in times of need. Allons-y!
Nigel Stapley
This seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation.
Chris Zakes
I don't think so. "Wog" has been used as a term for foreigners/lower
classes long before that show.
Two specific examples:
In "The Magic Christian" (1969) there's a scene where a doctor offers
one of the passnegers a "calming herbal remedy" to smoke. The
passenger takes one puff, denounces it as "bloody wog hemp" and throws
it on the floor.
In Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast" the native Martians (who are
basically right on the border between humans and animals, and used as
slaves) are called wogs by the ruling British colony.
-Chris Zakes
Texas
Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after
being drunk all night.
-Isaac Asimov
Nigel Stapley
In the context that I've described (the sketch), Daibhid's explanation
fits best.
Lesley Weston
I don't think class comes into it. In both these examples "wog" means
"non-European and therefore inferior". It's odd that we can all use this
word here and not worry about it, when none of us would dream of using
the n-word.
GaryN
<snip>
> I don't think class comes into it. In both these examples "wog" means
> "non-European and therefore inferior". It's odd that we can all use
> this word here and not worry about it, when none of us would dream of
> using the n-word.
>
Possibly because 'nigger' describes and derogates (is that a word) a
specific skin colour in a person. 'Wog' is just a general "Not one of us"
appelation. It's non-specific, anyone who isn't us is a wog.
If you have read Spike Milligan's war memoirs there is a lot of reference
to 'wogs' ie: "Pinned down by mortars at Wogdog farm". There is nothing
insulting or malicious in the usage - it's just us and them.
It is also important to remember that the appelation can also be a term of
acceptance - how often do you say "I'm going for a Chinky takeaway"? The
Chinese have quietly inserted themselves into our society without kicking
and shouting about their rights. They just work hard for long hours and
mind their own business. When did you last see a Chinaman protesting for
equal rights?
gary
--
DILLIGAF
SteveD
>When did you last see a Chinaman protesting for equal rights?
Do Tibetans count?
Daibhid Ceanaideach
Yeah, but usually non-Europeans which, as others have said, doesn't fit
the context.
Brian Howlett
> Do Tibetans count?
Only to four, Grasshopper.
--
Brian Howlett - Email to From: address deleted unseen
---------------------------------------------------------
Now is the time for all good men to come to. (Walt Kelly)
Rocky Frisco
Snopes says we are all wrong and that nobody knows where it came from.
Snopes is, of course, not infallible.
Rocky Frisco
And Peter Sellers picks it back up and he and Ringo go off to smoke it.
Chris Zakes
What, that they changed "wop" to "wog" just to make it rhyme? That
seems silly to me.
How many "foreigners" *are* there in Europe these days? isn't France
having trouble with Algerian immigrants? And Germany with Turkish
folks? Maybe they were talking about *those* people.
Thomas Zahr
No
--
Cheers,
Thomas =:-)
Nigel Stapley
We're talking about a *comedy* sketch here.
>
> How many "foreigners" *are* there in Europe these days? isn't France
> having trouble with Algerian immigrants? And Germany with Turkish
> folks? Maybe they were talking about *those* people.
Everyone's a foreigner somewhere.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
We're not talking about these days - we're talking about the days when
the News Huddlines was on, and Thatcher was PM. That's about twenty years
ago now.
And the point of the sketch was that Maggie was being portrayed as racist
*against our brothers in Europe*. Not against ethnic groups that had
*entered* Europe, but against the other European states themselves.
Lesley Weston
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> news:hi4qom$2e10$1...@mud.stack.nl:
>
> <snip>
>> I don't think class comes into it. In both these examples "wog" means
>> "non-European and therefore inferior". It's odd that we can all use
>> this word here and not worry about it, when none of us would dream of
>> using the n-word.
>>
>
> Possibly because 'nigger'
OK, none of us but you, and you don't actually mean it that way.
> describes and derogates (is that a word) a
> specific skin colour in a person. 'Wog' is just a general "Not one of us"
> appelation. It's non-specific, anyone who isn't us is a wog.
Though since it started as Western Oriental Gentleman, it's more
specific than that and does imply skin colour, I think; "Wogs begin at
Dover" has always been a joke and was intended that way.
>
> If you have read Spike Milligan's war memoirs there is a lot of reference
> to 'wogs' ie: "Pinned down by mortars at Wogdog farm". There is nothing
> insulting or malicious in the usage - it's just us and them.
Not malicious perhaps, but shirley insulting? He's talking about the
people he's trying to kill and who are trying to kill him, and being the
sensitive soul he was that meant he had to derogate [1] them.
>
> It is also important to remember that the appelation can also be a term of
> acceptance - how often do you say "I'm going for a Chinky takeaway"?
Never.
> The
> Chinese have quietly inserted themselves into our society without kicking
> and shouting about their rights. They just work hard for long hours and
> mind their own business. When did you last see a Chinaman protesting for
> equal rights?
Last year, and that's only because it's so early in January. Canada has
a special situation in that until far too recently there was a
substantial head tax charged on Chinese (and only Chinese) immigrants,
and not too long before that Chinese women were not allowed into the
country at all. The descendants of the head-tax payers (and in some
cases the payers themselves, it was that recent) are demanding a public
apology and the refunding of the tax, with interest. This seems
reasonable to me but not to many Canadians, so they've had their
apology, which costs nothing, but it doesn't look like they'll get their
refunds, even without interest.
Oh, and we don't say "Chinaman" in Canada. The head of one of the
Chinese Friendly Societies here referred to himself in a speech as a
Chinaman, and got shit from Left, Right and everything in between. He
stuck to his guns on the grounds that he is a man and he is Chinese.
[1] My spillchucker doesn't mind this, so you must have picked a real word.
Nigel Stapley
> GaryN wrote:
>> If you have read Spike Milligan's war memoirs there is a lot of
>> reference to 'wogs' ie: "Pinned down by mortars at Wogdog farm".
>> There is nothing insulting or malicious in the usage - it's just us
>> and them.
>
> Not malicious perhaps, but shirley insulting? He's talking about the
> people he's trying to kill and who are trying to kill him, and being the
> sensitive soul he was that meant he had to derogate them.
Insulting possibly, but 'wogs' was the generic term used for the Arabs
of North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia) where Milligan was at the time. Most
of those 'wogs' seemed to be on the right side.
Lesley Weston
<snip>
> Everyone's a foreigner somewhere.
>
Only if they travel.
Carol Hague
> GaryN wrote:
> > If you have read Spike Milligan's war memoirs there is a lot of reference
> > to 'wogs' ie: "Pinned down by mortars at Wogdog farm". There is nothing
> > insulting or malicious in the usage - it's just us and them.
>
> Not malicious perhaps, but shirley insulting? He's talking about the
> people he's trying to kill and who are trying to kill him, and being the
> sensitive soul he was that meant he had to derogate [1] them.
No he isn't trying to kill them - this is during the North African
campaign in WWII and the "wogs" Milligan talks of are the non-combatant
natives of the country (I can't remember if it's Algeria or Tunisia off
hand), while the people he's trying to kill are the German Army.
It *is* insulting though, I grant you - the book clearly shows that the
British soldiers perceived the natives as inferior. One hopes that
attitudes have changed a bit since then.
--
Carol. www.mullimages.com
"This might as well say "bing tiddle tiddle bong".
It's complete gibberish," - Rodney McKay, Stargate: Atlantis
GaryN
news:1jc0g4h.1j3d5fstan0n4N%ca...@wrhpv.com:
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> GaryN wrote:
>
>> > If you have read Spike Milligan's war memoirs there is a lot of
>> > reference to 'wogs' ie: "Pinned down by mortars at Wogdog farm".
>> > There is nothing insulting or malicious in the usage - it's just us
>> > and them.
>>
>> Not malicious perhaps, but shirley insulting? He's talking about the
>> people he's trying to kill and who are trying to kill him, and being
>> the sensitive soul he was that meant he had to derogate [1] them.
>
> No he isn't trying to kill them - this is during the North African
> campaign in WWII and the "wogs" Milligan talks of are the
> non-combatant natives of the country (I can't remember if it's Algeria
> or Tunisia off hand), while the people he's trying to kill are the
> German Army.
>
> It *is* insulting though, I grant you - the book clearly shows that
> the British soldiers perceived the natives as inferior. One hopes that
> attitudes have changed a bit since then.
>
I have to disagree. What the books clearly show is that 'Us' (Allied
forces) and 'Them' (Axis forces) were fighting over territory where the
Wogs who didn't give a shit about the whole damn thing lived. It wasn't
*their* war and they would have been very happy for everyone to *FUCK
RIGHT OFF*.
Nobody cared what they thought or wanted - it just happened to be their
countries that were being squabbled over. Why worry what people call
you if you just happen to be in the way and get blown up?[1]
Is there a German word for 'Wog'?
gary
[1]The USian for this is "Collateral Damage"
--
DILLIGAF
Carol Hague
Quite so, and who can blame them? I don't actually see that this
contradicts what I said at all though.
>
> Nobody cared what they thought or wanted - it just happened to be their
> countries that were being squabbled over. Why worry what people call
> you if you just happen to be in the way and get blown up?[1]
Calling them "wogs" was denigratory and, IMO, *meant* to be insulting.
Possibly, as you suggest, those on the receiving end didn't care what
they were called by the two batches of foreigners who were busy knocking
seven bells out of their country, and they very probably had more
inportant things to worry about. That doesn't mean that the British
soldiers didn't despise them, however unfair that may be.
Chris Zakes
Okay, I missed that at the beginning of the discussion. <shrug> I
don't even watch American television; I hope I can be forgiven for not
being familar with British television from 20 years ago.