QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited October 2023
I've previously understood nonce to just mean a dumbass, not anything more specific, but that's entirely through osmosis so I've probably just been missing something all along.
I've previously understood nonce to just mean a dumbass, not anything more specific, but that's entirely through osmosis so I've probably just been missing something all along.
This came up in another thread recently and a lot of people apparently think the same as you, but in the UK it very specifically means a pedo
I've previously understood nonce to just mean a dumbass, not anything more specific, but that's entirely through osmosis so I've probably just been missing something all along.
This came up in another thread recently and a lot of people apparently think the same as you, but in the UK it very specifically means a pedo
As an American i had also heard it used similarly to dunce as a kid, but with the Internet i realized that in the UK it means a pedo. Which is a weird bit of etymology. Checking Wiktionary it shows that the UK meaning came about around 1975 but no one is sure why.
Different but kind of the same is the word “nimrod” which is taken to mean a moron, a dunce, etc.
For that you can thank Bugs Bunny. “Nimrod” was a biblical figure, known as a mighty hunter. Bugs calls Elmer Fudd “nimrod” to mock him (because he’s a hunter but not mighty at all) but kids watching didn’t understand the reference so just assumed it meant a foolish person and that definition subsequently entered the lexicon
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I've previously understood nonce to just mean a dumbass, not anything more specific, but that's entirely through osmosis so I've probably just been missing something all along.
This came up in another thread recently and a lot of people apparently think the same as you, but in the UK it very specifically means a pedo
As an American i had also heard it used similarly to dunce as a kid, but with the Internet i realized that in the UK it means a pedo. Which is a weird bit of etymology. Checking Wiktionary it shows that the UK meaning came about around 1975 but no one is sure why.
There is also a problem that Endymion's protagonist is just the most boring human being possible in the existence, which is supposed to make him "relatable" I guess?
Whatever the point was, it does not work, and the story suffers for it.
I've previously understood nonce to just mean a dumbass, not anything more specific, but that's entirely through osmosis so I've probably just been missing something all along.
This came up in another thread recently and a lot of people apparently think the same as you, but in the UK it very specifically means a pedo
It's also a good word to shout at people who deserve it
smof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I wasn't a fan of River of Teeth but I cannot recall why
+1
ahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I really wish I could find a way to just.... Saved the last like two pages of certain books just so I could listen to them again.
The end of "Prayer for the Crown Shy" is just rumbling around in my head over and over and it's just so beautiful and I want to just feel that over and over.
I wasn't a fan of River of Teeth but I cannot recall why
For me it was because it felt like the author was narrating a comic book. I didn't get past the first few chapters of getting the gang of wacky characters back together one at a time.
Maybe that's on me; I was hoping for Cormac McCarthy but with hippos instead of horses. Instead I got cornball with nothing below the surface.
Come to think of it I think that's why I've always bounced off of Neil Gaiman's books.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
+1
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
edited November 2023
I'll invite this thread into helping me choose a book to read for my graduate history class.
I have to choose a monograph written by a historian, published within the last five years, that is focused on a work of history (as opposed to something centered around sociology, economics, etc.). Through the next five weeks I'll read it and write a paper or two on it.
Right now the front runners are:
2nd place -- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari
1st place -- The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel
I want to do the book about fabric, cause that just seems more interesting to me, but I am concerned that Postrel being a journalist (as opposed to a "historian") may get me marked down.
Any recommendations for a history book, from the past 5 years, written by a historian??
Zonugal on
0
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
edited November 2023
Good lord. I just did a trawl through my history shelf on Goodreads and it turns out that the vast majority of them were written by journalists. I don't think any of them would unseat The Fabric of Civilization if you're taking that kind of swing, that's pretty near the top of my list of history books written in the last five years in any case. I also appear to have read it and Sapiens nearly back-to-back in the same month in 2021, and I liked it a lot better.
In no particular order, the best three history books I've read by folks with actual history degrees published in the last five years:
The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk. Sort of a biography, but mostly using one monk involved in a lot of astronomical research and record-keeping to highlight what the scientific community looked like in the fourteenth century. Highly recommended if you enjoyed Anathem by Neal Stephenson.
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr. Come for the incredibly petty dick-waving over guano islands, stay for the breathtaking arrogance of the one nation with undamaged infrastructure bullying the entire post-war world into using the shittiest screws they could find.
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen. Most people, when asked to picture a town with a sign saying "African American Person (strongly pejorative) Don't Let the Sun Go Down on You in Inbredville" will instinctively picture someplace hot, formerly Confederate, and accented with banjos. But the entire phenomenon of the sundown town, where whole communities exercised collective violence to drive all the black people out and worked as a community to prevent any more from moving in, was almost exclusively an artifact of the North and Mountain West. And that's the playbook the most virulent and successful racism in America today still follows.
Just in case sociologists count, I'll throw out a hail mary for Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by the late great David Graeber. It's an unapologetically anarchist framing of the pirate states of early eighteenth century Madagascar, and it seems like it would be a hell of a lot of fun to write a paper about.
Sorry about all the journalists, it turns out they write a lot of really interesting books.
Jedoc on
+7
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
Thanks Jedoc!
I'm going to submit The Fabric of Civilization and see if the professor is okay with it.
I was interested in choosing a newish book on Jim Thorpe, but at 700+ pages, its just too big...
It might not be a fit for your ask but it reminded me of the posthumous Graeber book, the dawn of everything. The two authors were an anthropologist and an archaeologist at least
initiatefailure on
0
ahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
DabbleIt has been a doozy of a dayRegistered Userregular
Got a lovely limited edition copy of Promise of Blood, the first book in the Powder Mage series. From the broken binding, so gorgeous stuff as always.
But that got me to thinking and I can't remember. Was it McClellan that use to post here or Wexler (Shadow Campaign series)?
+1
CornerEagleMagic Man by HeartCopenhagen, DenmarkRegistered Userregular
Reading the He Who Fights With Monsters series means I get a lot of LitRPG recommendations, even stuff that's not obviously LitRPG. Latest one was "12 Miles Below" by Mark Arrows, about a post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland with underground caves full of murderous robots intent on extinction and occult knights in power armor fighting for humanity.
I liked it. Good enough that I immediately picked up the sequel.
Posts
Endymion/Rise of
The MC ends up guardian of a child for a while and then after a timeskip/time travel they become lovers
Not really other than in Endymion the main dude gets with the child he raises when he goes through a timeskip and its dead creepy
ahh, the Morgan Freeman, classic
yuck
I knew I hadn't read those books for some reason.
This came up in another thread recently and a lot of people apparently think the same as you, but in the UK it very specifically means a pedo
As an American i had also heard it used similarly to dunce as a kid, but with the Internet i realized that in the UK it means a pedo. Which is a weird bit of etymology. Checking Wiktionary it shows that the UK meaning came about around 1975 but no one is sure why.
PSN:Furlion
For that you can thank Bugs Bunny. “Nimrod” was a biblical figure, known as a mighty hunter. Bugs calls Elmer Fudd “nimrod” to mock him (because he’s a hunter but not mighty at all) but kids watching didn’t understand the reference so just assumed it meant a foolish person and that definition subsequently entered the lexicon
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It originated as prison slang
Yeah, there's some neat scifi ideas in them but the core of the story is very gross and makes the whole endeavor not worth it.
Whatever the point was, it does not work, and the story suffers for it.
It's also a good word to shout at people who deserve it
The most important thing to know is to keep avoiding it
Is there an animal mascot for when a book you enjoyed gets referenced by people?
That sounds wonderful.
River of Teeth
River of Marrow
Much emotions were had.
The end of "Prayer for the Crown Shy" is just rumbling around in my head over and over and it's just so beautiful and I want to just feel that over and over.
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It's not a happy story and it's very brutal, sometimes in a way that tells pointless and/or mean spirited
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Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
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Maybe that's on me; I was hoping for Cormac McCarthy but with hippos instead of horses. Instead I got cornball with nothing below the surface.
I have to choose a monograph written by a historian, published within the last five years, that is focused on a work of history (as opposed to something centered around sociology, economics, etc.). Through the next five weeks I'll read it and write a paper or two on it.
Right now the front runners are:
2nd place -- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari
1st place -- The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel
I want to do the book about fabric, cause that just seems more interesting to me, but I am concerned that Postrel being a journalist (as opposed to a "historian") may get me marked down.
Any recommendations for a history book, from the past 5 years, written by a historian??
In no particular order, the best three history books I've read by folks with actual history degrees published in the last five years:
The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science by Seb Falk. Sort of a biography, but mostly using one monk involved in a lot of astronomical research and record-keeping to highlight what the scientific community looked like in the fourteenth century. Highly recommended if you enjoyed Anathem by Neal Stephenson.
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr. Come for the incredibly petty dick-waving over guano islands, stay for the breathtaking arrogance of the one nation with undamaged infrastructure bullying the entire post-war world into using the shittiest screws they could find.
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen. Most people, when asked to picture a town with a sign saying "African American Person (strongly pejorative) Don't Let the Sun Go Down on You in Inbredville" will instinctively picture someplace hot, formerly Confederate, and accented with banjos. But the entire phenomenon of the sundown town, where whole communities exercised collective violence to drive all the black people out and worked as a community to prevent any more from moving in, was almost exclusively an artifact of the North and Mountain West. And that's the playbook the most virulent and successful racism in America today still follows.
Just in case sociologists count, I'll throw out a hail mary for Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by the late great David Graeber. It's an unapologetically anarchist framing of the pirate states of early eighteenth century Madagascar, and it seems like it would be a hell of a lot of fun to write a paper about.
Sorry about all the journalists, it turns out they write a lot of really interesting books.
I'm going to submit The Fabric of Civilization and see if the professor is okay with it.
I was interested in choosing a newish book on Jim Thorpe, but at 700+ pages, its just too big...
This one is in the same vein and absolutely amazing Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
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Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
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But that got me to thinking and I can't remember. Was it McClellan that use to post here or Wexler (Shadow Campaign series)?
I liked it. Good enough that I immediately picked up the sequel.