My apologies if this is YART -- it's a hard topic to search for.
I've been noticing an increased use of the designation "person" to describe a like or dislike, as in: "I'm not a pizza person." Since when did people start identifying themselves so closely with their preferences? Or has this always been going on and I just now noticed?
a hard topic to search for
And probably just as hard to document.
Often these sorts of things go on around us with barely a flicker on our radar. Suddenly we notice it somewhere and it starts appearing every where we look. The frequency hasn't increased; we just start noticing it. It's likely elliptical for I'm the sort of person who likes ________.
mmm, pretty much wot he said, for this word person.
But tell me, Faldage, something I have wonderered at odd corners of the midnight hours: why do we not say ellipsical to describe the process of ellision, rather than having this confusion with the shape of an ellipse?
I'm the sort of person who likes ________.
Or, alternatively, I'm one of those people who like________.
Troublemaker!
Why not be direct and say: "I like....." or "I don't enjoy....."
Why not be direct and say
Because that leaves you out in the cold all by your poor lonesome with no support from others of your kind.
At the moment I can't think of any of my preferences for which I need the support of others.
People person is a common phrase I've heard, and have used, for years, denoting someone who enjoys being around and interacting with people, or not. I'm (or he's) a people person (or "...a real people person"). Or I'm (or she's) not a people person (or "...just not a people person).
I don't ever remember this, or the other "person" attachments, not being around.
preferences for which I need the support
Then don't wear the mask of personhood.
Dear Faldage: I never wore a snood of any kind.
Hi Blanche - nice to see you again.
I know that the words "I am a people person" now makes interviewers cringe because it has been overused and really means nothing. Most books and articles on honing your interviewing skills tell you to avoid it like the plaque.
As to the "I'm a pizza person" type of phrase. Isn't just like the air quote scenario - just a way to sound/look cool, part of the hip crowd. I never know what is so bad about saying "I like..."
I'm a cat person. I don't really like dogs. I identify certain characteristics with cat afficionados, others with dog lovers.
There are plenty of ways to get to the same understanding, but I'm hearing a lot of this usage, seems perfectly natural to meow...
But when you are talking to people do you say it exactly like that... "I am a cat person" ?
Maybe it is because there is really no French version of this. I generally only hear this on English television and always kinda assumed that, like everything on TV, it doesn't represent the general population.
I agree with belMarduk that it too easily becomes a cliché. I like many things. The "person" phrases seem to limit the speaker. Hard to see any it makes speaker more worth getting acquainted with.Present company excepted of course.
Hard to see any it makes speaker more worth getting acquainted with. Present company
excepted of course.Aw, Dr. Bill...you're just not an AWAD person!
I am proud to be a people person - but am in no way a spider person! (Killing spiders is womens' work at the stales place!!)
stales
Bel, are you, or is someone in your immediate family, a dentist, that you avoid things like the plaque?
Wait a minute stales-- if you don't kill spiders, doesn't that make a spider person?
i mean, is a cat person the one you seek out to drown a sack of cats? (No, i am not suggesting this is a good idea.. it is a bad idea.. to make my point!) So why should a spider person be the person you seek out to kill a spider?
and just why is it, we think it's ok to have dogs and cats in the house, but not ants and spiders?
definately insects have poor press--bug lovers of the world unite and save your friends!
I keep my house clean and tidy, with everything in its place.
mind you, the place for dust bunnies is under the bed, and the place for cobwebs is in the dark corners..
too right, Helen! An Ant is quite useful about the house
but am in no way a spider person! (Killing spiders is womens' work at the stales place)
You kill spiders? Those creatures that eat all the other bugs and hide in dark corners where you really have to look to find them.
Besides, didn't your Granny ever tell you that killing a spider changes the weather?
I keep my house clean and tidy, with everything in its place... dust bunnies ... under the bed, and ... cobwebs ...in the dark corners..
I'm with you Helen!
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
Easier to sweep the room with a glance that way
.
pershonally, I prefer t'sweep the room wi a glass... I don min whas innit right now, but sharer~ charder~ oh, white wine'll do...
doesn't every one use candles for lighting?
i had a party recently, and one guest said it looked like a movie set.. they didn't think real people had 100 candle on hand.
and wow, while i am in your camp about spiders in general, our friends down under have some pretty nasty spiders. a bite from a brown reclusive spider is pretty nasty (north east North American), but one from a funnelweb spider is deadly..
(don't even ask how i know this...)
killing a spider changes the weather?
Send me a spider, send me a spider!!! (Where's the hammer?) And while you're at it, send one to Bingley and Maverick...
5 days of downpours, I could do with a break - not to mention the fact that unless I kill a spider pretty darn fast, I'm going to miss out on being there to see the South Africans whip the K1W1s in the Cricket tomorrow!
Hev
"friend you haven't met yet..."
My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
I have that very statement up in my kitchen, in the loungeroom one that says "This house was cleaned last week. Sorry you missed it!" and a magnet on my fridge which justifies the state of my home by saying "Dull women have immaculate houses" ... Think my family are on to me .
Hev
"friend you haven't met yet..."
but one from a funnelweb spider is deadly..
(don't even ask how i know this...)
Not to mention the Redback on the toilet seat ... more Australian folklore for you!
And ok, I'll bite... How do you know about our funnelweb, of troy? Had a close encounter?
Hev
"friend you haven't met yet..."
Congratulations on your newbility, hev!
Helen & wow - when you have spiders like we do in Straya it's smart to be very, very afraid!!
Only two nights ago my son discovered a white tail spider on his bath towel - he was within seconds of towelling himself dry! White tails are feared for their bites - not only are they painful, but there is an as yet unknown substance (enzyme? bacteria?) in their venom which causes a creeping necrosis of the tissue around the bite. Amputations are sometimes performed - but if you are bitten on the torso then there's a problem.
Post Edit: More info at: http://www.pharmacology.unimelb.edu.au/pharmwww/avruweb/wtspage.htm And don't you just love the acronym for Necrotising Arachnidism STudY - at the bootom of the page!!!I grew up in Sydney - famed for its Funnel Web, Trapdoor and Red Back spiders. Arachnophobia is commonplace there - it's a survival mechanism!! Ain't that right Hev!!
I take your point about who's a spider person and who's not. My wife is not as afraid of them as I am and readily dispatches them. Guess she's not a spider person either.....after all, she is also from Sydney.
stales
HEV--You might still be stranger.. but now you're also now a newbie..congrats!
actually, back in the dark ages of computers, i had a TI99/4A (lets say early, early 1980's) and there was a small software company i dealt with.. back then everything was small and cosy.. the companies name was Funnelweb, and i looked it up.. (hard copy in those days!)sydney based.. we had a user organizition, and bought software wholesale.. helped him out too, since he didn't loose as much on lots of small check and fees to change each one. One medium check was better than 5 small!
the brown reclusive (love to hid in the wood pile, and garage) has the same sort of venom, but not as strong. a bite on your finger can cost you the finger, and bite on the arm can require surgery and 6 months or more of rehab, but it usually doesn't kill.. does leave nasty scars, since muscle underneath is damaged..
You kill spiders? Those creatures that eat all the other bugs and hide in dark corners where
you really have to look to find them.
Besides, didn't your Granny ever tell you that killing a spider changes the weather?
I heard: If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive
Despite their unfair history, spiders (apart from ones in Straya, Zild, SA etc.) do not do any harm to humans and actually keep the pest-insect population down.
After a while they actually grow on you. Not literally!!
wow wrote: didn't your Granny ever tell you that killing a spider changes the weather?
I'd heard it as killing a spider will make it rain. I think it's not supposed to do anything if it's raining already. Maybe it's a prairie thing - most of the time there isn't enough rain - so it embodies the neverending hope for more rain?
spiders like we do in Straya it's smart to be very, very afraid!!
Oh my! Our spiders are far milder and beneficial. Thanks for a reason to cease moaning that I cannot afford the airfare to visit the beauties of Down Under.
it embodies the neverending hope for more rain?or the neverending hop
e for fewer spiders?
It suddenly occurred to me that the spider bite necrosis might be a form of autoimmune disease. An important thing is that not all victims get the necrosis. There is a genetic background to autoimmune disease. I have it, associated with ankylosing spondylitis.And the long duration of necrosis suggests that venom may be long gone, but body autoimmune necrosis having ensued.
Didn't I see one of them in Jurassic Park III?
Dear CK: How I wish it had never left there to torment me. It causes such heavy calcification about the vertebrae that the spine beomes inflexible. I had one area collapse from injudicious lifting. The sharp edges of fragments injured nerves giving me loss of sensation in feet and lower legs, spasticity and loss of power in my thighs. Not much fun.
[Medical Post]
It suddenly occurred to me that the spider bite necrosis might be a form of autoimmune disease.
Accepted theory seems to involve the envenomation of collagenolytic proteases. The systemic pathology in some patients is suggestive of an immune component, and hence an element of auto~, but I don't know if it fits the technical definition. I'll ask around.
[/Medical Post]
I've read that if you have spiders you don't have cockroaches. Now if only I could remember where I'd give you a trail to follow.
Well, I know for sure that they eat flys and as such are one of my favorite pets. I make sure I always have spiders in the house. One moving day, when I saw no spiders in the appartment I was moving to, I snagged several from my old appartment and brought them along.
Mind you I always have to keep an eye out because both my hubby and son are afraid of spiders. Before they see an exposed spider I have to quickly grab it up and sneak it to an other part of the house. Shhhh don't tell em.
we have redbacks and whitetails to deal with - that's what Oz gives us!
(Takes a bow) Glad to be of assistance!
Hev
"no longer a stranger..."
I've read that if you have spiders you don't have cockroaches
Oh my, what a dilemma ... how to choose?
Hev
"no longer a stranger..."
I have seen cockroaches over three inches long, that no spider could nandle. I have never seen a cockroach fly to get into web. I don't remember seeing wings on them.
PS Quick check on Internet says they do have wings.
Some cockroaches have wings, no buffaloes do.
Hi, Angel. As some may recall, when I lived in Mexico I had cockroaches. Everyone has them, pretnear. I also had spiders. That kind of answers that question. In Mexico, cockroaches and spiders learn to get along. Now centipedes, that's a whole 'nother story. I got bit by one that was about six inches long and as wide as my thumb. That sucker hurt worse than the scorpion that bit me.
that's a whole 'nother story No, don't you remember, Connie....the "a" from another is already there before the whole so the apostrophe doesn't have to be, or sumptin' like that!
ha! YARTing myself! I'll just put up the thread url if anyone wants to pursue this further...so there!
Welp, there goes another royalty to tswumI love spiders...they fascinate me, I can stand and watch a spider working on its web for hours. Tarantulas in glass cages are cool too.
In glass cages being the key. I love spiders, but I just don't want 'em
on me!...that's all.
<<Besides, didn't your Granny ever tell you that killing a spider changes the weather?>>
Granny didn't admit to the existence of spiders in her orderly world. Mom, however, said: "ya skeesh a spider, we gits rain." I think she said it that way because she was quoting a Pogo character. We wuz deep south, but not That deep south!
Mom once showed me a mother wolf spider and gently flicked all the babies off the spider's back with a pencil tip. The babies scattered about the room, and the mother spider went under the sofa. After a while, she came out and gathered up all the wee ones. - It was a rather touching scene; but for pure sentiment and communion, one would have to take Walter Anderson and the cockroach.
Tsyganka, who admits to teasing with the last sentence
Oy, but I forgot you had such big cockroaches in other parts of the world. I am sure that makes a difference. We have teeny cockroaches by comparison - average 3/4 inch & smaller in Montréal. Oddly, they are not the blight you hear about in other countries (maybe it's our spiders
)
I think it has to do with the cold. Not a big skier your average cockroach. Mostly just freezes up & dies. Not like flies or spiders that freeze solid and just thaw out like nothing happened in the springtime.
Oy, but I ... "Oy"? bel, you're my kinda gal!
I keep tryin to tell you folks,
Buffaloes don't have wings, chickens do! [mock annoyed-e]
Buffaloes don't have wings, chickens do!
As angels do. Especially baby-grandchilden angels.