Language/Slanguage – Allegra Sloman's blog

my favourite swears

When startled, I say, “Shit Fuck Cocksucker!” more or less all as one word. I hardly ever otherwise use the word ‘cocksucker’ in conversation unless we’re talking about ‘Deadwood’, which, if you’ve seen the show, you will agree is a special case.

“Goddammit all to hell.”

“Goddammit.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Please God make it stop.” This is always me being sarcastic, as the concept of a personal God, while useful, is not one I subscribe to. It’s said as all one word.

“Jesus Christ did a shark bite your fucking turn signal off.” Came up with this in traffic one day, it just came out my mouth.

“Shut the fuck up you fishfaced bawbag.” May substitute ‘fuckfaced’, ‘hairy’, ‘diseased’, ‘halfchewed’, ‘unmitigated’ and variants on ‘slimy’, ‘dirty’, ‘muck-encrusted’, ‘ugly’ and words which otherwise indicate total lack of charm. These kinds of exclamations are reserved for villains on tv shows. I have a tough time imagining saying it to someone in real life, for real.

“Christ wept.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” but I only say this when something unexpected and pleasant happens, and add whatever the unexpected and pleasant thing is.

“Christ on a crutch.”

“Fuck that guy right into the sun.”

“JESUS SAVES his roaches ’cause he’s thrifty.”

When I think someone is being an ignorant asshole, I may refer to them as a ‘witless mofo’.

If I think somebody is bringing a little too much toxic masculinity and too thin a skin to the everlovin’ discourse, I may just call him a ‘pindicked scold’. I am well aware this is a gendered slur. I try to be careful of the rooms and spaces I use it in.

I like ‘dickweed’, ‘shitheel’, ‘schmuck’, ‘cockwomble’, ‘bellend’, ‘dogdick’ (from the Russian vernacular). I’ve tried to get rid of ‘bitch’, but I still say ‘dirty great cow’ in reference to women I hold in disfavour a great deal more than I should which is candidly not at all. I may refer to a lazy incompetent as a ‘slack-ass(ed) ho’, too, so I drag sex workers into my misogyny when I swear sometimes.

list tickle

Alex today hopefully

Paul to an appointment hopefully

Me to eat a vegetable hopefully (part of my whole disordered eating cycle is bouts of time when I can’t face vegetables; it’s meat, sweets, fats, dairy, nuts, carbs and I simply do not want to prepare or eat anything else.)

Marian Martin in 1943 in a devilishly good costume. Scanged from reddit.

Participated in THE CANADIAN ENGLISH SURVEY FROM MCGILL.

you can too!!

CANADIAN ENGLISH IS WEIRD AF YO!

early quaker names from Isabella Rosner on Twitter

cri de coeur

As sustained and limitless as the human consciousness that presents it:

Catherynne M. Valente on AI and art.

many thoughts one result

Jeff is getting me breakfast today.

Yesterday I was not having a good day (mega understatement) and Katie swooped in, baby in tow (Alex was with his pop, who had a workplace injury (he is luckiernshit that he didn’t slice a tendon in his hand and it was his day anyway.) Suzanne came in her own car. Katie researched and located a breakfast/all day joint in Maple Ridge called Big Feast Bistro which serves gluten free. (Suzanne is celiac, which now means all her descendants have to be tested for it too.) She got the maple bacon french toast (gluten free) and Katie got the same thing non gluten free. I got the poached eggs on pulled pork and roasted yam hash (MUCH LOUD PRAISING OF GOD) and Ryker pulled his wonderbaby routine on ANYONE WHO WOULD MAKE EYE CONTACT. We were right next to the bathroom (Jeff knows what I’m like when the caffeine hits, although I was smart and just got tea) and the music wasn’t too loud and it was just wonderful.

THEN we went to Whonnock Beach which is absolutely beautiful and given that it was the Thursday before the LHW you’d think it would be jammed. WELL IT WASN’T. There were MAYBE thirty other families there. Nobody was yelling. It was almost beyond belief in how mellow it is. Babby crawled through sand, used his grandmas (genetically Suzanne isn’t but YOU TRY CONVINCING THEM of that) for furniture, fought his teething pain and sleep with equal facility and was in general our beautiful brown-eyed boy. (who stands two inches taller than babies the same age, he will be MONSTROUS Katie is literally saving money to feed him when he’s a teenager given how he eats now with a terrifying, catholic enthusiasm.) Halfway through an icecream truck with gluten free treats showed up. Shoulda seen Suzanne (her hair is pink right now, and god did she get ROASTED by her brotherinlaw at the property a few weeks back when she was the ONLY one of us getting harassed by wasps) book it to the ice cream truck and come back triumphant with her gluten free mango ice lolly.

KATIE IS THE BEST.

Then I came home, ate the last of the meatball sub Jeff got me day before yesterday, watched a bunch of TV including the latest Shetland, and found out that there’s a prequel series to Mystery Road available and watched the first one of that. It’s beautifully shot.

Still can’t get the alien from ‘Nope’ out of my mind. It’s a shape changer and some of its morphs are crazy beautiful. Also scary af.

I am in a much better mood but when I consider how much work I have to do to get my goods whittled down to a single room in size…. I clench.

Made a snarky remark on a post on Twitter day before yesterday. The s/o of the person I critiqued presented an extremely well reasoned request to kill that remark, so I did. Social media is not making me a better person except perhaps by accident.

Took the RAADS self test – 75 score. Test is at the bottom, here, but read the blurbs first. For autistics by autistics.

The ‘many thoughts one result’ = blank stare.

NEED COFFEE

Robot Chicken and Alex Jones

after years of saying we would, Jeff and I are finally rewatching Robot Chicken to make a goodies reel. Jeff, we need to include the danceoff, I changed my mind.
Picture if you will a man who lies for a living. After 9/11, he fused the internet as we mostly now know it to lies about how 9/11 was a ‘false flag’ operation. Many people mostly on the right decided that there was no way 9/11 could have happened UNLESS high government officials and the standard issue global cabal had CAUSED it to happen; this man made money selling dietary supplements (which are also bunkum) to the people who took comfort in this worldview. Many millions of dollars of income later, he said that the shooting deaths of a bunch of children in a school shooting (Sandy Hook) was a false flag operation. That those kids didn’t die. Now, those kids did die, and even though the man who lies for a living knew they didn’t die, and said they didn’t die because people who are against the right to carry guns wanted to change the laws, his attitude toward the truth was not all that great, so the parents sued him for defamation.
he lost. Total amounts owing along the lines of $50 million. Two more lawsuits in a similar vein are coming. His total net worth is in the vicinity of $150 Mil.
perhaps he lost but he’s still very popular, as per “What does the Internet Think” website.
and in case you think this is bullshit, I give you Lee Pace’s results from the same website, BECAUSE NO ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO LEE PACE (ALSO I DO NOT APPEAR ON THIS WEBSITE LOL I CHECKED):
while he was losing his lawyer’s employee accidentally (OR DID SHE LOL) sent two years’ worth of text and email messages from his phone to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers promptly asked the January 6 committee if they wanted the messages, which was truly inconvenient for the man who lies for a living.
and his ex wife Kelly probably will be getting them too. She is – quite rightly – in a custody battle, and now his utter unfitness to have access to his children will soon be a matter of public record. She calls him “truly mentally ill” and a danger to society but what the hell else can you expect from an ex wife hunh?
to recap, Alex Jones is a foam-flecked liar, and now he will be paying for it. It won’t stop him, and he’ll fundraise on it, but at least someone slowed him down for two seconds and between his wife, his involvement with the January 6 traitors and the Sandy Hook parents his wealth will get a shellacking.
Watched ‘Prey’ which is a new film in the Predator franchise GODDAMN I LOVED IT. It’s set in Comanche territory in 1719. The French are the bad guys, just like life’s supposed to be (this is a family joke, not reality.)
That dog was not trained. They had to use that dog because it’s very close to what an Indigenous dog would have looked like at the time, so holy shit the director had to put up with a lot from that dog.
A version completely in Comanche is available.
Watched the new Minions movie. It had a few good laughs and was about standard for the franchise.
I’m feeling quite a bit better, but the weather’s gone hot again so the next couple of days will probably be uncomfortable.
There’s a cat rescue outfit in Vancouver which would rather EUTHANIZE a cat that adopt it out to a transgender person. Infuriating, like it’s a REASON.
1207 words on new section, still going very slow also worked on fanfic ‘landslide’
Watched the Frontline about the people living in Kharkiv for the first three months after the Russian invasion. Very scary, moving and the people there seem admirable in their resolve. The impact of the war on the elderly and disabled is just gross.
For settler saturday consider a donation to Indigenous language revitalization.

Nudes of the world

1. Just a reminder that I am a proud nudist (naturist sounds funny to me, sorry) and that if you really piss me off and I don’t have other recourse I WILL REMOVE GARMENTS. Starting with the legal stuff, and moving on. Since there’s apparently hardly anything that disgusts and freaks out bigots than fat old naked women, I’m keeping that one in reserve. Also, Peter Verigin LIVETH. (This last specifically so mOm can read it to her sister lol)
2. Also, I did not order those copies of “Grandma Was a Nudist” they JUST SHOWED UP HERE.
3. Jeff gets a hall pass. Poor guy. It is true that one of the first things I do when he goes away is walk around the house naked and yodelling (sometimes it’s kazoo, and it’s all very much sad for Buster, who has a demonstrated preference for me remaining clothed since I make a better lap that way and he loathes my music.) (Except in the laundry room, which has a security camera vs the raccoons and since Jeff reviews the security footage once a month I don’t want him clapping his hands over his eyes and going AUGH NOMAN HAS BLINDED ME.)
4. Which is why, although I haven’t been over there for what feels like centuries, and so not recently, the first thing I do when I get to Mike’s is AUGH FREEEEEEDOM. (I even have a cubby for my clothes like at JJ Spa – and Mike’s place IS a spa, at least as far as I’m concerned.) Also he keeps his apartment about 28 degrees, summer and winter and he’s got it set up so you can sunbathe on the balcony year ’round. Sometimes I wave at the neighbours over by the Skytrain station. I don’t know if they’re watching, but you never know, and I don’t imagine anyone I know would ever tell me.
5. Sigh, the salt room at JJ Spa. I MISS IT SO. But with this new COVID wave, nuh-unh.
6. I should probably call Mike.
7. I do very very very occasionally still wear a bra and pantyhose but that’s like a church/weddings/funerals/someone’s paying for a classy dinner scenario.
8. I made Yorkshire Gold Tea for the household (which will end up in the sugar free iced tea, most likely), peppermint tea as a day-opener for Jeff, and coffee for me. Honestly, I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get coffee and sugar and cream all in once place again, so I really try to enjoy it while I can.
9. I played with my Kaossilator yesterday and came up with an ABSOLUTE banger of a beat, 56 bpm / g20/ c_ key/EGY scale/94&96 percussion and yowza. In my life I’ve never spent that little money for a tech toy that brought me this much joy, and Jeff commented that a small child and an elderly adult can both enjoy it!
10. Anyone doing waste water research says the balloon has really gone up for the latest variant.
11. Suzanne’s computer has been scanned and will be returned to her shortly. She got a scare but it’s all good. THANK YOU JEFF.
12. Tanya Basu reporting from Corpus Christi on Twitter: The harassment has real-world consequences. The Corpus Christi area teacher’s union president’s house got shot at earlier this week. School board members are being heckled online. Educators, mostly women & poc, are quitting their profession in droves.
13. There are rumblings of a NEW hemorrhagic fever out of Tanzania; it isn’t Ebola and it isn’t Marburg (so saith local testing with help from WHO) and it’s currently killing about 1 in 3 of the people it infects. Tanzania is one of the countries on earth most lethally affected by mosquitoes. It sure would be good to know what other mammalian reservoirs there are for this bug.
14. Keith and Paul are on the Island visiting various and sundry folks and by reports a mellow and convivial time is being had and mOm was enjoying FOOD DELIVERY what a concept.
15. I sent the first half of Totally Boned to mOm about a hunnert times yesterday. Finally I stripped off all the formatting and re-sent it and now I’m mentally hopping from one foot to the other waiting to hear back. Google mail barfing on a 30k word document just seems like bullshit to me.
16. Forced birth advocates in the US seem to be under the impression that since they repealed Roe v Wade opponents need to shut up and be nice to them and it’s NO ACTUALLY WE’RE GOING TO PROTEST IN FRONT OF YOUR CHURCHES AND THROW RED PAINT ON YOUR VEHICLES AND RUN YOU OUT OF RESTAURANTS AND GIVE YOU AAAAALLLLLL THE CIVILITY YOU RICHLY DESERVE.
17. Putin has signed a bill banning media outlets that don’t recount the Russian War of Aggression against Peaceful and Democratic Ukraine in a way he personally likes, for starters by mentioning that it is, you know, a war. A quote: The application scope of the law covers the adoption of measures against false information dissemination, smearing the Russian Armed Forces’ performance, or disrespectful manifestations towards the Russian Federation’s society, state, and official symbols.
18. LOL
19. David Osland on Twitter this morning, retweeted by Potsherd Man Paul Blinkhorn of Time Team fame: Consider Britain and Saudi Arabia. One has temperatures that exceed 40 degrees, is ruled by a royal family presiding over a corrupt government that is militarily dependent on the US, and openly represses peaceful protest. But Saudi Arabia has its problems too.
20. Wordle in four tries this morning, good lumosity brain workout. *here I am, sighing over having to do mental math* *here I am, trying to get my response time down under 1000 ms* *Here I am, measurably 20 percent less smart than I was in 2014 HEY NUMBAS DON LIE* I find it funny that often, the less I’ve slept the better I do.
21. What happened to US health care? Ronald Regan was elected
22. Jeff reports that at 5 in the morning THE ALLEY IS CRAWLING WITH EXTREMELY LIVELY RATS. Small ones medium ones some as big as yer ‘ead! When he takes Buster for an alley walk he sees them. MANY MANY RATS. ZIP ZIP ZIP.
23. Today I shall read the most recent Capilano Review. It’s a really good literary mag y’all.
24. Weather most fine; a/c still working well.
25. Stomped hard on a Facebook friend yesterday. Women contestants are tired of the pure whites of tennis, and he said IT’S A UNIFORM WEAR IT and I said FOOLISH HUMAN HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PERIOD WHILE BOUNCING UP AND DOWN AND FIRING BALLS AT A 105 FUCKING MPH AT AN OPPONENT yeah I didn’t think so. Siddown and shaddap.
26. 33487 WORDS end of Part I. Part II – Blossom’s return, Steve and Jack get their asses handed to them, Richie shows up just in time to make things a) better b) more dangerous c) more complicated (THANKS RICHIE YOU LITTLE B-) AND MORE SHIT ABOUT EMIGRATING TO CANADA THAN ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT.
27. I love doing research, I end up finding out things that are both hilarious and realllllly unexpected, but I now know that the Fran’s closest to TGH is open 24 hours and then I learned something actually demonstrably useful about how horselaugh bad the March time change is. See below for illustrated figure.
29. that cliff? that’s the cliff your body falls off when there’s a time change. I had never actually seen it represented and HOOO WEEE THERE IT IS. Now imagine you’ve gone to Iceland or whatever and the cliff is literally 8 times taller. And do you know why I saw this data set in the first place? Because I wanted to know the angle of the sun coming in to the side of TGH so I could visualize a scene (last scene in part I.)
30. I learned that plots of land are as low as $40K out by 70 Mile House and it sure would be nice to have a family campground. This is not compatible with my current political leanings so I am irked by my inability to be consistent. If someone else tees it up I’ll help pay for it.

Sleep’s messed up

Off to the library to pick up a book I reserved in July, lol. I was, like, 85th in line.

Galileo drew these after his first glimpse of a moon through a telescope.

The Ukrainian tax office, taking a leaf from its comedian president, has issued a statement about the tax implications of acquiring a Russian tank. Don’t worry, they assure the populace; by the time you get it, it’s not worth much (implication being that it’s been blown to pieces) and it’s not considered a taxable good. Full marks for straight faced ludic nonsense.

More reports of Russians refusing to fight, but the big news is the lengthy file of tanks, half tracks and trucks going into Kyiv, and not moving. Apparently supply is an issue, but what I keep hearing is that Russian boys are holing their gas tanks for the privilege of staying put.

The Russian military is using vacuum bombs (thermobaric bombs) on civilian areas. Mostly people have evacuated but not everyone can. These are bombs that basically turn everything to mush and fix it so even if you’re protected by a wall or building your lungs get mushed.

Reports are overwhelming that Black people who were going to school in Ukraine (a popular destination for med and engineering students from Africa) are being refused entry, food and medical attention at the Polish and Romanian borders. Some of the stories are nauseating and heart-wrenching.

One of the self-funded reporters in Kyiv is a Black man from Chicago, Terrell Jermaine Starr. The amount of racist abuse he’s getting in Kyiv (there are civilians with guns everywhere in town and Ukraine is just as racist as anywhere else) is still less than the fucking bullshit that racist armchair pundit warriors are giving him on twitter. Anyway, we’re into our seventh day of the invasion, and he says he has PTSD already and people MOCKED HIM. Like wtf you got brain maggots er what? If someone shoved a gun in my face I’d be unhappy, and if ten seconds later that gun went off (not pointed at me) because the civilian left the safety off, that would definitely fix me for not sleeping soundly for the next little while.

1594 words so far on the new story, one little kudo last night on the second last story.

Must finish leftovers! No more cooking til leftovers done!!

A link to Zelenskyy dancing with his comedy troupe in black pleather (as a parody, apparently) has caromed around the internet. Here’s the translation, scanged from u/viciuniversum on reddit, unitalicized words in brackets are the translator’s, italicized words in brackets are my explanatory notes:

“Let’s pour a shot of martini
Bud’mo hey! (Cheers!) (Bud’mo, pron bood mor LITERALLY MEANS LET US BE can you imagine being from a country whose nominal drink clinking words are literally ‘let us be’????)
For freedom, for destiny, for truth!
Bud’mo hey!
One shot, two shots, three shots!
Bud’mo hey! You are gay!
For Yura, for Yulya, dulya [hand gesture] for Lyashko! (saints and heros and politicians of yore)

Here’s my bulava (Ukrainian weapon and traditional symbol of power, a short handled round mace) my brothers!
Tomorrow we go dancing against Moskovites (Russians)
We will dance Gopak (Ukrainian national dance, began in 16th century, men returning from battle would re-enact and perform feats like the balletic leaps the dance is known for. Dance is also popular in other slavic countries), we have the strength
Ukraine is not dead yet, as long as we keep drinking well:
Borsht, salo (smoked pig fat), onion, bread, moonshine,
Drink, and eat,
I drink, I drink, I drink!

Lovers,
Those who were sent here (spies),
They are covered in glitter,
We spit on them.
Artists, stylists, move aside [can’t tell]
Lip-stick, gay-parades, and in Rada (Ukrainian parliament) everyone is like that.
I don’t want to, I can’t, but for salo, let’s do it.

Here’s my bulava my brothers!
Tomorrow we go dancing against Moskovites
We will dance Gopak, we have the strength
Ukraine is not dead yet, as long as we have salo!
Borsht, salo, onion, horseradish, moonshine,
Drink, and eat,
I drink, I drink, I drink!

I love

Black and Indigenous scientists dragging their asses through an academia that hates them and then TURNING UP THE JOY on their work when they finally win through, and bringing as many of their people in as they can. They could be absolutely fixated on how horrifically they were treated but instead they mentor and teach and try to heal academia and damn do I love their joy. @ZoeSTodd has been very careful to talk about the NON JOYFUL bigoted crap she was put to, so it’s not like I’m unaware of how bad it gets when the academy thinks you don’t belong.

People who are professionally calm doing goofy funny things with animals.

People in boats who run into animals in distress and rescue them.

Wingsuit videos. I mean I hate them because I clench so, but what vim!!!

Jumping spiders. They are so cute and emotional I just love them to bits. I really love it when the redbacks hatch in April and we’re having little convos with them in the kitchen while they observe us.

Buster’s purr. He sighs and purrs at the same time and it’s just the most wonderful expansive sound of contentment. Makes me wish I could purr too.

Plug in heaters COLLIS TABERNOUSH it’s fucking cold here.

Deer Lake Park. So much happiness have I experienced there! Still putting together a list of songbirds with their songs to accompany us on our walk.

Writing letters to people. I think I’m going to stop handwriting them though – typing is easier, faster, more legible and I’ll get more words out to people.

My Brother printer. The ink is of course expensive but it just DOES ITS JOB.

Sudoku. It’s one way to stay sharp.

Sherlock. The game, and the character, but in this case I’m talking about the game, which I’ve been playing for a quarter of a century. A really good game keeps on being good, no matter how many times you play through.

Jeff. He cracks me up and eats what I cook and looks after the bills (I contribute, thanks to a wonderful roommate spreadsheet that takes all the sting out of calculating who owes what to whom) and takes out the trash, what more do you want in a brother who is also the roommate?

Corvids. The crow who comes alone came early today, it’s so cold, and cried for food out from the dogwood tree.

my children and parents obvs

my beautiful pals, far and near, seen recently or longed for: Tammy, Dave, Mike, Tom, Peggy, Shad and the rest of the filkers, Sue, Jim and Jan, Jan M and Soon, Catherine, and all the people I’ve sung and played with over the last twenty years, and Paul of course.

I posted some bih-bah but took it down.

too many projects

I’m doing a conlang because every sf writer should try it. The basis for the language is the sound that basketballs make as they pass through a hoop. Here’s my first definition. It’s sort of tonal, each ‘dih’ is at a lower tone than the previous, unless you’re being cute or sarcastic. The language is called Bih-bah, which literally means our words or our speech.

The general idea was to make a language that has no sounds not found in English but manages to sound barbaric, foreign and deliberately ridiculous. Pulloong puchoongk powoongk is a perfectly acceptable phrase in Bih-bah (help a friend plan an event), although in English it sounds like industrial equipment being fired up.

another appointment

Next week. Waiting is.

Here’s a list of gender neutral words, quite thought provoking and useful.

Here’s a list of words to clarify language around slavery.

Speaking of language, even Wikipedia has troubles with shitposts:

cleanser:

An image of Jupiter taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light on Aug. 25, 2020, is giving researchers an entirely new view of the giant planet and offers insights into the altitude and distribution of the planet's haze and particles.

credit NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL team

Further cleanser, which is a stoat on a trampoline

and speaking of shitposts, which we weren’t, right? right? Here’s a lovely hit to the face of christian witness:

later again

Tom’s in hospital. He’s on his cell phone though, so it’s not like he’s incommunicado or currently dying. Glad I called Peggy and learned these tidings, which I communicated to the Keith for their household.

word count on fic 15466

graphic shows sonic the hedgehog’s two eyes gradually growing together to form a single huge eyeball

current mood

shown is a lightly smirking woman, having won a beaver handling contest I’D FUCKING SMIRK TOO not that I’d ever have her simply incandescent skill set.

@zhaabowekwe posted this, saying that she’s still badass and one of the most fluent Anishinaabemowin speakers

Category: Language/Slanguage