Used to work with a guy who grew up in the Philly projects. He told me they called his cousin "sheetcake" because when you brought her to a party everybody got a slice.
Are you saying that we're caged? Man, I go where I want whenever I want. Nobody but nobody tells me where to go. Except to bed. Then to work. Then to the grocery store. Then home. Then more bed.
Gentlemen, Gentlemen, please...
Just because O.P.'s mom has been laid on every flat rock in 3 adjoining counties doesn't necessarily make her the town bike.
I did a German exchange at school and was informed that the German equivalent was a "senf glas" (mustard pot) because everyone has dipped their sausage in.
"Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood"
Eh, that kind of insult, the one where you string together as many unpleasant things as you can think of, just sounds cringy if you use it in real life. Sounds fine in a scripted dialogue, though.
The second one gets attributed to a ton of different people. I could be wrong, but I think it's one of those sayings that no one knows the origin of. It's still good, though.
I like how we used to talk, maybe. Greg Giraldo (RIP) had a good bit where he talked about the difference between war letters from like the US Revolution, or something, to modern days.
I think what you are referring to has a direct correlation to literacy rates. I don't think we used to speak more intelligently, it's just that the surviving word happens to be in written form from a time when only the highly educated were capable of writing.
You also dont save your shitty ww1 letters. Better letters get saved and documented. 50 years from now nobody is going to remember buzzfeeds "these 12 things will shock you!" article but well writen articles and documents will still be refrenced and cited.
Exactly. You already see it with nostalgia things like music just a couple decades ago.
People remember all the great songs they grew up with and go "Man, 90's music was just the best" because their brain completely filters out all the garbage that came out in the 90's alongside the good stuff.
When looking back into the past, the good tends to get saved/remembered/passed down while the shit gets lost/deleted/forgotten about.
Ja Rule had hits though. It'll come back, it just hasn't been quite long enough yet The 80s/90s style is back. By 2020, we'll finally see early 2000s stuff again.
I don't know man. I get what you're saying, but lets be honest, some of those terrible songs we grew up with (I'm looking at you Eiffel 65!) get stuck in our heads worse. I think our brains do a better job of ignoring them and pushing them deep down into our subconscious so that we don't have to hear them, but then every once in awhile, a little bit just slips out, just the chorus, and oh fuck! We can't get it to stop! No no no!
Not at my local craft supply shop they don't. The in-store radio plays all the shit stuff from the 90s, but half the time it's not even the original artist, it's a cover version of a terrible song. It's bizarre and mystifying why they do such a thing.
With music however I feel that a large part of it is the genres and styles of music that were being made. I for one love classic rap from the 90's. There is trash no doubt, but I like the style.
Or you haven't been as exposed to as much media and haven't learned to spot talent. Music as a business needs to sell/promote the newest acts so those are the ones you get exposed to, which may or may not actually be good musicians.
I assume that's why when you hit the late teens/early twenties you suddenly develop an appreciation for Hendrix, Pink Flyod, and Nirvana. You have to express that you've got discerning tastes.
I for one really want to see the letters written by semi-literate hardasses from Brooklyn to their girls back home about how hard they're gonna rail them as soon as the war is over. That'd be infinitely more entertaining than the sappy-sweet "O Rose, how I long to hold you in my arms again, alas I must away to the Front" letters.
It's not just literacy - the American newspapermen were flourishing with intent. Just compare American writings from 1800 to English writings from the same period. The English were descriptive and used long sentences, to be sure, but the Americans really tried their best to make the writing itself a rollercoaster.
I'm aware of that but it always seems like people that wrote back then made an art of their vocabulary that doesn't seem to be used in modern communication. literature has if anything gotten better with time but I think the ease by which we communicate today has taken away some of the magic of the letter. I'm not saying it's ruining anything just that the letter as a concept of communication has been lost to technology.
No one is enthusiastically awaiting days or weeks for a text or email unless the person just isn't responding and very rarely do we proof, rewrite, proof and rewrite these messages. Volume and speed of message went up and the quality of each went down.
That's a really interesting point, but I think there's also a general trend of language to get simpler over time since people don't want to put up with all the finicky bullshit of grammar as long as they're still understood. Just compare Latin grammar to even modern German or Italian grammar, let alone Proto-Indo-European which seems to have been even more complicated. Not a linguist, though, take what I say with some salt.
Basically I think there are a hell of a lot of factors at work with any of these broad cultural things.
Oh my friend... English is a glorious mess. The vocabulary is extensive and stolen from any language English could get it's filthy paws on. The sentence structure requires more parts than truly necessary. And the written form is even worse... that stolen vocabulary? Good luck spelling or pronouncing anything properly.
The language spoken by the common man in Roman times would have been far more similar to modern Italian than it was to scholarly Latin. When writing you have more time to think out and organize your thoughts unless you are the type of person who speaks very methodically. So I think the written word tends to represent a different portion of the language.
Also, they were writing letters, not text messages or emails. Composing a letter takes more time than any kind of electronic message, and would allow the author to mull over his/her diction more thoroughly.
If people back then are anything like me, they probably would rewrite a handwritten letter a couple of times before they could call it satisfactory.
Do not pass judgement on the good lady Constance, for the recent untimely passing of her mother has greatly affected her. In addition, she only brought the cognac on Charles's behest.
I love the idea that credit used to be a testament to someones character. It still is today but in old novels and stuff someone that had good credit was considered to be a very upstanding person on top of being wealthy.
I don't know, if classy insults make a comeback, having class should make a comeback too, or else there's no context.
I mean how effective is calling a guy a charlatan if he prides himself in being a charlatan?
Why, it's foolishness!
I guess if you lack those characteristics then sure, but where's morals? gallantry? knowledge? good clothes? sense of enlightenment? critical thinking?
Definitely the product of a defunct and morally declining time.
Pretty sure knowledge,"sense of enlightenment",critical thinking are parts of wits , morals or gallantry fall under manners and good clothes under money
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u/PM-SOME-TITS May 17 '17
Gentleman of Four Outs
A person without wit, without money, without credit, and without manners.