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>I'm not sure anyone would want to be disdainful to a General.
Me, me! Over here. And I actually was sort of once. I had to go to a meeting in the Pentagon a few years back and ended up lost in SecDef row, where the average officer grade is flag rank. I had gone into an office block to ask directions and as I was leaving a guy in front of me stood and waited for me to open the door for him. He had either three or four stars, and I calmly opened the door, went through and let it swing shut behind me. For all I know or care that guy is still waiting for someone to massage his ego and open the door for him like a good little toady.
I was raised in the tradition that purple-suiters work for brown-suiters. Blue-suiters are AF, white-suiters are Navy, green-suiters are Army, purple-suiters are generic military, while brown-suiters are civilians.
I once worked for a really despicable blue-suiter who knew absolutely nothing about our organization, its ways of work, its mores, nothing, and he was intent on changing all of them so he could leave his mark on the organization when he rotated out two years hence. The animosity with the brown-suiters increased to the point where he called in me and the managers who worked with me and ordered us to respect him. Needless to say we all saluted smartly and moved out without respecting him at all.
He ended up being riffed as a major, even though he had previously won the Lace Sijan Award, one of the most prestigious awards available to a company-grade officer in the AF. So far as I know he was the only recipient of the Sijan award not to make colonel. A richly deserved fate in this man's case.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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This phrase reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where the first 3 panels are of the two of them sitting immobile on the side of the bed, staring at Mom with rapt attention as she lectures. In the last panel, Mom has just said, "Do you understand?", and Calvin talks out of the side of mouth to Hobbes: "Sounds like she must be finally winding down--start nodding". And wow, you sure can learn something every day. I went to Max's page for some shortcuts to phrase origin sites, and guess what, I got sidetracked. Was intrigued by the title 'not-so-famous last words'. He(?) has citations for many of the words, but not for this one:
ZYZZYXDONTA a snail with characters the extreme opposite of Aaadonta. I wonder if he put that in just to see if people were paying attention; I can't imagine that that's true. Here's the home page; last words are P. 18: http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Now just picture somebody first moving their head up, then down - and compare this with the opposite. I can see different amounts of enthusiasm in these two responses.
I've seen the side-to-side nod. In most of those cases, it was somebody who had decided they would disagree with whatever was said, before it was said, and were just waiting to speak, instead of actually listening.
The first words out of their mouths is usually, "yes, but..." and they proceed to tell you how you're wrong.
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I've seen the side-to-side nod
Is there a word for the side-to-side 'nod', I wonder. It can't include the word "nod" because nod means to move one's head "up and down", not sideways.
"shaking" one's head comes close, but is "shaking" necessarily a side to side motion?
When you look at the definition of "nod" in A-H, "To lower and raise the head quickly", you can't help wondering if the words "north and south" are redundant. A nod is always north and south so a "north and south nod" is really no different than any other nod.
Perhaps it just sounds more intriguing -- which is apt, perhaps, because intrigue is what is suggested in the General's usage.
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Carpal Tunnel
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must be east to west, no?
formerly known as etaoin...
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must be east to west, no?
Depends on whether you're an Anglican or a Catholic.
In football and basketball, ball carriers use what is known as a "head fake". They look in one direction, and dart in the other, throwing the defender off balance momentarily.
I guess a head motion signaling dissent would be an "east and west head shake", represented graphically thus:
<0> or <0><0> or <0><0><0> depending on the degree of disagreement.
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Carpal Tunnel
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"head fake"
i.e. Feint and counter-feint.
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Feint and counter-feintYes, that's it, Musick. For the faint of heart, a head feint is as close as they get to speaking their mind. A "counter-feint" gets too close to telling the truth.  Here's what a "counter-feint" looks like. >0<No-one can ever figure it out.
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old hand
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old hand
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wondering if the words "north and south" are redundant - this is why I suspect this expression is used to specify the order of the movements: first up, then down.
A propos side to side nod: in Greece, this means "yes"!
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Carpal Tunnel
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When I went on my cycling holiday to Ireland some years ago, I noticed Irish men who would walk by me and give a little head movement to one side or the other, almost a jerk. At first I thought they were making a silent comment of disapprobation on my cycling wear or my obviously being an American. It took me at least a week to realize that this was a silent form of greeting, a sort of hello shake of the head.
TEd
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