“oh hey,” she said, “it’s a really touristy area, but since you’re gonna be passing through anyway, you might as well stop by pier 29, see the dragons. also, there’s a—”
“hold on,” i said. “i knew your city had mountains, but. dragons? uh, actual living dragons?”
“dude, it’s not a big deal. they’re there all the time. of course they’re majestic and everything, but they’re loud and cranky and mostly they lie around eating garbage. now and then the city council will talk about trying to make them roost somewhere else, but—”
“dragons,” i repeated. i knew it was making me sound like a rube, but it was a lot to take in. “you live in a city that has dragons.”
“no, it’s cool, we used to go see them when i was a little kid. it’s worth doing. but that whole area is mostly dragon-themed gift shops, and the commercialization is kind of a bummer. also, sometimes a dragon will melt somebody’s car and it’s a whole problem.”
“honestly, i forget other cities don’t have them?” she said. “there’s a few other sites on the west coast where they gather. portland calls them wyverns, but that’s a portland thing.”
“chicago’s got, like, bunnies and songbirds,” i told her, “but otherwise it’s just your typical vermin. pigeons, rats, sphinxes—”
“sphinxes? what the hell.”
“oh, yeah, they nest in the el tunnels. sometimes a fucking sphinx will flap down out of nowhere, bring the whole train to a halt until the front car answers a riddle.”
“that sounds exciting,” she said.
“it’s the worst. your train winds up being twenty minutes late, and you just have to hang out hoping somebody up there read their mythology. there’s supposed to be a program where the conductors get trained in riddling, but i don’t know. rahm emmanuel keeps saying it’s not a budget priority.”
“huh,” she said. “guess the grass is always greener and all that. but on some level, it’s nice to remember that even with all these big box stores, the country still has some variety left in it.”
“yeah, did you know that in rhode island they call water fountains ‘bubblers’?” i said.
I was thinking about the Grim Reaper recently. They’re not tied to any particular religion, they just personify death and collect the soul and take them…where? What if they’re like afterlife HR?
“So hey! You’re right on time! Okay, your chart says ‘Hellenic.’ Got your coin for the ferryman? No?! Alright, here’s the deal: sign here, River Styx is down the next hall on the left, but you can’t cross for another hundred years. Hey, I don’t make the rules! What do you think a last will and testament’s for, Felix?!”
“Gina! Almost had you there in ‘93 with that heart attack, eh? Eh? Anyway, Catholic, right? Hang a left, St. Peter’s waiting behind the gates, he’ll give you your assignment.”
“Hey boss, this one didn’t believe in afterlife or having a soul– I’m headed to my next appointment.”
“Sanjay! Nice long life you had there, buddy. So you remember where the Great Revolving Door of Reincarnation is– oh wait! You qualify for nirvana! Look at you!”
“So Sam, you’re…agnostic. Come to my office, we’ll discuss your options.”
I really love this take on the Grim Reaper, actually. It takes everybody into account. Kinda reminds me of the afterlife several mediums have described.
i’m doing all this research on when “like” is used as a filler vs. “um” or “uh” or whatever & i’m really loving this
basically my fav pattern so far is how these teen girls use “like” pretty exclusively when they’re sharing these concepts that are unknown to them or just guess work, ya know?
they’ll say “here’s the, um, living room” but then they’ll say “in this picture my brother is, like, howling or something”
& i love it i mean i love the way they use “like” to express uncertainty and idk pensiveness? “um” expresses a break in a sentence, some disfluency. but “like” holds actual semantic meaning and is an indicator that expresses what follows isn’t gonna be totally accurate but just to the speaker’s best estimation.
i mean, he’s, like, howling or something, right?
girl talk is cool talk
I actually just wrote a 45 page thesis on this so here’s some more info on that if you wanna know more.
1. Like used in this way can be considered either a discourse particle or an approximative adverb. A discourse particle is a focusing agent which shows that hte information directlyt foloowing it is the main point of the utterance. It’s a language-efficiency tool and makes it more direct. IT is also used in moments of high excitement for this reason–you want people to know the point and you want it to hit them in the fucking face. An approximative adverb like is used to show that the information it’s modifying is imprecise and therefore, approximate.
2. This isn’t girl talk! Like’s usage is barely different among genders of the same age group, but is heavily stratified by age. THe reason it’s commonly thought of as “girl talk” is because it illustrates uncertainty and impreciseness–this is an example of sexism in language, because it intones that women don’t actually know what they’re talking about (FUCK THAT). It was once true that like was used primarily by women, but with shifting power paradigms, its usage is becoming more equal by gender.
3. You mentioned before that you uncovered this information concerning like while researching its relation to uh or um: this usage of like is known as a hesitation marker and has no semantic content, and is therefore unrelated to the type of like you’re describing. Hesitation marker like is often thought of as all the unconventional uses of like which is why people think that it’s a garbage filler word (though I don’t think there’s any such thing as a garbage word tbh), but it has so many unique uses which aren’t represented in English in other forms.
4. FUNFACT: A related use of like is as a quotative complementizer. I won’t delve into the syntax portion of what a complementizer is, but the quotative part obviously refers to quoted information. Here, like can be used to show either that the quoted information is estimated to the best of the speaker’s ability or that there is a storytelling aspect, typically with exaggeration or acting. YOU CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT. When the quoted information preserves the tenses in the original utterance, it is intended to be a direct quote. When the verb tenses are adapted to the present conversation, it is the second category, and is either an exaggerated quote or the speaker is just trying to convey the gist of the original utterance.
5. Language fucking rules.
I love you, Marie. I was even going to text you after work about this…I wanted to know your sources!
“And on a personal level, my daughter is six years old now. She just lost her two front teeth, just like Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie in Ant-Man, and is beginning to learn what Daddy does and about the different types of heroes. She has red hair and is constantly pointing at Black Widow and wanting to learn more about that.”
— Kevin Feige, man in charge of Marvel Studios, which has not yet announced a Black Widow movie (via fuckyeahblackwidow)
idk because im not physically or mentally attracted to him and ‘but he likes you’ or ‘but hes really nice’ isnt going to change the fact that im not interested
Damn, I don’t think women know how much that really hurts
