When I was a kid, “You berk” was a common mild rebuke.
Yesterday, I learned it’s not so mild
@urlyman This puts a new spin on the kids TV series Trap Door...
@urlyman @ShaulaEvans so, "cunt" is the *worst* swearword in many countries? I had no idea. Also: I think of it as terribly misogynistic. Apparently, that's a North American perspective, and in other countries it is effectively gender-neutral? Weird!
@deborahh in England it definitely still leans misogynistic
@urlyman My (Canadian) mother who does not swear picked up "berk" from British TV.
It was quite the amazing conversation when I explained to her what it meant.
She no longer uses it.
@ShaulaEvans @urlyman An expletive often used in Scots which as far as I know has no offensive etymology at all is 'Jings'. It was used in (and may have originated in) comics published by the famously puritanical Dundee publishing house D C Thomson.
@simon_brooke @ShaulaEvans @urlyman also “Crivvens” and “Help ma Boab”, often used in conjunction with “jings”
@simon_brooke ooh that’s a new one for me
@urlyman @ShaulaEvans I tend to go through periods of using it to replace other expletives when I feel my conversation is getting too offensive; but in moments of sudden pain it's not usually my expletive of choice!
@ShaulaEvans those crafty Cockneys ;)
@urlyman ah, now the cat's out of the bag ... I've been calling people 'berk' for years, knowing that they mostly have no idea just how insulting I'm being! 😁
@2ruth this being Mastodon, I think the wider public can continue benefitting from the lack of awareness 🤭
@urlyman the other one I used to snigger about, though not a veiled insult, was that the etymology of aubergine was basically 'fart plant' ... however, I seem to have misremembered (and misquoted) that, as it actually translates to 'the plant that CURES wind'. Damnit, I've been avoiding aubergines for years!
@2ruth speaking as a long time vegetarian turned vegan, I can say with some confidence that the ‘cure’ does not work.
I note that the aubergine emoji adds an altogether other layer to this semantic bundle
…Over the course of my life we’ve gotten much better at counting what we’re doing.
Making us so much more aware of numbers going down on things that should not go down (e.g. biodiversity, job security)
and going up on things that ought to go down (e.g. GHG emissions)
or would probably be better if they were not a thing at all (e.g. plastics).
Compute computing comparison to produce an ever larger compendium of incompetence.
Which seems perhaps to make us a bunch of counts, or berks ☝️
…The berk counting is mounting:
Things are heating up in Berk-shire and where the Berkeley Hunt took place (Gloucestershire).
But getting most uncomfortable in London 🥵
…More counting.
Let the great counting on counting machines bring us to greater awareness of what counts.
After all, it’s worked so well so far?
…It will be good to see the shifting baseline of plummeting biodiversity with ever greater acuity right up until the point where the wickedly quick counting machines cannot be made anymore.
Because counting what counts, and an awful lot of what doesn’t, counted for nothing https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116751076107869925
…Anyway, I like playing with words, especially mucky ones.
Here’s a link into a transcript of Iain McGilchrist talking about language and brains and bits (bytes).
This bite-sized post is part-way through #IMmeaning
@urlyman that's practically punctuation around here. Only they don't bother with the rhyming slang 😯
@urlyman as a bonus, the rough Viking island in the kid media franchise How to Train Your Dragon is called "Berk".
As the author of the original book is British I'm sure it's not a coincidence (although it's best she'd be as surprised as you) 😁
@urlyman Rhyming slang, that is.
If you watch Only Fools and Horse, Rodney uses 'berk' pronounced 'bark' quite a bit.
@urlyman I learnt recently that cobblers is rhyming slang also.
Short for cobbler's awls.
@lydiaconwell I thank you for dangling that in front of me
@urlyman Rhyming slang, that is.
