The Dastardly Dungeon of Deliciously Devious Drinks

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feyngirl

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Today was pretty busy, went shopping for all those things that we've been meaning to replace for ages (dryer broke over a year ago, various pans just act as surfaces to stick food to). Then saw Beauty and the Best with my Disney-loving friend, which was a lot of fun. Then curry and home, so a good day overall. Tomorrow I will finally get back to revising stories.
 

Filigree

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Re: misgivings about native names. One thing I valued about growing up in the Four Corners with a part Cherokee family - we were conscious of the richness of Dine' (Navajo) placenames.

I survived first round edits on the space opera, yay. Having a good editor helps so much. Now I'm brainstorming title changes to the high fantasy mms I'm going to enter into Pitch To Publication next month (because a shot at free editing is well worth the time.) Also, I'm apparently a sort of masochist when it comes to online pitch contests. >_<
 
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Aggy B.

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The good (and bad) thing about being the only person in the house who really likes corned beef is eating all the leftovers. :p About one helping left and it will be done.

In the meantime, been wording. Brain is still a little foggy, but working on things that are pretty straightforward for now. And there are deadlines everywhere so I can't really afford to not try and write at least a little bit.

Aggy, drinking tea again, too
 

Religion0

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*is v. uncomfortable with the discussion of indigenous names being "funny"*
I don't know if I won't say that's being overly sensitive. I can see where you're coming from, it is in bad taste to mock a language, yes, but on the other hand any language has place names or words that are funny for no discernible reason. In Danish, for example, there's the town Sengeløse which literally means "Bedless", and it probably sounds very snert-able to even a foreigner not knowing the meaning, and then there's the inherently funny word agurk, which is a cucumber. I certainly meant it in the spirit of the latter, and I'm certain there are many native place names that are not inherently funny. Notably, some of my favourite funny place names in Australia is Eggs and Bacon Bay, Tasmania, and Mount Disappointment, Victoria, which are very English. Had it been meant as "listen to this weird Ugah-Bugga language!" then it would be mean, then it should make all of us feel bad, but mostly it's appreciating the foreignness and the richness of a language so dissimilar. It's in good taste to encourage curiosity, because I certainly wonder what some of those words mean and hope the Native languages survive for many years to come.

Also, potato is a funny word in all languages I've yet heard it in. Kartoffel.
 

E.F.B.

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So, as I was walking out of church, I moved my arm to fix my coat and it felt like something back there in my back caught and pulled and gosh darn it, it hurt like nobody's business. It continued hurting really bad when I moved the wrong way, I cried, I got a couple Aleve to take and we ended up going to the after-hours clinic at my doctor's office to be sure it was nothing bad going on. Both the doctor and my mom think I just managed to pull one of those little muscles between my ribs, near my spine because the Aleve has helped a lot and the doctor poked and prodded and listened to and checked things and that's the only thing he could determine was wrong. He actually gave me a prescription for a pain killer to take, but seeing how that's a narcotic and would knock me on my butt, and the Aleve is taking care of the pain just fine, I don't think I'm going to fill the prescription. I'm just sitting here with a heating pad on my back feeling sore. Better than when I first pulled whatever it was I pulled, but still sore. I'll be careful and keep an eye on it until it's better, but until then....Ow. Stupid muscle.
 

kuwisdelu

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I don't know if I won't say that's being overly sensitive. I can see where you're coming from, it is in bad taste to mock a language, yes, but on the other hand any language has place names or words that are funny for no discernible reason.

It's not funny when we constantly have to defend the legitimacy of those languages and names.

It's not funny when our ancestors' names were stolen from them in boarding schools and they were beaten for speaking their languages.

There's an unbalanced power dynamic in language and naming that makes it very not funny.
 
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Aggy B.

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I live in an area with a lot of First Nation's names. And also within a stone's throw of Rossville, which was named after John Ross - Cherokee chief and politician - who, along with thousands of others was forced to abandon his home and marched out to Oklahoma. In fact, there are a number of "Ross" related names in the area, but folks tend to ignore the fact that they are named after the dude they were stolen from. Definitely not much funny about any of it.

Also, since different languages have different alphabets sometimes something that seems "funny" is really just because different letters. (Irish has fewer letters than English. So does Hawaiian.) It is a part of culture that different peoples have different types of place names and when we get into "That sounds silly," it's a very small step into more prejudiced thinking that says a culture isn't as valuable as our own.
 

_Sian_

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It's not funny when we constantly have to defend the legitimacy of those languages and names.

It's not funny when our ancestors' names were stolen from them in boarding schools and they were beaten for speaking their languages.

There's an unbalanced power dynamic in language and naming that makes it very not funny.

On my part I should have thought before I opened my mouth - the above conversation was insensitive, especially given Australia's history when it comes to actual aboriginal people.

I think that it's a bit different when you go to another country and you're all "huh?" over names, mainly because they don't really care, you're in the minority, and you're not once again sticking your boot in.

Btw, apologies Kuwisdelu.
 

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Watching Netflix's Iron Fist. Really irritated with the inconsistent characters. Danny's mostly good character-wise, not ability-wise. That guy should know how to take a fall. And his ability to speak English is too good for someone who hasn't been speaking it for fifteen years.

It's not funny when we constantly have to defend the legitimacy of those languages and names.

It's not funny when our ancestors' names were stolen from them in boarding schools and they were beaten for speaking their languages.

There's an unbalanced power dynamic in language and naming that makes it very not funny.
No, of course that's not funny. I would never suggest we should kill those languages, I would never try to defend those actions, but what you must understand is that saying that certain place names are "funny" is an appreciation in almost as many, if not more, mouths as it is derogative. It means interesting, curious, and, sometimes, funny. Sometimes, it does mean beautiful.
That said, they are and should be viewed as words and and names in a language on par with any other. They are not lesser languages, they are rarer, certainly, but they should not be defended from people trying to appreciate them like they were any other language.

Diversity is the life and strength of an ecosystem. Global culture is an ecosystem.

Guh, sorry if the tone is stringent. Your opinion is probably more right than mine. I am just horribly angry with the "sins of our fathers" mentality, which is what it seems to me these topics always boil down to.
 

Aggy B.

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I am just horribly angry with the "sins of our fathers" mentality, which is what it seems to me these topics always boil down to.

The problem is you are arguing about something that is not just "sins of our fathers" but a thing which still happens (although more covertly most of the time) now. I have friends who have been repeatedly removed from social media sites because their name is considered "fake" by the powers-that-be. Friends whose parents ran away from those boarding schools where they were beaten for using their own language. Friends who were shuffled off to schools where they were pressured to assimilate and their traditions mocked and dismissed as superstition and savagery.

Native/First Nation cultures are constantly appropriated and misused in an effort to add an "exotic" element. (Have I mentioned how hard it is to find stock photography of Native Americans? How many hundreds of hits I get back that are blonde/white women in feathered headdresses?) Kuwi's not talking about something that happened hundreds of years ago, but stuff that happened hundreds of years ago and has continued to happen through the intervening years. There's no "sins of our fathers" but a lot of "still dealing with the same old shit now".
 

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All right, I admit my tone and choice of word may have been in bad taste considering that, in my ignorance, I was unaware it was an ongoing problem. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an issue that we're trying to recover from between Denmark and Greenland, where the hurt is in the past and hanging on to that past probably only does more harm than good, and the focus should be on fixing the issue. I was not aware it's a living, breathing monster in the States, and my sense of the issue in Australia is mostly what they would like tourists to know.

I owe an apology. I am sorry.
 

CobraMisfit

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Watching Netflix's Iron Fist. Really irritated with the inconsistent characters. Danny's mostly good character-wise, not ability-wise. That guy should know how to take a fall.

"Hey, Danny, you were SUPPOSED to go down in the third round."


:D


Evening, gang.

Whut up?
 

_Sian_

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Given that Australia was still stealing children away from perfectly capable mothers in the 70s in an effort to raise them as white, and that the average aboriginal here dies 20 years earlier then their non-aboriginal counterparts, its still a massive issue, and I definitely should have thought before I opened my mouth.

Australia has plenty to be ashamed of in this respect, though I dare say our tourism boards don't advertise it too widely.
 

LadyV

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Slate Lick. That's a town name in my area. There, silly and PC. And for the record, I wasn't mocking the native names in my area. Just making a statement that there is a lot of them.
 

CobraMisfit

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Slate Lick. That's a town name in my area.

About 30 minutes west of Nashville is one of my favorite town names of all time: Bucksnort. We stopped there for an overnight when I was a kid and the name stuck with me. Nowadays CmF and I make it a point to stop there at least once when we visit her folks.

Funny thing, I always thought it was named after the snorting a buck (male deer) makes, especially since the image is a buck with an impressive set of antlers. Apparently the genesis was because there was a moonshiner named Buck who used to live in town and folks would swing by his place for a snort.

Still a pretty fantastic backstory in my book.
 

Kitkitdizzi

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In California we have Zzyzx. We also have many town names that hearken back to the gold rush, like Rough and Ready, or Skidoo (latter is now a ghost town). I'm partial to Copperopolis, named for copper mining. It's really fun to say. I got lost once and drove through it. Stopped and got a t-shirt that said "Where the Hell is Copperopolis?". Oh, and Placerville used to be called Hangtown. For obvious reasons. They changed the name when California became a state and they were in the running for the state capitol.

Oh, and almost forgot the town of Weed ;)
 
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E.F.B.

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Whatever the backstory, Bucksnort is awesome place name.:Thumbs: There's a "Hooker Lane" not too far from here. Seeing how it's just a tiny lane that leads over to some houses out in the middle of farm land, I've always wondered about the reasons behind naming it that... 'Course some crocheters like to refer to themselves as "hookers" so it could be perfectly innocent, I'm sure.:2angel:

My back is feeling much better now than it was, but I figure hauling a certain cat (who wants constant attention but is too old and decrepit to jump) up onto the chair with me wouldn't exactly be helpful to my healing. However, I've noticed that since I've been ignoring him, that same certain cat has discovered he has enough upper body strength to pull himself up, paw over paw. *is very warm with the heating pad, cat, and dog all on the chair*
 

JJ Litke

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There's a place in Texas called Bug Tussle. According to Wikipedia: "so named from an incident in the 1890s when a swarm of insects spoiled an ice cream social." I found that while googling to verify the spelling, and found there are actually several places in the US named that.

We saw Beauty and the Beast earlier. What a lot of missed opportunities. Sorry, I'm sure that's going to be an unpopular opinion, and I'm a little surprised myself at how disappointing it was.
 

Filigree

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I think I'm going to hang back from that movie for a while, and catch it on cable eventually.

I'm trying to wrap my mind around the approach to gather (and pay) some appropriate sensitivity readers. Here's my problem: I'm not writing contemporary Earth-set stuff, not even alternate history. Many of my fantasy & SF manuscripts are set in very far futures or far pasts, in different universes. There *was* an Earth, but it's long gone by storytime.

There is profound racism, though: between different groups of humans, and humans and aliens (on both sides). It drives a lot of the back history stuff. I have POC in the fantasy settings, but I don't make a big deal out of it via those characters. They just are, and their skin tone is less important to them than whether their great-great-great grandma was a witch or a sorcerer, or had bare skin or fur-and-a-tail.

In the space opera settings (nearest to our time, but still about 3000 years from now) most of humanity is more-or-less brown/dark tan toned. Their societies are variable, between practical frontier worlds and rich long-settled planets. (I so borrowed from Firefly, Babylon 5, and The Expanse!)

I'm not writing 'Save the Pearls' (ugh, the mms that brought down Weird Tales for me). I'm also not writing contemporary Earth POC. So their input, while valued intensely, isn't going to shape as much of these books as it would if I were writing urban fantasy, near-future SFF, or Paranormal Romance. I don't want to step on toes, ignore great advice, or get caught in some of the RaceFail traps I've seen over the last few years.

How do I proceed to find sensitivity readers?
 

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Quiet in here today.

I'm supposed to do, another, exam. Supposed to, as in the books are open, so are several pertinent websites and the Word document with the questions and some answer, but I'm just staring blankly at the window, disappearing into the Wind Waker soundtrack for several minutes at a time.
 

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*is v. uncomfortable with the discussion of indigenous names being "funny"*

I definitely apologize if my comments offended. That was not my intent at all. I find lots of names interesting and funny, including some English/American names, such as Boring, Oregon, or Whynot, Mississippi. I remember looking at maps for hours finding unusual and interesting placenames when I was a child. By 'funny' I don't mean mockable - I mean they sound different on the tongue used to American English. Funny as in interesting and different, not as in laughable. I love saying different placenames. One of my favorites has always been Reykjavik, long before I thought to travel there, because it is musical. The same with Ullapool in Scotland, or Saskatchewan in Canada. They are intriguing BECAUSE they are different from 'Main Street' or 'Centerville".
 

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This weekend's show in Vestal was a huge disappointment. Great people, but so slow. Barely made expenses. However, everyone says the fall show is much better, so I bit the bullet and gave my application. We shall see. It's on Black Friday weekend, and two days rather than one, so that should help.

I'm almost done editing Misfortune of Vision after the first excellent beta comments I got back. Adding scenes. Adding words. What started out as 69,730 words is now pushing 75,000 and rising.
 
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