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Joined: Aug 2001
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Good on ya, jo! [high five -e]


#59824 03/05/02 10:16 PM
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>Pie-hole is pretty stupid, as in "shut yer ~." It strikes me as equivalent to shaking one's finger in another person's face or that infantile "talk to the hand" fad. (Not sure that the word originated on the net, but that's where I saw it first used.)

Shut yer "cake hole" was pretty popular when I was growing up, mainly amongst pre-teens. I assume that this is a variation.



#59825 03/05/02 10:22 PM
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>I like the terms snail mail ...

It is such a perfect term. It implies that it is possible to resort to such a thing but who would want to?

I wonder if snail mail will slowly disappear like telegrams. I remember when the role of the best man was to read out the telegrams from those who could not attend the wedding - these days it is the much more boring job of reading out a selection of cards. Maybe we'll only send important documents, cards (I can't see them ever being replaced by e-greetings but never say never) and goods. I'll check this post out in 2012 (if I can wade through the mass of verbiage, including mine) to see how my prediction works out.


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Getting back to the original question (favorite or irritating Net words) - my peeve is the e e cummings style, which I find suggests at best laziness and at worse disrespect, sloppiness, ignorance (I'm sure there is something worse yet, therefore not "at worst"). It's not a word, not even an acronym, but a style. Is anyone else bothered by this practice?

And by the way, did anyone ever illuminate CK's "a starter for ten" question?


#59827 03/06/02 12:03 PM
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I thought this was an old quiz show term, but I don't watch TV so can't place it if it's been newly revived. Was it a show called Jeopardy? Where the value of each question went from 10 up by 10s?

Usually your starter, not a starter, I think.


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A flick through the Jargon File shows quite a few that are amusing, but that I'd seldom use in real life. And I usually can't remember these cute terms anyway. Here are some where the meaning is (I hope) fairly obvious without further explanation:

asbestos longjohns
brochureware
buzzword-compliant
cough and die
drool-proof paper
featurectomy
go-faster stripes
Helen Keller mode


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well, the e e cumming style make sence back in the days of dummy terminals, with teletype machines, and haveing to know things like ascii code 16(no, that wrong, what was bell again?) if you wanted to have a "ding" noise.. or even CR (carriage return was a bit of code you had to know, and enter.. shift, and puctuation were just too much!

now days, you can write and edit in a word Processor, and have it auto forward to your email program so it might seem out of place.

but many computer conventions became established eons ago, (in computer years!)

secondly, most early computer nerds were guys, and not secretaries.. they didn't care to much for "pretty" documents, just the guts of the message!


#59830 03/06/02 01:36 PM
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"A starter for ten"

A Brit one this. University Challenge was a very high-brow and fast moving knock-out quiz between British Universities. It was hosted by the very grand and colourfully named Bamber Gascoigne and ran for the majority of the '70s and early '80s. It was revived in the mid-'90s with Jeremy Paxton in the Questioners seat. Sadly I feel he lacks Bamber's charisma.

Each round started with a buzz-in from the two teams of four. The first to answer this starter question correctly got ten points and then got the chance to answer three more for five points each without interruption from the other team, sooooo......

Bamber would get the two teams on their marks by saying: "And your starter for ten"


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I know that acronyms can be helpful, but it seems that more people write "IMHO" than would actually use the phrase "in my humble opinion" (instead, they might just say "I think ..."). When the acronym replaces the sender's own wording/style, I don't like it at all. Maybe it's just me!


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In reply to:

my peeve is the e e cummings style, which I find suggests at best laziness and at worse disrespect, sloppiness, ignorance


*ahem*, wofa! our tsuwm isn't gonna like that.

now, getting back to the original question: i suspect as usual i misinterpreted it, but i understood ASp to be querying not necessarily what peeves us but rather which specific word(s) have weasled their way from our keyboard to our spoken language (so i'll answer accordingly):

similar to your "yikes", i've found myself lately saying both "drat" and "rats", which i never once uttered til i started using them after nearly every failed online bridge finesse i'll thank you not to comment here, either, sparteye [*cough*]

i find it particularly amusing that when someone IRL says something not-all-that-funny but clearly intended to be, instead of a courtesy laugh my initial unconscious inclination is to say "ell oh ell". and since we're on the subject, i find anything exceeding the most chary sprinklings of "LOL" into internet conversations to be rather tedious, so i've adopted "heh" instead... i hope it catches on =)




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