#nonnerpants

[trilliath]

Your cat is so pretty! That’s the type of cat I imagine myself having when I can finally afford my own apartment

Oh no. You’ve done it now *whips out baby photos*

Not to be dramatic but she’s the brightness of my days.

Eight years ago I had a friend who would foster and rescue lots of animals and she posted photos of her latest group of kittens right when I was moving to an apartment again and.

How do you not fall in love with her squashy little face and OVERWHELMING CUTENESS.

I SAID no. I said no because I wasn’t supposed to have a cat in the new apartment technically (not without a massive rent fine that isn’t really fair for a responsible cat owner compared to reckless dog owners). But then my friend brought them to campus and swung by my lab and started putting kittens on me until I succumbed.

I wasn’t that hard to defeat tbh. It’d been about five years since my much beloved childhood cat had passed on. I had a huge cat-shaped hole in my life.

She filled it with gusto! Watching her grow up from a tiny kitten was awesome, even if she was a terror at times. She talks to me all the time because I taught her lots of things to say, and she loves to test the rules till she understands, and cause mischief when I’ve annoyed her by being too busy doing work things (or watching too much hockey).

Eight years later and she’s still the best, still sticking with me through all the moves and crazy remodels.

[trilliath]

See, I still think Sid is the best hockey player in the world (unpopular opinion, I know) but like Connor is one of maybe 3 people that do anything on the Oilers, so of course he appears to be really good. (You can’t look bad if you’re the only one participating) and sure having dozens of personal awards is great, but like he hasn’t done much for the team as a whole, like personally I feel like the goal of being an NHL player is to win a Cup, which at this rate the oilers won’t be able to do.

Listen, don’t downplay his hockey skills. Connor is genuinely obscenely talented - I’ve watched him play in person and it’s staggering how fast he is, how fast he thinks on the ice. It’s absurd. And when he grows into his role as a leader he’s going to be even better and do amazing things for his team. He clearly wants to get there - Connor has already done important things like carefully measure the value of what his individual talent could demand for salary against how much of the cap space he wants to take up so he’s not handicapping the team.I’m definitely not suggesting he doesn’t want to get there and isn’t actively working towards it.

But yeah, I agree, he’s not there yet. It’s easy to say you can’t hold him responsible for some of the staggeringly stupid choices the organization has made around him, or things likehaving a historically shockingly bad penalty kill - as much as it’s definitely important for him to elevate the rest of the team, he can’t be responsible for things he’s not even on the ice for, right? Right? And okay. Maybe that’s fair……….. but is that really true? I’m not so sure, not when it comes to being “The Best In The World”.

Sidney Crosby makes sure callups get sat next to him in the dressing room so they can lose their nerves faster. Sid will stay hours after practice to help the meagerest rookie callup work on a detail of their game if he asks. Sid will sit on the bench asking innumerable questions of new teammates, pushing to get inside their head, to understand how they see the game so he can better adjust to them and what they’re going to do on the ice, or offer them crucial insights they need right then. Sid takes notes during practice about the ice quality and talks to the crews to help them excel at their job. Just last night Coach Sully mentioned how Sid studies the game on his own and brings his observations to his office to discuss how to approach things best. These are just a few of the things people have remarked upon over the years as being exceptional. Above and beyond.

Does Connor McDavid do those things? Maybe, I don’t know, I’m not paying that close attention to the Oilers. But if he isn’t… I’m just saying, getting to “The Best In The World” isn’t something someone can do by training their hockey skills alone.

[trilliath]

Sidney Crosby isn’t a top 10 center in the NHL anymore, let alone top 20. Five points in six games is embarrassing when his peers have 10+ points and are point per game. Don’t forget that he hasn’t scored a goal yet and he will surely finish with below 60 points at this rate.

You must be new to hockey.

[trilliath]

I can see how it could be annoying when the word is the same and it’s just the pronunciation that is wrong, like in the case of personal names (For example, i was living in Korea for six months and, since they couldn’t pronounce Karla because of the rl combo, I got used to being called Kala, but I know people who put more of an effort in correcting) what I meant was more along the lines of it being a whole different word in another language. Like, Germany-Deutschland or Japan-Nippon and so on 1/

Btw this is not meant to be argumentative or mean spirited! I just really love languages and I can truly see both sides, like I really get how it could be annoying. Your post was really interesting and I just wanted to hear more! So don’t feel obligated to publish if it annoyed you 2/2

I didn’t feel it was argumentative, and hopefully I didn’t come across that way either since I too just find languages interesting - but it’s kind and considerate of you to specify your tone - thank you!

Is the R rolled in Karla? (One of my best friends growing up is named Karla but the flat American way.) Boy that would be hard for Korean-native tongues. I’ve found that R is such a funny sound around the world, it has so many different distinct versions that aren’t shared between languages. Even otherwise-close languages.

Things like Germany-Deutschland and Japan-Nippon/Nihon are really interesting historically, how they got their different name in another language. Now like - i’m not a history nerd at all so don’t quote me on this but “German” and variations are interesting because for most places in europe, as I understand it, it was kindof a name that developed differently for a bunch of neighboring languages referring to “those german-type peoples in their various villages and mini-kingdoms”, (usually around whichever group was closest to the borders of their own country) before Deutschland was even a cohesive nation and that nation grew its own name. On the other hand like with Japan/Nippon (again, from what I understand) it’s really just a massive game of “Telephone” where it got passed along wronger and wronger over the oceans on its way back to english-speaking countries, and then got publicized under the new wrong name “Japan” and that was the only name everyone knew forever more. 

Still, I personally really like the idea of showing respect for another group of people by going “Oh, you’ve decided to call yourself Deutschland now? Cool, I will now call you by the name you chose yourself instead of the nickname I used before”… or “Oh man, I’ve been calling you Japan this whole time when it’s really Nippon? Darn, I must’ve misunderstood, but ok, I will call you Nippon now.”

Edit: And I should add, I think my actual irritation stems more from the like - refusal to even try when it’s so much more accessible now. Köln is NOT that hard to say for an English speaker - not in an age where you can open up duolingo for free, or click the pronunciation button on wikipedia. The same way it’s not that hard to look up the fact that a name like Евгений starts with a Ye sound in Russian even though most Russians choose to keep the “E” shaped letter to start their name when switching alphabets because… familiar letters are also important when it comes to your name. Or for another example it isn’t hard to look up how a hockey player whose name is Åberg actually starts with an O sound not an A sound, especially if it’s literally your job to say his name on TV. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people don’t even try.

But yeah you’re right, I personally would prefer to call Germany Deutschland or Japan Nippon/Nihon but I almost never do in conversation because most english-native people wouldn’t know what I was talking about. And also people do kinda sound like an ass and/or pretentious if they’re overpronouncing something “correctly” instead of it being natural. It’s so thoroughly culturally ingrained that way it’d be hard to change. And maybe when it comes to something as big as an entire country name it’s too big a thing to move (at least without there being a particular good reason and a concerted public effort), but on the other hand like, honestly most americans wouldn’t know what or where Köln was to begin with so there’s not that same massive momentum behind the wrong name - at least over here. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the canadian/american commentators for the hockey game I was watching probably had to look it up before they went on air, so that seems like a perfect opportunity to try and say it right (though obviously when they look it up it’ll just say cologne on wikipedia so eh, idk hahaha).

[trilliath]

...I’m now sitting here pronouncing weary/wary out load trying to figure out if I’m pronouncing it right. I think I pronounce them the same way... I didn’t start speaking English until I was like 13 so it might be because of that...but I do pronounce all the other words you mentioned in your tags differently. Idk 😐

Well, ESL factors aside, and probably also English dialect differences too… in standard American English:

For Weary (as in tired) the vowel sounds should rhyme with words like: deer, spear, clear, near, sheer, beer etc. “She is clearly going to be weary after the hike”

For Wary (as in cautious) the vowel sounds should rhyme with words like: care, dare, stare, hair, snare, bear, airy, etc. “You should be wary of the yellow berry”

[trilliath]

Ok so can I just say that I don’t find Bäckis all that attractive generally (he has his moments for sure but generally it’s a no from me) BUT!! His fucking dainty hands and wrists. They are so small, and look so soft and just ughhh they fuck me up. Tiny pretty hands and Big Dick, I am sooo into it. Fuck.

Right?????? Like, I’m attracted to all of him to an uncomfortable degree, sure but. His wrists tho. His fuckin wrists kill me. Stor kuken och en vacker handled…

[trilliath]

Oh boy, wanna hear it in Spanish? “Colonia” four whole syllables 🤷🏽‍♀️ I understand the frustration, but isn’t it better to say the name in the language you’re speaking rather than having just that one word in a foreign language? Country/city names are changed all the time when translated

Sure, I get that in that particular case there’s all sorts of history around who is calling it what when (as with plenty of europe and anywhere with history before you could just call up your bud and say “hey how do you guys pronounce that thing again?” and had to rely on the word and memory of travelers over long distances to share things across borders. Or. Wars and shit.). But that aside, the city’s name now is Köln in the language of the people who live there so if you’re talking about those people in that city now…. you could just call it Koln instead of Köln if you don’t know how to say vowels with umlauts and that would be a lot closer. Maybe nobody in Köln cares but like, for my own experience it’s a bit annoying to me (and to my knowledge most Oregonians) when people not from my region of the country (even when having been told the correct pronunciation)call it ori-GON instead of Or-re-gan.

Personally, I think the names of things are important.Like, I don’t call Mumbai ��Bombay” anymore just because it was “Bombay” in english when I was younger (yes I know there’s lots of complicated colonialism issues there etc. but still). And I really don’t like the arrogance of certain languages just deciding not to even try to do it right. Especially since in a language like English we absorb new words all the time. I think it feeds into imperialist and ethnocentric norms not to try.

I mean, sure, it’s not always going to work well. I can’t even say my own name when I’m speaking Swedish, for example, because I have way too many thoroughly american vowels in my name, so I totally agree, some things you just can’t say without switching around your mouth… but I’m not going to introduce myself by another name that fits in the language better. That’s not my name. And like, I’m not going to be annoyed if a Swede doesn’t get my name right but does their best to get close… but it would be annoying if they just switched it to something distinctly different when there’s closer approximations.

But hey, that’s just me.

[trilliath]

cashiers need to be friendly, sometimes overly so, to protect their jobs. the second they're not cheerful some old twat will complain.

No shit sherlock. Retail of any kind is a hellscape and I wish it didn’t function the way it does. As I already said, I wish nobody had to cashier. Don’t strawman me or project your issues onto my life - I didn’t say the cashier was “friendly” and that was somehow a problem for me, I described someone’s behavior that made me uncomfortable - mind you, without saying anything mean or nasty about this person or trash-talking cashiers as people in general. I literally was just describing something I didn’t enjoy that happened in my day because… this is… my blog.

There’s a huge difference between being polite/friendly, and what I experienced; i.e. talking so much in weirdly patronizing ways the customer couldn’t get a word in edgewise even if they wanted to, commenting excessively on a customer’s purchases, calling them inappropriate petnames repeatedly.

Yeah it sucks when people are feeling so threatened about their employment that they can’t behave like themselves (which you and I both have no idea whether that’s relevant to this person’s situation), but I didn’t make the world that way. I don’t deserve to be made uncomfortable either, especially when I did nothing but be quietly polite.

[trilliath]

Who’s the republican with short shorts?? I need to know who to avoid

Burns. Not that he’s said anything terribly gross that I’ve seen (and I really don’t pay much attention to him or anyone in california tbh so my information may be dated at best, so do your research before deciding for yourself), just talked about being r*publican, but I’m personally at the point where if someone used to talk publicly about being r*publican, even if they’ve gone quiet about it in the last two years, that’s not good enough for me without a public renouncement of the current r*publican horror show. I just don’t have time in my life for that kind of person.

[trilliath]

Saw you posted a Erik Karlsson gif and automatically scrolled down hoping he got traded. But alas he seems to be staying in Ottawa. Props for loyalty I guess.

Yeah, just my queue spitting up whatever happened like, six months ago lol.

But tbh his loyalty isn’t in the equation, really. He’s savvy, I think.He’s done about as much plausibly deniable “I want out” signals as he can, but he personally can only go so far before it crosses a big line in hockeyland. He doesn’t get a say in it unless he really wanted to play hardline (and make a pretty big dent in his negotiating leeway for the rest of his career) by throwing down some sort of “Trade Me Now Or Else” sort of drama, which even then isn’t any guarantee he’ll get traded because he’s a big piece to move. And besides, that sort of thing is very very frowned upon in the hockey world since GMs like to pretend they can control it all (and demand absurd degrees of loyalty without tendering the same in return). And in part because it’s a team sport - like what Foppa had to say about it making sense when colorado was basically benching Duchenne after he asked for a trade, how it’s really hard to go out there and give it your all when the guy next to you is definitely not going to take the same risks because he wants out.

Though I’m fond of EK and want him to have a good situation… He still has another year on his contract, and with Hoffman gone, assuming the remaining environment is not personally intolerable, EK would be much wiser to just wait the year out till free agency. Especially since he’s still working at re-building his game after that ankle reconstruction last year. If he can craft a good season for himself he’ll be worth more than ever at free agency. Then he can have his free choice of interested teams, and that way he can move once and settle down rather than bouncing around with as a rental by overplaying his hand with demands of an immediate trade.

Ottawa has made him a contract extension offer as soon as they were able to, but he hasn’t accepted it and tbh I doubt he will unless some big positive changes happen on that team this year. But as for him being traded this last year of his contract? Well. While trade talks aren’t dead in the water, I just don’t think it’s going to work this year. It might happen at the end of the summer here, since at this point most teams are getting ready to see how their team looks at training camp before making a bid for a big piece. But the reality is, most teams can’t afford to trade for him, since Ottawa will be demanding a high price to make up for all their bad choices recently when he’s not actually worth as much as they’ll want because he only has a year on his contract. If he moves this year at all before becoming a free agent, I think it’ll probably be as a playoff rental.

[trilliath]

Do you seriously not know who Pat Sajak is?

Never heard of him. Doesn’t seem like someone i’d be interested to know anything about either.

[trilliath]

So you remember a year ago when Phil Kessel and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup? Thanks to you blogging about it, I correctly answered a trivia question by yelling at my team that 'PHIL KESSEL IS A STANLEY CUP CHAMPION' until we could remember that he was with the Penguins. So thank you for your interests!

hahahahah that’s awesome! :D

[trilliath]

Hello. I'd like to think that somewhere Geno and Sid are watching the Washington Capitals in both horror and amazement. It's like the kid who got his driver's license and his first car is A Ferrari and the parents out of town. It's funny but slightly concerning. all in all. What A amazing hockey season we had. :)

Hahah right? But really, I think it’s all perfectly appropriate and great. If Pittsburgh was a city like D.C. and the Penguins had more Massive Extraverts tm among their leadership, I’m sure we’d have seen some crazier elements these last couple years too.

[trilliath]

Hey I noticed you were talking about the history of men's hair on this continent and that it was a complicating factor of Ginger Maple being made to cut his hair - would you mind elaborating or posting a link to where I can learn more? I guess I'm not really sure what you're referring to, and it seems like something I should maybe be aware of. (American Indians being made to cut their hair at the "schools" maybe? Gender politics? Something I don't even know to question?)

I don’t have any sources for you, because I was never a very scholarly student of history in particular. But from the ways it’s popped up in any of my history and social subjects study and also just in various media, I’m of the opinion that hair is one of the most fascinating windows into social control and status and culture throughout all of history - I’m sure someone’s written some very amazing books on the subject, I’d love to come across one and get a more focused view on the topic than the scattered things I’ve found interesting.

It’s definitely all of the above you listed for sure, heavy on the racism eugh… but even setting that part of it aside (though it does intersect, but that’s another conversation), a lot of it has to do with military-related history and the history of the draft (the one with the conscripting citizens into soldiers, not for sports teams), and how conformity is a military tool for turning individuals into human resources, and how wearing your hair longer as a man was an act of defiance against war and a society complicit in war - particularly in the vietnam-war era in the US.

This also comes into play because some of the ways men were not drafted were things like being college students (no sense in making your impending scientists/doctors/engineers etc. into cannon fodder if you wanted to build better bombs etc. eh?) and, in some places, sports teams. Some countries even still have compulsory military/social service for citizens - which can be “served” if they are a pro athlete by… being a pro athlete. I believe Finland and Russia are both in this category, iirc. Olli Määttä apparently went back and did his military service in the summers even though he didn’t have to technically? And the history of Hockey as a political and military tool in Russia is complex and fascinating - there’s a reason Putin has Ovechkin’s phone number and that has nothing to do with whatever Ovechkin’s personal politics might be. The whole “miracle on ice” stuff was not just about sports, especially from the Russian perspective. It was literally considered part of the Cold War itself, not just something that happened during that era.

But anyway in north america, especially in draft-era in early days there were lots of exceptions like sports teams. Sometimes that meant college students would wear long hair in rebellion, but it also might mean that student athletes or professional athletes were under pressure to maintain the appearance of it being “their version of service to the country” so they would be required to shave and cut their hair very short so they wouldn’t look so different from soldiers.

That sometimes persists, especially if you have a coach that chooses a very authoritarian / militaristic style for running a team *cough*Torts*cough*. Even now they will do things like force their players to cut their hair to near military standards - as Lou Lamouriello is reported to have done in his tenure with the Leafs, and thus I assume Connor Brown’s Ginger Maple Locks going bye-bye, though that may have been Brown’s choice. I was making a semi-informed guess but in reality I have no idea about him specifically when he made that choice. Carl Hagelin is one person I do know who was required to cut his hair when playing for Michigan though. By his own words he did not appreciate it and has never cut his hair short again since.

[trilliath]

Looking back I still find it hilarious that the media tried to pit Ovi and Sid with a "rivalry of the century" storyline but it just never happened lolz

Right? Like, the thing about great players is that they love good competitors. They can’t be their best if they’re not playing against the best, and when you  are hungry for that kind of competition it’s hard to hate someone if they’re 1) not a gross person and 2) really fucking good at your very favorite thing… no matter what narrative people try and put on you.

[trilliath]

re: the shoes on/off thing - I'm Canadian, and while I knew it was common to leave shoes on in the US I had no idea it was such a Thing. For me and pretty much everyone I've ever known it's automatic to take shoes off at the door; they're usually dirty, at least to an extent, and why would you want to track gunk from the street/dirt from outside into your home? I have no actual point, I just think the cultural differences are really interesting, esp. since Canada and the US are often similar.

Yeah it’s gotta be an eastern or easterly-midwest US thing because where I’m from yeah, no, shoes are pretty much not worn indoors for the very same reasons you mention. I disagreed with OP’s assessment of the “norm” and the homogeneity of attitudes people have about what the different clothing choices mean. That sort of thing is super regionalized.

Compared to where I live in Oregon, people in places like Ohio tend to have more niche opinions about what other people do with their clothes, things like “everyone knows you never wear pajama pants in public unless you are literally sick”.

I remember in grad school one time there was this massive (for fun) argument among a bunch of us grad students from all over the country about whether it was socially acceptable to wear yoga pants to the airport. The people from the northeast were HORRIFIED that people would wear them in public (and fly in comfy clothes and no makeup etc) hahaha. Those of us from the west were like ????? why would you not??????