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Barmaid at The Horrible Revelation (Victorian Brun FTW)

Alt-Hanners at The Secret Bakery

Counter Staff at Smif College canteen - Interaction with Marten, Tai and Claire

Freelance House-cleaner

Dormitory night receptionist at the dorm used by both Clinton and Emily at UMass

Delivery-person (maybe for TSB or CoD, if Dora wants to go in that direction)

Emily's new apprentice at Coffee of Doom

Concession stand clerk at The Fighting Arena

Other (Please Specify)

[brasca]

By getting over it, and realizing you know and understand exactly what they mean by OCD so getting torqued that it isn't the exactly precise definition is actually just embarassing for you.

It's pretty bad form to tell someone that being concerned or bothered with how some people choose to regularly belittle their disorder, intentionally or not, is "embarrassing".

Also - recognizing that they're out running six miles a day while you're sitting on the internet complaining about their trivial word choices.

I'm not sure how these things are mutually exclusive. Do people who run never complain on the internet? Does a person's exercise habits really change what they are saying and the meaning behind it? You're talking to people on a forum. The, "You're on the internet," argument is a bit flawed.

Thing is that it's *not* trivial for those of us who actually deal with OCD on a constant basis.  I'll certainly joke about it, and I do expect constant shit from my friends[1] about it.  But it doesn't help anyone to describe some silliness as an OCD trait.  I'll indulge in odd things on a whim[2] and it can be fun.  It's still a vast difference between harmless indulgence and a serious anxiety disorder.

People make exaggerations all the time.  When someone compares a busy afternoon to a battlefield are they being insensitive to veterans?  Lashing out at people for their benign ignorance doesn't really you do any favors because either they will avoid you because they don't want you to take it the wrong way or they'll resent being scolded like a child and double down. 

"It bothers me when you use the name of a disorder that has a huge impact on the daily life of many people to facetiously describe a part of your personality."
"Stop lashing out and scolding me."

Ignorance might not always be malicious but that does not mean it is not harmful. When someone is then informed of how their actions are having a negative impact and they choose to not listen and continue, that is malicious. Although sometimes people listen and consider how their words and actions affect others and change their behaviour out of thoughtfulness and compassion. So that is a favour someone can possibly do themselves by choosing to mention their concerns.

If someone is informed of how their actions have a negative impact and choose not to listen that is malicious, but I would suggest not lashing out.  When people feel like they are being scolded like children they might avoid the person who takes issue altogether so as never to risk upsetting them again or willfully misuse the terms that offend because they stop caring about hurting people's feelings since they get tired of walking on egg shells. 

You spelled behaviour with a u so I'm going to assume you're not from the states, but there is a growing backlash against political correctness here in America and I think it's in large part by how people have gone about correcting others. 

[Welu]

A person wishing to not have their mental health reduced and basically mocked is not lashing out or scolding. Consider that if a person has reached the point of talking about it, they've probably been quiet about it a lot more often. So by the time they talked about it, they might be blunt to be clear, which I would say has not happened here in the relevant posts. Asking to have feelings considered is not the same as being immediately raging and attacking someone, which is how you're making it sound.

Remember this is intended to be a welcoming forum for many types of people who feel the world around them doesn't have any desire to listen to or understand them based on things about themselves that are out of their control. This forum tries to be more sensitive than the average community. What you might call political correctness, we tend to call basic respect.

[hedgie]

Some people need to be corrected.  I certainly have been, and likely will as long as I live.  People who complain about "political correctness" are generally more thin-skinned than those who they accuse of it.  It's called being fucking respectful and doing one's best to understand others.  And no, one doesn't get a cookie/biscuit for doing it, it's basic fucking decency.

[Kugai]

I wasn't even aware that Barns could fart!

[brasca]

A person wishing to not have their mental health reduced and basically mocked is not lashing out or scolding. Consider that if a person has reached the point of talking about it, they've probably been quiet about it a lot more often. So by the time they talked about it, they might be blunt to be clear, which I would say has not happened here in the relevant posts. Asking to have feelings considered is not the same as being immediately raging and attacking someone, which is how you're making it sound.

Remember this is intended to be a welcoming forum for many types of people who feel the world around them doesn't have any desire to listen to or understand them based on things about themselves that are out of their control. This forum tries to be more sensitive than the average community. What you might call political correctness, we tend to call basic respect.

Well it's just a suggestion.  I've seen too many discussions devolve into name calling and mutual loathing because everyone assumes the other person is ignorant and thin skinned.  There are people with actual OCD and there are also people who are very self conscious and don't handle criticism very well.  Should their neurosis be so easily dismissed?  For the sake of peace it's best to handle these matters in a civil matter. 

[Is it cold in here?]

Remember this is intended to be a welcoming forum for many types of people who feel the world around them doesn't have any desire to listen to or understand them based on things about themselves that are out of their control. This forum tries to be more sensitive than the average community. What you might call political correctness, we tend to call basic respect.

Administrator Comment

I endorse what Welu has said and want to amplify that it's part of the goal of inclusiveness and is a core value here. "Basic respect" is one way to describe what we insist on, as is "Decent human being". Mutual listening is a vital ingredient.

Anyway it's part of old and traditional decorum to be ready to say "Oh, so sorry, I didn't know it was like that" when you discover you have inadvertently given offense.

[Oenone]

A person wishing to not have their mental health reduced and basically mocked is not lashing out or scolding. Consider that if a person has reached the point of talking about it, they've probably been quiet about it a lot more often. So by the time they talked about it, they might be blunt to be clear, which I would say has not happened here in the relevant posts. Asking to have feelings considered is not the same as being immediately raging and attacking someone, which is how you're making it sound.

Remember this is intended to be a welcoming forum for many types of people who feel the world around them doesn't have any desire to listen to or understand them based on things about themselves that are out of their control. This forum tries to be more sensitive than the average community. What you might call political correctness, we tend to call basic respect.

Well it's just a suggestion.  I've seen too many discussions devolve into name calling and mutual loathing because everyone assumes the other person is ignorant and thin skinned.  There are people with actual OCD and there are also people who are very self conscious and don't handle criticism very well.  Should their neurosis be so easily dismissed?  For the sake of peace it's best to handle these matters in a civil matter.

Seriously? There's a difference between feeling awkward when someone asks you not to do something and having a psychiatric disorder... For example, the former is not a neurosis.

[Tova]

Taking pleasure in small, essentially pointless activities, is surely a life enhancing exercise.

Thank you for changing my perpsective. That is a very nice way of looking at it.

Your next challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to defend their habit of delightfully describing this habit as "so OCD." 

By getting over it, and realizing you know and understand exactly what they mean by OCD so getting torqued that it isn't the exactly precise definition is actually just embarassing for you.

Also - recognizing that they're out running six miles a day while you're sitting on the internet complaining about their trivial word choices.

There's already plenty of response to this, so rather than repeat it, I will just add the following. We are friends. They are aware that I am critical of that term, but that is fine - just because we're friends, doesn't mean we agree on absolutely everything. I personally am not a sufferer, so my criticism always been mild, as it was on this forum. But I am very sympathetic to those who are negatively affected by it. You may think it's fine, but that doesn't make it definitively so.

To address your final cheap shot. I'm happy they're out there running. It's a very positive activity. That's why I'm out there running too. With some of them, usually.

I let them run their loops at the end on their own, though. To each their own. 

[Thrudd]

I wasn't even aware that Barns could fart!

If a Gazebo can then why not a Barn?

(click to show/hide)

The Dread Gazebo
Gargantuan Construct
Hit Dice: 24d10 (132 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 0 ft
Armour Class: 6 (-4 Size, +8 Natural)
Attacks: 1 Bite +24 (melee)
Damage: Bite 3d12+15
Face: 30 ft x 30 ft/10 ft
Special Attacks: Leap attack, Improved Grab, Swallow whole
Special Qualities: Construct, Hardness, Alignmentless
Saving Throws: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +7
Attributes: Str 30, Dex 10, Con -, Int 4, Wis 12, Cha 14
Climate/Terrain: Any Land
Organisation: Solitary or neighbourhood (2-24)
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Neutral Evil (Usually)
Advancement Range: 25-48 HD (Gargantuan), 49-72 HD (Colossal)

Construct: Immune to mind-influencing effects, poison, disease, and similar effects. Not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, or death from massive damage.

Alignmentless (Ex): The Dread Gazebo cannot be detected nor affected by alignment-specific effects and spells, even though it is of evil alignment.

Hardness (Ex): The Dread Gazebo retains the hardness of the wood it was constructed of. This grants it a hardness of 5, which reduces all damage dealt to the Dread Gazebo by 5 points, no matter the source.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, the Dread Gazebo must hit with its bite attack. If it gets a hold, it automatically deals bite damage and can attempt to swallow the foe.

Leap Attack (Ex): The Dread Gazebo can leap up to 90 feet in a single jump to catch opponents unaware. It can attack with its bite attack the same round that it leaps.

Swallow Whole (Ex): The Dread Gazebo can swallow a grabbed opponent of Large or smaller size by making a successful grapple check. Once inside, the opponent takes full bite damage each round as the Gazebo crushes it. A swallowed creature can climb out of the Gazebo with a successful grapple check. The Gazebo can hold two Large, four Small, eight Tiny, sixteen Diminutive, or thirty-two Fine or smaller opponents.

Please note that there has been no documented evidence of jogging gazebos.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

... or playing hockey with brooms and expired baked goods.

Muffin puck!

[Thrudd]

... or playing hockey with brooms and expired baked goods.

Muffin puck!

If it is starbucks then it is Bagels. Those things are classified as lethal weapons even before they go stale. Building matereals once folly set though.

[TheEvilDog]

Coming back to read up on the forum.


I'll come back later.

[Dr. ROFLPWN]

Barn fart = zoo smell

[hedgie]

... or playing hockey with brooms and expired baked goods.

Muffin puck!

If it is starbucks then it is Bagels. Those things are classified as lethal weapons even before they go stale. Building matereals once folly set though.

Bagels are only good the morning that they are made.  Otherwise they turn into something deadly.  The worst, though, and the things that make the best pucks are the vegan oat cakes that seem to inhabit every coffee shop in California.  When fresh, they're the sort of thing that one can gnaw on all day in order to keep fed.  When they go bad they cause concussions.

[Akima]

Lashing out at people for their benign ignorance doesn't really you do any favors because either they will avoid you because they don't want you to take it the wrong way or they'll resent being scolded like a child and double down.

I don't think there is such a thing as benign ignorance. That would mean that the ignorance is positively good.

You spelled behaviour with a u so I'm going to assume you're not from the states, but there is a growing backlash against political correctness here in America and I think it's in large part by how people have gone about correcting others.

Because it's perfectly OK to resent being corrected without sufficient forelock-tugging and kowtowing, while entirely wrong to resent being addressed or talked about in a trivialising, insulting, excluding or otherwise unpleasant manner without a shred of courtesy... 

I hope Emily has never put a bat in a microwave...

[TheEvilDog]

Lashing out at people for their benign ignorance doesn't really you do any favors because either they will avoid you because they don't want you to take it the wrong way or they'll resent being scolded like a child and double down.

I don't think there is such a thing as benign ignorance. That would mean that the ignorance is positively good.

Oh I don't know. I kind of see benign ignorance as being similar to a benign tumour. Its not spreading like a malignant tumour, but its still a threat to the body because of the pressure on blood vessels or nerves. Just because its benign doesn't mean its not dangerous, just like ignorance.

Wilful ignorance, now that's what I see as being the more dangerous. Continuing to ignore what people are saying and their explanations as to why its hurtful and harmful to remain ignorant is, well, ignorant.

[MooskiNet]

Lashing out at people for their benign ignorance doesn't really you do any favors because either they will avoid you because they don't want you to take it the wrong way or they'll resent being scolded like a child and double down.

I don't think there is such a thing as benign ignorance. That would mean that the ignorance is positively good.

Ignorance is neither bad nor good; it is indifferent.  It's the empty space where you place knowledge if you're wise, and dogmatism if you're not.

As to it being harmful, pretty much anything can cause harm if used incorrectly.  If you hurt someone, you can apologize and try to do better (regardless of whether the apology is accepted), or you can double down and defend your right to hurt someone.  I've done both, and option one works much better.

[Morituri]

It is damned annoying to read pages and pages devoted to people who annoy other people and people who are annoyed by them.

Most places would be a heck of a lot better if people just made an effort not to annoy other people.  Way back in the wayback, there was an early internetwork post-forwarding system called FIDOnet, whose rules required that people "Be neither excessively annoying, nor too easily annoyed."  That is an ideal for which, IMO, we should strive.  Some of us need others to shut up about certain things in order to feel safe, and one of the things that needs to be safe is the ability to express those needs.  Some of us (including me, apparently) have opinions that can offend other people, and need to remember that we lose little or nothing by shutting up about those opinions.  I don't have to convince anyone else to think what I think.  They can think what they want and that's fine.  More than once I've written a post, decided it would create offense, and just not hit the "Post" button.

There are places and times to do something deliberately even when you know that someone will be upset;  As John Adams said, "You can't have a revolution without offending somebody."  Adams was trying to do something good for the world.  There are times and places to challenge people's safety and make them confront issues and think;  as Margaret Mitchell said "You should be offended, and often, by someone who knows how."   She was explaining why she sought out people who would force her to examine and expand her own worldview; she was trying to broaden understanding.   And there are times and places when the need to avoid offense becomes absolute; therapy for example cannot proceed if there isn't a completely nonjudgmental environment where people feel safe to express whatever they need to.  It's a judgment call.

As far as I'm concerned the proper criteria to use is to always be trying to do as much good as possible while doing as little harm as required.  Saying what you need in order to feel safe is a request among friends and fine.  Trying to assert dominance over the form of communication used by others is stroking your own damn ego and worthless.  Complaining about others making such requests while ignorant about the reality of their needs is, bluntly speaking, damned rude and should be actively avoided.  Remember, the objective is to do good.  Balance your needs against others' needs and try to find the way that's best.

So anyway, that's my opinion, but I'll loan it out to you if you like it.

[hedgie]

So anyway, that's my opinion, but I'll loan it out to you if you like it.

Is it under the GPL?

[Is it cold in here?]

If you make a mistake, accept being corrected gracefully, and move on.

You don't have to be terrified of accidentally offending someone. That just makes things awkward. If you make a mistake and dwell on it, that's even more awkward. Even worse is starting an argument defending ignorance or assuming you know better than someone with obviously more education and experience on an issue. Being corrected is ok, and it doesn't make you stupid or insensitive. Just learn, and move on.

[Storel]

Anyway, back to discussing the comic.

"Barn fart" looks to me like a typo for or mishearing of the phrase "brain fart". What do you think?

[BenRG]

Poll Results!

1. Alt-Hanners at The Secret Bakery - 17 (37%)
2. Barmaid at The Horrible Revelation (Victorian Brun FTW) - 11 (23.9%)
=3. Delivery-person (maybe for TSB or CoD, if Dora wants to go in that direction) - 7 (15.2%)
=3. Concession stand clerk at The Fighting Arena - 7 (15.2%)
5. Dormitory night receptionist at the dorm used by both Clinton and Emily at UMass - 2 (4.3%)
=6. Freelance House-cleaner - 1 (2.2%)
=6. Emily's new apprentice at Coffee of Doom - 1 (2.2%)
X Counter Staff at Smif College canteen - Interaction with Marten, Tai and Claire - 0 (0%)
X Other (Please Specify) - 0 (0%)

A pretty clear result this week. However, I can't help wonder if some readers may have missed a clue. Brun wishes to emulate Kiki, but Kiki didn't work behind a counter! Hers was a delivery service!

((New Policy: Any result that gets no votes in my polls is scrubbed from the list as shown above))

[Morituri]

"Barn Fart" looks like a variation on "Brain Fart", yeah.  Not necessarily a mishearing, but if not, then an amusing phrase that "Brain Fart" can remind her of.

I do this all the time.  Whenever I hear "Ghost in the machine" I think "Goats in the machine" and smile.  Whenever I hear "Deus Ex Machina" I think "Deus Sex Machina" and that would be a really cool name for a line of religious-themed adult toys. Whenever I hear "Cowboy" or "Cowgirl", I repunctuate it in my mind with a comma after "Cow," and it's surprising how often the sentence still makes sense.  I'm always alert for these near-misses, because sometimes they're very amusing thoughts that I wouldn't have thought otherwise.  It's all part of a grand language game I play inside my mind. 

[MooskiNet]

Anyway, back to discussing the comic.

"Barn fart" looks to me like a typo for or mishearing of the phrase "brain fart". What do you think?

In all truth, I can never hear an expletive with the word 'barn' in it without thinking of May saying 'fuckbarn.'  I've loved the word since I first read it, so much I've considered asking Jeph for permission to use it in things I write.

[Method of Madness]

My favorite expletive is fuckpants. I think Will Ferrell said it in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but I'm not sure. He might have said fuck beans.

[Morituri]

My favorite expletive is "slubberdegullion," but hardly anyone knows what it actually means because it's mostly been dropped from the English language. 

Seriously, how can you lose a beautiful word like that?  I bet no other language in the world even has a word for someone who tries to curry favor by performing oral sex but is so horrifically bad at it that they just make the recipient angry.   Can anything else express that in one word?

[Tova]

You'll probably be unsurprised to hear that my dictionary does contain the word "slubberdegullion," but not with that definition.

[Akima]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slubberdegullion

[pwhodges]

Interestingly, the etymology given is "slubber + the British dialectal term gullion ‎(“wretch”)".  But how British is "gullion" I wonder, when I find it is in none of my British dictionaries, only in the American Merriam-Webster.

[Mr_Rose]

A lot of the old English dialects died after the introduction of printed books; the printers all used the principal dialect of London and the older regional ones fell into disuse as a result. As for how "English" a word like "gullion" is, consider that the Royal Navy once recorded that its sailors, beached in heavy weather on the coast of Cornwall, not more than 150 miles from their home port, were unable to purchase eggs from a local farmer as they could not make her understand what they wanted, she having never heard of "egges" in her life – they went away disappointed while she got back to tending her chickens and their fresh-laid eyeren…

[Tova]

Curiously, Chambers has "slubber" and "slubberdegullion," but not "gullion."

Morituri, what on earth is the source for your claimed definition?

[QuestionableIntentions]

Is Renee really equating being pissed at her mom with someone's home burning down?

[sitnspin]

Is Renee really equating being pissed at her mom with someone's home burning down?

No, she's simply making a point that he is crushing on Brun and won't admit it to himself.

[Storel]

Is Renee really equating being pissed at her mom with someone's home burning down?

No, she's simply making a point that he is crushing on Brun and won't admit it to himself.

This is last week's thread, guys.