Ace of Spades HQ

« On Infantry Armor | Main | Irony In Black and White »

January 08, 2006

Ministry Of Silly Links

(Howard) "Dean" and "Sam" (Alito) duet, with animation. Just plain goofy.

Teenaged girls are the engine of the evolution of the English language:

THE teenage girl is the most powerful influence on the evolution of the English language around the world.
...

"Valley Girl has gone beyond a fad and is now rooted in different forms of English around the world," Ms Tagliamonte said. "Girls are the single most powerful force in the English language today." The research was among work discussed at the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society in New Mexico over the weekend.

...

"Females are very quick to pick up on any aspect of fashion, whether it is clothing or speech, that shows off status. Men are less quick to do so," he said.

True dat. Men don't like buying into hip lingo, except when done ironically. We just don't like gettin' jiggy with English. It's because we're sexually repressed, it turns out:

Barry Spurr, senior lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, said social pressures meant Australian men in particular were more reluctant to display their language abilities.
"They are afraid to be seen expressing thought because they are sexually insecure," Dr Spurr said. "They want to be seen to be real men and the standard for real men wouldn't be seen to express a thought.

"The big problem in Australia is getting young men to talk at all. Girls are much more orally adventurous."

Ahem.

And it's not a new phenomenon:

In addition, women seeking prestige pick up fashionable new words faster than men. Experts believe this has been going on for centuries. A Finnish study of 15th-century English court correspondence shows that aristocratic wives moved from archaic "ye" to "you" significantly earlier than their husbands.

Really? I think I'm moving back to "ye," then. I won't be henpecked into using these edgy, hip neologisms.

Thanks to the A-Man.

posted by Ace at 01:01 PM

Comments

Orally adventurous. mmm.

Posted by: fretless on January 8, 2006 01:24 PM

Teenage girls are the driving force for EVERYTHING...
Music
Fashion
Language
Culture

Teenage men (and older) will put up with a lot just to get next to the Valley Girls, no matter what it is they like.

Posted by: Pupster on January 8, 2006 01:32 PM

Yo, Ace:

I'm down with ye.

YA RLY.

Posted by: Carl O. Witz on January 8, 2006 01:50 PM

It's like you said about 1% of the population having 50% of the wealth. Teenage girls are 1% of the population and they do 50% of the talking. I mean they just Never Shut Up! (Not like when I was a teenage girl. I wasn't at all unbearable to be around.)

Posted by: shell on January 8, 2006 03:18 PM

Based on this, I imagine Barry (and Ace) are unrestrained confident sex maniacs.

Posted by: slickdpdx on January 8, 2006 03:32 PM

[Men] are afraid to be seen expressing thought because they are sexually insecure," Dr Spurr said.

"Dr. Spurr, allow me to introduce you to Dick Cheney's cock..."

WHOA, DICK! NO! NOOOOO! SOMEBODY CALL 911!

Posted by: Bullington on January 8, 2006 03:34 PM

We just don't like gettin' jiggy with English

This from the gender that has several hundred pet names for its own genitalia.

Posted by: shawn on January 8, 2006 03:40 PM

Me, I'm going to go back to saying "mickle grody" instead of "grody to the max".

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek on January 8, 2006 04:45 PM

Ayyyy. 'Day, mate. 'kay. Bloody hell. Think I'm gunna... ahhh... you know... anyhow... n you? Yeah, too right. Bugger me. Yeah, beer, thanks.

Posted by: Australia's poet laureate on January 8, 2006 05:20 PM

I'd say that the biggest influence on current "fashionable" language is rap music/culture which is overwhelmingly male dominated. Movies contribute "trendy" phases and those are mostly made by men. Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, South Park, and other trendy comedy shows are all created predominantly by young men, and have added hip lingo to the vernacular.

If their only example is "Valley Girl"speak, that happened 20 years ago! Some trendiness. "Gag me with a spoon!"

Posted by: BeJezzuz on January 8, 2006 05:26 PM

My personal favorite contribution by teenage girls (not): The speech fad that popularized the rising inflection.

My favorite response by a celebrity: Jimmy Kimmel on "Win Ben Stein's Money" -- a contestant described herself as a student at Occidental College majoring in Anthropology (insert rising inflection ???)

Kimmel's response: "Are you sure?"

Posted by: capitano on January 8, 2006 06:49 PM

Men can talk all right, and thank God it's about different things than women do so that women like me have people to talk with.

So girls are more orally adventurous than men, eh? Who knew, Monica, who knew?

Posted by: Helen on January 8, 2006 08:31 PM

This from the gender that has several hundred pet names for its own genitalia.

Yeah, what's up with that? Guys have all kinds of pet names for their junk, but I've been told that "pussy" is the only acceptable pet name for female genitalia, amongst the dozens of alternatives that females find offensive.

Can't the ladies get creative? Give us some choices?

Posted by: Michael on January 8, 2006 09:58 PM

I call it the quinny. Help me out with this. This term needs to enter the standard American lexicon. Everybody, say it along with me: quinny. Kinduv rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? The term "pussy" just somehow seems a little too nasty for semi-polite company, whereas "vagina" is too clinical and "cooch" is too juvenile. It's called a quinny, folks.

Posted by: sandy burger on January 8, 2006 10:41 PM

The Kitty

Posted by: Lipstick on January 8, 2006 11:03 PM

Its been said that about 20% of english words have been used as a euphamism for female genitalia at some point in history, much of it during the Victorian era.

Posted by: MikeTheLibrarian on January 8, 2006 11:54 PM

Yeah, I'd like to get into her "the".

Posted by: sandy burger (Victorian era version) on January 8, 2006 11:59 PM

Amazon.com Widgets

Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
[All profits go to charity]

Top Headlines

The Reaping Phase
@AceofSpadesHQ

Funniest thing I've read about the Virginia mess. Back when they were hustling the referendum through the assembly both Senators, Warner and Kaine, advised them to go slow and play by the rules. Louise Lucas said she respected them but didn't need advice from the "cuck chair" in the corner. The gerrymandering was overturned and Louise is heading for the big house. Edward G. Robinson voice "where's your cuck now?"
Posted by: Smell the Glove

I posted his post on twitter and it's gotten 25K views so far. Thanks, Smell the Glove

Chris
@chriswithans

"Ahhhhh ahh I put my career on the line for Louise Lucas and Jay Jones thinking they'd vault me into presidential contention and we ended up costing Democrats 20 House seats and unleashing a Reverse Dobbs ahhhhh ahhh"

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click That Sums Up the Democrat Communist Party Today
Something is wrong as I hold you near
Somebody else holds your heart, yeah
You turn to me with your icy tears
And then it's raining, feels like it's raining

TJM wonders about world building in stories, mostly The Hunger Games

"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

Hamas is Humiliating Trump's 'Board of Peace'
[Hat Tip: TC] [CBD]

Tucker Carlson is pretty sure Trump is a wizard

Ted Turner Dies At 87 [CBD]

Podcast: Starting a new season, CBD and Sefton discuss their personal journeys to conservative principles, is Nick Shirley the beginning of a trend?, Iran trying to reignite the war, the Left attacks itself, even on "Best Guitarist" lists, and more!

TJM definitively ranks the films of Billy Wilder, like Some Like It Hot

TJM talks about Billy Wilder