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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
For instance, I was interested by the definition of "confabulate" to mean "to talk together".
That is still the first meaning in my dictionary, but I have only heard it used in Psychiatry to
mean to fill in gaps in the memory with detailed accounts of fictitious events believed true by
the narrator.
I remember a patient at McLean Hospital, an alcoholic with brain damage. In a bull session in
the day room, he told about having been a newspaper correspondent in Pacific in WWI. He was
much too young for this to have been possible. He was aboard a British warship that had been
sent to try to ensure that the queen of a couple islands did not allow German submarines to
obtain drinking water and other supplies in her territory, if she could prevent it. To flatter her,
in hope of persuading her to comply, the captain ordered that she be given elaborate ceremonial
welcome aboard the ship. So as her canoe was approaching he ordered "Battle Stations". This
called for all hands to line up along the deck, and urinate over the side which was an antique
procedure, originally intended to minimize danger during an engagement of an enemy shell ripping
up wooden decking, and possibly causing large splinter to penetrate a sailor's distended bladder
and lead to fatal peritonitis. Before the hands could secure from this drill, the queen was aboard,
and insisted on having oral sex with every man. And from there it got wilder and wilder, ending
with her breaking both of the Captain's legs by insisting on some bizarre native mode of copulation.
All this was told in a way that might have been believable outside the ambience of a mental hospital.
Never once did he have an inappropriate facial expression. It was not my place to challenge him on any
of the details, and none of the patients did, though several were sufficiently intact to have been
well aware of the fabrications in his yarn.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
let's all get together for the New Year and help dr. bill with his line wrap problem. (or am I the only one who finds this terribly hard to read?!)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear tsuwm: the AWADtalk software has some problems I have no way of knowing about.
I write first draft, and when preview shows line wrap problem, I edit it, and then preview
shows no more line wrap, and final post shows me no residual. What else can I do?
I hate crummy line wrap text as much as you do. Bill
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
bill, what happens if you just ignore how preview looks and just post it that way?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
A) (And I thought I had done this earlier today) Some dictionaries order their defintions historically rather than from most to least common in modern usage.
2) The root of confabulate is in the Latin fabulor, fabulari to chat, gossip. It is also the root of the Spanish and Portuguese words for to speak, hablar and falar, respectively.
Þ) If you compose in something other than the Post box, just let things go, not adding any RETURNs. Let the AWAD thang do it for you. Or if you do use the Post box in AWAD, do it the same way.
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