Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

Because it's fun..

I encourage you to express elitist opinions privately, perhaps amongst friends for whom you have an understanding with and who will appreciate the tone you use.

Meanwhile, I've been called "retarded", "idiotic", "sub-intellectual", "pretentious" and have had the legitimacy of my opinion questioned, undermined, contradicted and disregarded. I have been threatened physically, harassed, sent angry messages, and been told that I'd be better off dead. All because I liked or didn't like something.

It may be fun, but like a your own private bowling alley, the cost is just too high.

[Peelee]

Because it's fun..

Really that's why, loudly proclaiming "Megadeath ruler, Slayer drools" (or whatever) is fun.

Especially when to non-fans there's little discernible difference.

It's when what's argued is actually important that it becomes less fun.




Where's the sport in that?

Megadeath is terrible. Megadeth not nearly as much. Still not a fan, though. Up the irons!

Also, I hate sports.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

Also, I hate sports.

Where did that statement come from?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also, I hate sports.

Apropos of nothing, it's amazing how this never fails to get a chuckle out of me. And then I feel bad, because it is the most inside joke I've ever been participant of, and I have to wonder how badly it comes across to anyone that wasn't there at its start.

ETA:

Where did that statement come from?

Case in point...

GW

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

I don't suppose one of you could explain the inside joke to me.

[Peelee]

Where did that statement come from?

The Eye made a thread somewhat similar to this one, in which they talked about things they did/didn't like (IIRC, it was working out and exercising. Could be wrong though), and went into detail about their opinions and the reasons behind them. Most points were also either somewhat related, or had a segue into them.

Then, out of nowhere, it abruptly ended with "also, I hate sports."

Many people found that amusing.

ETA: Apparently, it was just the title that ended like that. Still, it was amusingly phrased.

Apropos of nothing, it's amazing how this never fails to get a chuckle out of me. And then I feel bad, because it is the most inside joke I've ever been participant of, and I have to wonder how badly it comes across to anyone that wasn't there at its start.

ETA:


Case in point...

GW

True enough. Still, that was right over the plate. I couldn't not take a swing.

[2D8HP]

...I've been called...*

...threatened physically...

At this Forum?

That's surprising and disheartening, and doesn't sound fun at all.

I hope you immediately clicked the triangle and reported that stuff immediately.

Megadeath is terrible. Megadeth not nearly as much. Still not a fan, though. Up the irons!

Also, I hate sports.

Now that's fun

Where did that statement come from?

"Where's the sport in that?"

It's from Monty Python, and if quoting Python on the barest pretext is wrong, I don't want to be right!

"Also, I hate sports?"

It was originally from a wonderfully derailed thread at this Forum that became a collection of poems that all ended in "Also I hate sports"....

....and then it spread.

Sadly the OP of that thread now regularly goes to the gym, posts wise words and doesn't start threads like that anymore.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't suppose one of you could explain the inside joke to me.

Early on in this thread I provided links to all relevant posts. But the core of it is succinctly explained by Peelee above.

At this Forum?

Sounds more like the kind of thing that goes on all the time in Twitter.

GW

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

At this Forum?

That's surprising and disheartening, and doesn't sound fun at all.

I hope you immediately clicked the triangle and reported that stuff immediately.

No. Barring one or two exceptions you have all been exceptionally polite to me.

My point was that while expressing elitism may be fun it can make people feel excluded or inferior. Too many people feel inferior. When you make insinuations that fans of X must be stupid it only foster animosity, resentment and bitterness. There is nothing productive in it and the fleeting sense of "fun" or satisfaction you get from it is not worth all of that.

Sorry, that's just how I feel about it. Don't assume that because you're having fun that everyone else is.

[Peelee]

Now that's fun

I aim to please!

"Where's the sport in that?"

It's from Monty Python, and if quoting Python on the barest pretext is wrong, I don't want to be right!

I thought it was an old idiom. Is it really that recent?

"Also, I hate sports?"

It was originally from a wonderfully derailed thread at this Forum that became a collection of poems that all ended in "Also I hate sports"....

....and then it spread.

Sadly the OP of that thread now regularly goes to the gym, posts wise words and doesn't start threads like that anymore.

We are all Michael Scott at some point in our lives. This is the true lesson of The Office.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Early on in this thread I provided links to all relevant posts. But the core of it is succinctly explained by Peelee above.

Just for a lark, I went through all of my contributions to this thread, and it is slightly concerning to me how many of my answers boil down to "because people are lazy and/or divide everyone into two groups".

GW

[2D8HP]

Just for a lark, I went through all of my contributions to this thread, and it is slightly concerning to me how many of my answers boil down to "because people are lazy and/or divide everyone into two groups".

There's two kinds of people in this world, those that divide people into two types of people, and those that...

...I forget.

[Peelee]

There's two kinds of people in this world, those that divide people into two types of people, and those that...

...count in binary.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

There's two kinds of people in this world, those that divide people into two types of people, and those that...

... divide people into two types of people, but feel bad about it.

GW

[Lord Joeltion]

Meanwhile, I've been called "retarded", "idiotic", "sub-intellectual", "pretentious" and have had the legitimacy of my opinion questioned, undermined, contradicted and disregarded. I have been threatened physically, harassed, sent angry messages, and been told that I'd be better off dead. All because I liked or didn't like something.

I always appreciate more the mob that harasses with the lowest of insults and street-gang jargon. At least that kind of *******s are honest about themselves. The smug pseudointellectual arse-whole is the punniest kind of arse-whole.

I think it's worth noting that most people aren't interested in debates as a rule of thumb. People usually don't enjoy facing contradictions, judging/value themselves, or even rationalizing things; and always prefer ****-measuring contest than any kind of analytical response when forced to confrontation. This is true among people who are friends or not, it requires a special kind of friend(s) to engage into an actual civilized contrast of opinions. That doesn't help if the group/environment is tribalistic from the start, like it was mentioned before.

Megadeath is terrible. Megadeth not nearly as much. Still not a fan, though. Up the irons!

MANOWAR KILLS! PUMPKINS UNITED

Btw, I don't divide into "them" vs "us". It's more like "universe" against "me". I need friends

[2D8HP]

No. Barring one or two excetions you have all been exceptionally polite to me....

Ah good.

I've found most here to be welcoming and supportive.

If you do encounter the kind of things you described I'd imagine that they'd be against Forum rules, but I'm not a mod so I can't be sure, but the mods here usually keep things in check.

If you think something is amiss you can "click" the little triangle and report it.

One idiosyncracy of the Forum that greatly amuses and charms me is that almost any thread may go into long digressions on:

Grammar (and not just English language grammar either! )

The Lord of the Rings (and the Silmarillion!)

and

Star Wars

Welcome aboard!

I thought it was an old idiom. Is it really that recent?

Well Python is where I first best remember the phrase, but Captain Kirk asks Trelane "Where's the sport?" in the The Squire of Gothos episode, which was broadcast before theMonty Python sketch

We are all Michael Scott at some point in our lives. This is the true lesson of [I]The Office....

True that.

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah, that's completely new to me, even as an urban legend. The hypothesis I've always been told is that people like getting buzzed, and thus alcohol was constantly being discovered and retained everywhere. But as a liquid storage? No, that wouldn't really make much sense to me. People settled next to rivers so they didn't need to worry about that. I'd have to dig into population centers established away from fresh water sources to see what they did, but for much of human civilization, those were quite rare, I'd imagine. If you didn't have a river handy, and wells were not in the cards, you found somewhere else to settle.

Thinking about it, maybe mining communities? I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but at least now I see what you're suggesting. I suppose I can't completely discard the possibility that if they had to import hydration, they might import beer over water in part because it might have traveled better, and already had distribution networks. That said, carrying water with donkeys was (and in fact, is!) a thing, so water was definitely moved around too.

Grey Wolf

I have heard it before. It comes up in Greek history, where wine is mixed with water in a Krater. It shows up as early as the Illiad and makes for an easy way to purify the water supply.

[Mokèlé-mbèmbé]

I think it's worth noting that most people aren't interested in debates as a rule of thumb. People usually don't enjoy facing contradictions, judging/value themselves, or even rationalizing things; and always prefer ****-measuring contest than any kind of analytical response when forced to confrontation. This is true among people who are friends or not, it requires a special kind of friend(s) to engage into an actual civilized contrast of opinions. That doesn't help if the group/environment is tribalistic from the start, like it was mentioned before.

I think there's a difference between "not wanting a debate" and "being a spiteful little jerk".

"Hey, I like X"
"Really? I don't. I prefer Y"
"Why do you prefer Y?"
"so and so and so"

That's not so intense, is it?

[snowblizz]

My point was that while expressing elitism may be fun it can make people feel excluded or inferior. Too many people feel inferior. When you make insinuations that fans of X must be stupid it only foster animosity, resentment and bitterness. There is nothing productive in it and the fleeting sense of "fun" or satisfaction you get from it is not worth all of that.

I would note that the vast majority of elitist were themsleves denigrated by those majorities now hurt by being called out themselves.

Why do you think a very specific genre lashes out at something mainstream? Because usually that mainstream ridiculed their narrow interest first.

Some people get extra vicious when their little narrow interest becomes mainstream because they feel appropriated by the persecuting majority. "So now you think it's cool? Yet 10 years ago you were picking on me". Basically. You can see this in other things as well. There's a very good example I don't think I can use because that's a straight drop into real world politics and such.

TL:DR I see much expressed elitism as a reaction against the populism(*) that scorned them in the first place

(*)just thinking as a counterweight to elitism here, not sure what the appropriate word would be

And, of course, once you have safe wells, you don't need to use alcoholic beverages to have safe drinks.

There's no such things as a safe well (in general) until well (ha!) into modern times (and even then issues persist, the town I lived in didn't get definitely safe drinking water until after WW2 when a modern waterworks was established). Until the microscope was able to find bacteria people were not really able to tell if water was drinkable or not. Better safe than sorry. The beer drinking to a large degree probably comes from that general water problem (also the ancient Egyptians did beer [it's not just uncouth not-Romans too far north to be of any use], not sure about wine, but I think beer outages wine in human civilization). It should be noted that the beer of olden times drunk everyday was much weaker than what you get at the pub today.

However, I will say this, humans have been very very creative in finding ways to impare that very thing that has elevated us from other animals. We've learned to enjoy and extract many things plants and animals developed to avoid being predated on. It should also be noted that many animals enjoy (as far as we cna tell) and seek out naturally occuring alchohol, eg in fruits.
So the leisure aspect definitely has had a strong impact too.

[Jon_Dahl]

I just watched a film called Hostiles. I have a spoiler-free question.

Is it true that Confederate soldiers were able to speak fluent Cheyenne like Blocker (Bale's character) did? I am in no way questioning their talents, but learning to speak a language fluently usually means that you learn it as a child or spend years practicing it. It makes no sense to me that was able speak like a Cheyenne. Linguistics in a war usually means that you have interpreters who knows both languages - yours and enemy's - right from the start. I find very exceptional that an army officer would learn how to speak enemy's language fluently when you can save hundreds of hours of your time by having an interpreter around. Vietnam War lasted over 19 years. Show me an American officer who learned to speak Vietnamese during that time.

[Peelee]

I just watched a film called Hostiles. I have a spoiler-free question.

Is it true that Confederate soldiers were able to speak fluent Cheyenne like Blocker (Bale's character) did? I am in no way questioning their talents, but learning to speak a language fluently usually means that you learn it as a child or spend years practicing it. It makes no sense to me that was able speak like a Cheyenne. Linguistics in a war usually means that you have interpreters who knows both languages - yours and enemy's - right from the start. I find very exceptional that an army officer would learn how to speak enemy's language fluently when you can save hundreds of hours of your time by having an interpreter around. Vietnam War lasted over 19 years. Show me an American officer who learned to speak Vietnamese during that time?

Imean, armies are large. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that someone either learned or already knew that language, same with an American officer knowing Vietnamese in the 60's.

[Mr Blobby]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richar...val_officer%29

[Jon_Dahl]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richar...val_officer%29

Thank you, an interesting read!

[Mr Blobby]

Naturally, there would have been other officers who would have been taught Vietnamese before going in-theatre, though quite often the most fluent ones would have ended up as official interpreters / liaison officers. And being confronted with a foreign language on a almost daily basis, if done long enough would leave some folk knowing at least some of said language [even if the grammar and syntax leaves much to be desired].

[Jon_Dahl]

Naturally, there would have been other officers who would have been taught Vietnamese before going in-theatre, though quite often the most fluent ones would have ended up as official interpreters / liaison officers. And being confronted with a foreign language on a almost daily basis, if done long enough would leave some folk knowing at least some of said language [even if the grammar and syntax leaves much to be desired].

Maybe Vietnam War was not a very good example considering my actual question. The 19th-century Confederate officer played by Christian Bale has learned fluent Cheyenne without any modern language teaching. He has most likely learned it as an adult.

[Mr Blobby]

It's a bit inplausible, but not impossible. History is filled with people who ended up learning foreign languages as adults 'semi-passively' [aka didn't go out of their way to do it] in informal settings.

[Jon_Dahl]

It's a bit inplausible, but not impossible. History is filled with people who ended up learning foreign languages as adults 'semi-passively' [aka didn't go out of their way to do it] in informal settings.

I agree with you, although I would like to take off the words "a bit", mostly because Cheyenne and English are very different languages and there is no way that such fluency could ever be achieved without living in a Cheyenne-speaking community for several years or by using modern language teaching methods. Other than that, we are on the same page and I know people who have an amazing knack for learning languages.

[Peelee]

I agree with you, although I would like to take off the words "a bit", mostly because Cheyenne and English are very different languages and there is no way that such fluency could ever be achieved without living in a Cheyenne-speaking community for several years or by using modern language teaching methods.

And we know that native Americans never associated with or married the immigrant Americans, of course.

[Jon_Dahl]

And we know that native Americans never associated with or married the immigrant Americans, of course.

This guy did not but point taken. Look, I'm just trying to avoid spoilers so a little break would be appreciated here, please.

[Peelee]

This guy did not but point taken. Look, I'm just trying to avoid spoilers so a little break would be appreciated here, please.

You're right, I'm being a bit too snarky. I'm sorry. Without trying to prod you for spoilers, did anything other than the likelihood of that take away from your enjoyment of it? I think "possible, but unlikely" is probably the case for a large amount of what happens in a movie, and hey, maybe it's just the story of the one guy in the country who totally learned Cherokee as an adult (I know nothing about this movie, so I'm hoping he's the main character, or that theory just kind of falls apart).