This is ridiculous!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:31 am

In this Forum, I've taken to using ALL CAPS for my headers. I'll admit that it's an attention-getting thing, but that's not my purpose. Once you start reading, I have your attention, caps or not.

Nope, for me it's an odd kind of visual symmetry. (Synesthesia does have its idiosyncracies.) But use it in text, and it becomes boring very quickly.

On to education...

In a corporation I once worked, I had a lot of "interface" time with an Executive VP of Sales, a real Bellbricker who was sort of a Barbie Doll gone all to heck. She had an MBA in Marketing from USC--the University of Spoiled Children, given its nickname by her and her ilk.

"Idiosyncracies" coming from her malaprop-spewing lips became "idiot secrecies". That was a milk-sprayer right there.

One day she blasted into my office, completely freaked out because she'd found an abandoned field mouse hidey-hole in the back of her $2K office sofa. I checked it out thoroughly and vacuumed it for her (part of the job description of a lowly Director of New Product Development). She then asked me to throw the sofa out. I offered her $40.00 for it instead, as it was silk and nearly brand new. As I loaded it into my SUV, I asked her why she was getting rid of it when there were no more mice in the office.

Her response: "But--what if they laid eggs???"

So much for MBAs.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:35 am

We had another Executive VP who went on a biz trip to Chicago and forgot her laptop. She had a Powerpoint to finish, and a bunch of letters. She bought a new one in Chicago on the Co. AmEx account, and then called her assistant in a panic.

The problem was that she kept hitting PRINT and nothing came out.

Of the laptop...

The same VP would send an email to her assistant (less than a dozen feet away) to ask her to get a blank file folder and bring it into her office.

The file folders were kept in the VP's office.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:39 am

HAR-HAR-HAR-DE-HAR-HAR!!!

(I believe all-caps was warranted in this case...)

But how can you blame her, Paul? After all, look at all the egg-laying bunnies we see every Spring...

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:47 am

quite the opposite of an all-caps situation, in years (decades now i suppose) past most unix zealots never used the caps key. there was simply no need. with pine and elm for email, and bsd-ish scripting languages needing no caps, it was simply unnecessary. those same old-line purists eschewed att-ish unix versions for similar reason - who needs a mouse if you have a good powerful cli.

nowadays, you only see this among the nostalgic or the rebellious old-timers in the unix (later linux) world, or among the terminally lazy.

or me occasionally

BTW, Mark, I would heartily agree with you as to public education. The public school system is a wreck, and socially advances out of fear and trepidation nowadays. It does not train and encourage imaginative and individualistic minds or encourage competition and excellence in scholarship - that has never been the mission of public schooling (despite occasional self-serving psyops statements and propaganda to the contrary). The self-declared mission of public schooling since the mid-1800s has been to create useful, docile, average citizen-taxpayer servants of the state. On the opposite end of the spectrum, past high school, most quality universities will not socially-advance. As Dane say, they want the tuition, know they have a captive student, and will cheerfully let their profs fail folks. They know the failing student will just sign up the next session to take the class over again (and pay for it again $$$). Cha-ching

lyle_from_minneapolis · Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:48 am

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:49 am

Her response: "But--what if they laid eggs???"

Bwahaha from an ex rat "owner"! My daughter (aged 3 back then) said the newborn ratties looked like "shkweaky pieshes of meat with tailsh", but eggs are something new to me... maybe we've missed something?
As for all-caps headers, my brain works a different way - say, "it's capitalized, bound to draw attention, so there's perhaps nothing interesting there". Eh. That's just me.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:53 am

Right on, Elys...I've been saying for years that the main thrust of modern education (public or otherwise) has been to get us to sit in orderly rows and 'get our work done'. Gee, who's best served by that approach?

Aside from that, this discussion reminds me that my mouse needs a ball transplant...

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:57 am

Paul, back when I was practicing medicine, we had nursing staff curiously similar to your above-mentioned execs. We compiled a list of mistranslations of medical terminology witnessed from time to time on the job with some of these folks:

Anally -- occurring yearly
Artery -- study of paintings
Bacteria -- back door of cafeteria
Barium -- what doctors do when treatment fails
Bowel -- letter like A.E.I.O.U
Caesarian section -- district in Rome
Cat scan -- searching for kitty
Cauterize -- Made eye contact with her
Colic -- sheep dog
Coma -- a punctuation mark
Congenital -- friendly
D&C -- where Washington is
Diarrhea -- journal of daily events
Dilate -- to live long
Enema -- not a friend
Fester -- quicker
Fibula -- a small lie
Genital -- non-Jewish
G.I. Series -- soldiers' ball game
Grippe -- suitcase
Hangnail -- coat hook
Impotent -- distinguished, well known
Intense pain -- torture in a teepee
Labour pain -- got hurt at work
Medical staff -- doctor's cane
Morbid -- higher offer
Nitrate -- cheaper than day rate
Node -- was aware of
Outpatient -- person who had fainted
Pap smear -- fatherhood test
Pelvis -- cousin of Elvis
Post operative -- letter carrier
Protein -- favouring young people
Rectum -- damn near killed 'em
Recovery room -- place to do upholstery
Rheumatic -- amorous
Scar -- rolled tobacco leaf
Secretion -- hiding anything
Seizure -- Roman emperor
Serology -- study of knighthood
Tablet -- small tablet
Terminal Illness -- sickness at airport
Tibia -- country in North Africa
Tumor -- an extra pair
Urine -- opposite of you're out
Varicose -- located nearby
Vein -- conceited

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:12 am

I wonder how they'd "translate" cellulitis...

bitzerguy · Post by **bitzerguy** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:46 am

"I wonder how they'd "translate" cellulitis..."

What you have to do after "lights out" to read...

...Dean

lennon211 · Post by **lennon211** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:53 am

Regarding education, and I'm in the process of becoming a high school teacher, there is this great thing that the policy makers have been gauging school progress on: standardized testing. Because of this, there is an emphasis on testing a limited range of skills for the immediate gratification of policy makers who wave test scores around like they mean something. All they mean is the lack of creativity and drive in the classroom. I have seen so many classes barren of hope, thoughtfulness, and caring because of the policies in schools. It's sad and frustrating for me. There is absolutely no emphasis on increasing the language skills because you have to teach to the test. Plus language skills are being stunted into three letter phrases such as "lol."
As it is, my classmates and I are looking at the world from an underpaid, under-appreciated standpoint as we prepare to fight an uphill battle. And yes, it has become a situation where students are encouraged to do little creatively, and to just focus on the task at hand for another meaningless grade to pad the average so that they don't fail. Teachers, those charged with education of the masses are also being told that there is no room in the schools for their creativity. They are being pushed into cookie-cutter lesson plans that have been pre-packaged for us to spout like recordings. I could go on about this forever as this is an area that I am facing everyday. Sorry for the threadjack, but I really needed to say something.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:04 pm

In my first decade on the 'net, I resisted two things: "LOL" and smilies. I understand their usage as addenda to words which often fail to convey anything but a literal meaning, but find that usually with a bit more forethought and vocabulary-dipping, meaning, though ironic or sarcastic, or possibly even denial of words, can be conveyed.

I don't believe that use of these necessarily reflects lack of education; more likely it reflects lack of time to spend chewing the verbal cud, or crud, as the case may be.

With regards to test scores being used as sole gauge of competence, we are once again in political territory...

I grew up in the '50s and '60s buying the (false) line that the educated would rule the business, education, manufacturing, political, and philosophical world. Only the last is true; it always whas been so.

I always considered intellectual curiosity a sign of hope. But we have People In Charge (that's my Milne Moment for today) who have none, and find it to be a dangerous thing for us Morlocks, so it's being bred out of us.

This thread was jacked many posts ago, so no worries.

jwilli · Post by **jwilli** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:50 pm

The seller's handle is "gerbilkeeper". Enuff said!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:55 pm

I wonder where he keeps/heaps 'em?

elysrand · Post by **elysrand** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:15 pm

I am sure that the condition occurs yearly...

I am right there with you, Paul. Except on the smilies - I like 'em, and their use ordinarily does not hamper my wordsmithing too much, I hope.