Well-Wishers; New Job Funny(ish) Update; & a Dif'rent Kind of Gabe-Words™

2008-06-25T04:58:40Z

[Well-Wishers]
First and foremost, I wanted to thank all my well-wishers. Among them (in no order other than alphabetical):

anthimaeria
blamebrampton
ceirdwenfc
hapendfro
le_negronomicon
lijahlover
nathaniel_hp
pepper202
pir8fancier
sassy_cissa
sesheta_66
xlovexlolitax

Thank you to everyone who took the time to post your Happy Birthdays. It helped make June 23^rd one of the best ever. If I missed someone, please comment and I'll be sure to flagellate myself thoroughly!

A special thank-you goes to sassy_cissa for her gift. It was well used!

[Hey, Remember The 'Fancy' New Job I Got? Funny Story, That...]
So when I talked about the New Job, I mentioned my concern that it was Network Analyst and that I had limited qualifications in that field?
.
.
.
.
Yeah, Content Analyst.

Basically, as new policies and whats-not comes down from The Higher Ups, the H-Ups being either the company itself or The Feds, I'm part of the crew that... well, analyzes the changes, parse it, and suggest changes to training manuals, inter-departmental memos, websites, et. al., so that all the legalese, and managementese, and bureaucratese, and gobbledygook are parsed into something more understandable to... well, everyone really.

So yeah... big blunder for me. I guess it was my English minor and Computer Science Certificate that helped with the decision, because I will be working intimately (whatever he means by that) with the Internet Communications department. Whatever. So long as it's not networking, altho' I admit I was pretty excited about the networking thing, but Content Analyst seems way more up my alley.

[American Accent Meme]
Not that this was a surprise, and I think I've done this before, but...

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)

Neutral

You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you`re just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don`t really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

it's the same result every time. I do tend to get a bit twangy if I'm tired or sleepy. Other than that, however...

[More Gabe-Words™]
Normally, I keep an eye out for words I think we should use more, as well as words that I think we could never use again, especially in writing (barring things like historical fiction or deliberate attempts at démodé-as-neoteric, as in the case of Stephenson's The Diamond Age, or even Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy (which took me awhile to realize the setting was a bit more modern than what I had originally thought!!))*. But this time, I thought I'd try something different. These words and phrases are 'old' American slang terms. Not terribly old, mind you. We're not talking Colonial-era America or Civil-War era. But you know... 40s, 50s.

So... shall we?

The first two are actually slogans from the 40s that I think are apt today, even if the intent of the phrases are a bit different. Of course they are war-related, being the 40s and all.

Don't you know there's a war going on? Before, this was used instead of apologizing for lack of goods and supplies, crappy workmanship, shoddy services, etc.. Now, we could use it as a constant reminder that 'hey, there is a war going on', since -- for most of us -- this 'war' we're in now hasn't asked us to sacrifice much. I mean, for those who don't have family members or close friends in the war, we haven't been asked to ration, to send under-aged kids to work because Mommy and Daddy are fighting a war, or to do anything remotely equating 'sacrifice'. Maybe that's why we're so wishy-washy on the whole 'bring them back' crusade.

Speaking of rationing... Use it up, wear it out, make [it] do, or do without. That was the slogan to conserve. We could take that to heart now, I think. Aside from being apt, it's got an awesome rhythm. I object to that third it, tho; I think it sounds better without [it], myself.

Apparently, the 50s were a bit slow in terms of teen-slang. But one of the ones I really liked was the phrase, My, how sanitary! in the sense of I approve; and also from the 40s—Bells, man!, an expression of approval from bebop music.

Oddly similar was the almost-revitalization of the Bell motif with the SNL 'Needs More Cowbell' skit. Of course, aside from the phrase coming from the only thing funny about SNL in a long time (and thus was overused by everyone), its ambiguity didn't allow for it to stick. I used it sarcastically, to mean that such-and-such would have been cool, it only it had a cowbell; others used it to mean they liked it a little, but would have liked it more if only it had more cowbell, or even a cowbell.

One relatively newish slang that I've been hearing is referring to someone (or something) as nano, especially in competition -- be it with competition for a job, sports, romance, class standing. As in the threat that your competition poses to you is so small, so insignificant, that it's 'nano'. But it's mostly used as a noun.

"I hear you got competition for that promotion."

"Who? Henry? Pfft! Nano."

So if you have some slang terms (past or present) that you particularly liked, even if it's just stuff you and your mates gobbed on about (and no one else knew what you were talking about), drop a comment and fill us in! Maybe you'll start the next interwubbery craze!

Oh... and Thursday's Inspirational Art Film...? Let's just say I've seen these two boys in plenty of icons lately, and I think you'll be... inspired.

And once again, thank you all for your kind thoughts, words, and gifts. I love you all! GROUP HUG!

Discourse and Desires

Well-Wishers; New Job Funny(ish) Update; & a Dif'rent Kind of Gabe-Words™