Frequently

Stamets@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 1020 points –
53

no worries, my brain will remind me every 45 seconds for the next 3 weeks

It's the missed quicktime events that gnaw at my soul.

I used to work for a large corporation and one day I found myself in a meeting with a bunch of female vice presidents where I was the only man there. The presenter was unable to display on the big screen because she didn't have a connector; I happened to have the right kind and loaned it to her.

She said "you're pretty handy to have around." My brain decided that a clever thing to say in response would be "well, I'm pretty well-endowed in the dongle department" and I started to say that before my brain thought better of it and cut me off. So what I actually said was "well, I'm pretty well-endowed". One woman in the room actually guffawed but everybody else managed to ignore it - although I'm willing to bet this story was told later more than a few times.

When you realize how that sounded you can save it by looking embarrassed and apologizing, and clarifying you meant something like "equipped". Typically a gaff is better than leaving things at creepy

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It's been over 20 years and there are two that haunt me to this day.

As someone with one haunting me for a little longer, fucking mood.

However I am curious about yours...

I was talking to my dad about family drama a couple weeks ago, and instead of wording my sentence properly I made it seem like I called my cousin a cow. I immediately felt bad because even though she's being a fucking idiot, I still like her.

That's when you clarify that you like some cows. They can be sweet, dumb animals.

That shit when they hop around after being let out of the barn in the spring almost makes me regret all the burgers.

After that, you just start anticipating this feeling and unlock social anxiety.

And then you imagine the "person will remember that" up in the corner

Me starting a conversation with my dad about some mundane things that instantly turns into him talking about conspiracy theories.

used to. i mean live and learn. and realize what you and / or others think is important

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For some people that’s just how dating works out

It's really not a risk for me until I try and get past online chat. Online chatting, I can proofread my...ahem flirtations. In person? It's a crapshoot.

That being said, I prefer to disappoint potential romantic interests in person. I'm old fashioned like that.

the phrase "yall" melting my brain cells painfully, 1 cell at a time:

Y'all need to accept the fact people come from different cultures

i know but the word just doesn't sound nice

If you use it without the strong drawl it’ll blend in perfectly fine. I’m willing to bet that the reason you don’t think it’s sounds nice is cause your brain hears the world then your brain hears in Squidbillies rather than just another Americanism of dropping syllables. That internal shift in your brain can cause dissonance and make it sound ugly.

I’ve worked hard to get rid of my southern accent but to me, “you all” just feels forced and clunky. Kind of like when someone uses an unnecessary vocabulary word when it doesn’t add any extra meaning.

There are many different accents for the word. My second favorite is the Georgia Peach / Antebellum. I don’t know the term for my top favorite but I’ll dub it “the highly educated and eloquent college professor who grew up in a swamp”, it’s like brown sugar for my ears

Whashyalldoin? Has been a traditional means to great a group in rural Arizona for generations

Whashyalldoin? Has been a traditional means to great a group in rural Arizona for generations

It's a second person plural pronoun. Other languages have them. For instance, Spanish has vosotros/ustedes and German has ihr.

English already has a plural pronoun: "you". It's the singular that we've lost: "thou".

The nice thing about languages is that they evolve, change, reconfigure, and adapt. They are not sacred things, but tools we use and manipulate. While we may have something similar, the utility needs of our words change over time and over regions. In certain parts of the United States and elsewhere 'y'all' has filed in the linguistic gap.

yeah, I know the utility of the word but it just doesn't sound nice, I try to restructure my sentences to avoid it whenever possible. just the tone of "yall" has the "trying to seem cool" vibe and it feels like an overfriendly word to use in most scenarios.

It doesn't have the same connotation for everybody, obviously. As a resident of the southern US, it's just an everyday phrase, and doesn't carry any "trying to seem cool" baggage.