193 posts
Latest Posts by alianora-of-toure-on-marsh - Page 7
Everything movies taught me about archery is wrong. This is a complete mind-blower. 8D
If you are even remotely interested in archery or medieval combat, check this out, it’s just great!
8-02-99 submitted: I found this weird ass strawberry and she looks like a small magical being/gremlin
a trickster spirit
1-9 notes: your post was seen 10-99 notes: your friends found your post good, possibly some of their friends too 100-999 notes: strangers in your broader circle find your post good, many people whose names you’ve never seen 1000-9999 notes: your post is popular and widely circulated in your subculture; it has circulated to people with wildly different worldviews who are still basically united by some interests 10000-99999 notes: people’s commentary on your post has started to become repetitive; people melt together into a samey mess; every possible misinterpretation of your post has happened a couple times 100000-999999 notes: your post is less and less seen as something written by you and more and more seen as “one of those things from the internet”. people openly talk about you in the notes as if your identity is a mystery, despite there being a link right there 1000000+ notes: people start to make pilgrimages to your blog to ask you if you are the source of the post; possibly someone writes an article on a news website about your post and how many notes it has
"Where is a frown?" Americans say mouth, Brits say forehead (my mind=blown)
This recent post from Lynne Murphy on Separated By a Common Language created much discussion in my Twitter feed and over dinner with a collection of American, British and Australian English speakers. Many of us have been living with semantic variation staring up in the face. Even (American English) Lynne didn’t realise her (British English) husband had a difference sense from her:
When I tweeted the question “Where is a frown?” British people told me “on the forehead”. When I asked the Englishman in my house, he said the same thing. Fourteen years together and only now do I know that he’s been frowning much of the time.
And like one of the blog commenters, the Brits I talked with had an epiphany: so that’s why Americans say “turn your frown upside down!” to mean ‘cheer up!’.
Older Australian English speakers I talked to identified the forehead frown as the sense that they have, but a frown has always been the opposite of a smile for me, all about the mouth. Otherwise, what is the opposite of a smile? It looks like we have some intergenerational semantic shift happening right under our noses.
See Lynne’s original post on Separated by a Common Language.
terrifying monstrosity: who could possibly love me when I am a terrifying monstrosity me, stretched out on the table in front of them with a rose between my teeth: well
I get where you’re coming from, but–
As a biologist– no, you don’t! I think that’s a pretty common misunderstanding of how “reality” works. We’re humans–we’re built to categorize and generalize and simplify and this helps us function efficiently, make predictions, and communicate about abstract concepts or experiences.
But the world itself pretty much never falls into clean-edged categories because that’s not how things evolve. That’s not how natural, complex, multi-faceted processes *happen.* The concept of species is an artificial construct with a basis in biology. (Look up “ring species” for an awesome example!) The concept of “genes” is an artificial construct with a basis in biology that helps us talk about concepts. (Have you ever seen a scientist try to create an inclusive, concrete definition for what a “gene” is? It’s hilarious.)
Heck, the concept of *colors* is an artificial construct with a basis in biology. What’s red? What’s not red? When does red start being purple? How does pink fit into the picture?
I totally get why saying “let’s just not worry about the reality of gender and let everybody do what they want” is appealing! It appeals to me. I think it would work really well for a lot of people.
But the *issue* with saying that gender is 100% socially constructed is that it harmfully erases the experiences of trans people that experience non-social dysphoria (such as body dysphoria). I have straight up seen trans people shouted down about their own lived experiences and trauma over this; it’s not cool.
To be clear, I am using “gender” to describe the internal sense of “what I am” as distinct from “gender ROLES” (socially constructed) and “sex” (also kind of fuzzy-edged, but more related to chromosomes and phenotype).
Saying “gender is 100% socially constructed” also erases the experiences of non-trans people who have a strong internal instinct of “I am this”, although at least in those it is less likely to cause harm so much as to just clash hard with their ability to accept your logic.
One reason we know gender is not entirely socially constructed is that people raised as the “wrong” gender are statistically very likely to have a lot of psychological issues, even if they don’t know they are being raised “wrong.” (An example: x)
Another reason we know that gender is not entirely socially constructed is that most animal species we study exhibit a “sense of what sex they are” that is DISTINCT from their “sex” and can be manipulated genetically, chemically, and environmentally. The more complex these systems get, the more room you have for lots of variation, creating a whole spectrum of ways for both gender and sex to manifest and interrelate.
And humans are even more complex, because we have the ability to think consciously about our sense of self and our sense of other people’s selves! But there is definitely a root for all of these (and even why so many people feel so very STRONGLY about this topic) somewhere, partially, in our biology.
Doesn’t mean we don’t have a shit-ton of work to do educating people and creating a better, more inclusive society.
tbh the most unrealistic thing in harry potter is when mrs weasley in the first book asks “now what’s the platform number?”
like this woman has been going to that school for seven years and then dropped kids off on the same place for nearly ten like why on earth would she forget the platform number
