From "Why you always think your friends are mad at you — even when they’re not" (WaPo).
I think there's a tremendous amount of low-level suffering in this mode, but what I want to focus on is "a pit forms in her stomach." The original expression in "in the pit of my stomach." There isn't supposed to be something like a cherry or peach pit that's in the stomach. What's in your stomach is a bad feeling, and it's located at the bottom — the pit — of the stomach.
I know that from living in the English-speaking world over a long stretch of time, but I checked my understanding, and here's verification of my position from Paul Barnes, who wrote "Common Errors in English Usage":
pit in my stomach
Just as you can love someone from the bottom of your heart, you can also experience a sensation of dread in the pit (bottom) of your stomach. I don’t know whether people who mangle this common expression into “pit in my stomach” envision an ulcer, an irritating peach pit they’ve swallowed or are thinking of the pyloric sphincter; but they’ve got it wrong.
ADDED: Do people still say "It's the pits"? If they do, are they picturing a pile of peach or cherry pits? Erma Bombeck wrote a book in the 1970s called "If Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?" I think, as I gaze back through the mists of time, that the title was funny because "the pits" did NOT refer to fruit pits.
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Isn't that where the butterflies hang out?
That's why I am proud that I smart enough not to have a cell phone. It's an addiction, and as I watch friends and family so transfixed by whatever is going on, on their phones, they are missing what is happening in real life. Don't want it, don't need it, and like being able to roam freely without anybody knowing WHERE I am. Big Brother is always watching!!
From "Why you always think your friends are mad at you — even when they’re not" (WaPo).
This all stems from the basic human need to be a part of the tribe.
For most of our time as a species being cast out meant death. Particularly for females and children.
This leads to class consciousness and eating disorders and all sorts of depressing stuff.
Very few people are truly comfortable alone. Even fewer can be alone for more than 24 hours without issues.
Without judging how Ann chooses to get off I oppose the notion of incorrectness or 'they've got it wrong', especially in this particular case.
As support for my assertion and an additional source of linguistic masturbatory material, would anyone care to diagram this?...
If you send ‘K’ then I think you’re mad, but maybe to them sending ‘K’ is whatever. And I’ve had those [conversations] where people are like, ‘No I’m not mad, what are you talking about?
I postulate we are not witnesses to an egregious language error but in fact the elegant musings of a disruptive pioneer, bravely abandoning convention.
Is she not understood?
Q.E.D.
Social media platforms have sucked people in so deep by playing on peoples emotions and psyche by becoming an electronic version of crack cocaine. People have become addicted to their social media accounts and part of it is the programming algorithms that they code into their product. This is the same situation that the recent Facebook whistleblower pointed to how Facebook knew that Instagram was toxic for teen girls self-esteem and yet kept pushing their product on these teens. In Ann’s example, because this woman was not getting near instant satisfaction from her friends about her posts, she was getting depressed and starting to imagine her friends no longer being there for her, similarly to drug addicts who desperately need their next hit, such as opioid users going through detox.
This woman could have freed herself from Ann's lexicographical clutches with a vigorous brandishing of leftie credentials, enticing Ann to elicit the generic What she obviously meant to say... support.
When I think of having a pit form in my stomach, it sends spines running up and down my back.
A valuable lesson a parent can teach their children- that they aren't the center of the world for anyone other than their parents or grandparents. You are just one of hundreds of people in other people's lives, including ones friends. Your very best friend in the world isn't thinking about you at all 99.99% of the time.
Damn, I remember that Bombeck! There were some good lines in there -- good, I mean, for my taste at twelve or so. How she bought a makeup "eraser," and proceeded to erase her whole face. How she posted a sign in the bathroom: "FIFTY MINUTE SHOWERS CAUSE ACNE."
'...but maybe to them sending "K" is whatever.'
"K", huh?
With all the gossip about marginalization, I wonder if Kamala has a pit in her stomach.
Or is she just bidin' her time until he...blows over.
It's the same feeling I got when our hostess was only taking comments by email and didn't publish some of mine.
I think "a pit forms in her stomach" is actually very evocative of the feeling she's describing. It's... like hole has opened up in your abdomen, a black hole sucking all joy and piece into it. A bottomless pit of unlovableness.
Anyway, I could immediately feel the sensation when given that description, so I think it is an apt metaphor, if not the metaphor you were expecting.
It almost reminds me of the scene in the Neverending Story (book) where some of the people have had their middles eaten out by the nothing.....
I heard on the John Tesh radio show a month ago that texting short dry answers is considered rude. Outraged and indignant that I wasn't au courant, I checked it out with my hipster nephew with whom I am always texting k. He told me that yes, short dry texts usually means someone is mad at you, but that it was a generational thing and he took that into account. So I've been loading my texts up with complete phrases and emojis. That's dangerous too, I found. Red hearts apparently are not appropriate to a nephew!
FWIW I just received from an elderly cousin a lovely, gracefully worded birthday text loaded with a nice gif and colorful emojis. I was more than usually delighted
by the bright cheeriness of it.
How much of this is age-related? I remember worrying that people were mad at me when I was younger, but that's not something I worry about now.
The person with the pit in her stomach misinterprets her interlocutors' messages by assigning them a value as if she herself had used those certain terms in her own outgoing messages. This is the logical fault of a narcissist. The abyss in her stomach is looking back at her.
I'm not in love with texting. It's helpful for quick messages.. super helpful. and a wonderful way to communicate on the fly.
but long conversations? ugh. NO!
i have a few friends, who I adore, who often send paragraph after paragraph of texts to me. I do not have the finger dexterity nor the patience to text back in whole paragraphs. So often they get a short response. I know it's because phone conversations are too lengthy and time consuming in this day and age.
The misunderstandings of basic responses is built-in and irritating.
That's what the dumb emojis are for. Say the "OK" - but add a smile. or the middle finger. you choose.
Sometimes when I don't get any likes I just think Facebook is throttling my post, if it has something to do with politics or Coronavirus. Also friends might be afraid to like a post for political reasons. But I don't obsess over it either way. Also my settings are very private so only approved people see my posts. I used to have a deranged stalker who used my photos and even photos of my grandkids to attack me, so I am locked down now.
I don't like texting, so I just use the mike and reply orally, being careful to speak slowly, clearly and to the point.. If the transcription gets it wrong, I send a clarifying message.
As mentioned above, emojis can convey mood behind short comments.
Do people still say "It's the pits"?
I, for one, still refer to putting on deodorant as "shooting the pits".
I've always thought "It's the pits" referred to coal mining pits.
I also thought texts were supposed to be as short as possible so people could glance at them during a meeting or dinner. I thought emojis were like putting a little heart in place of a dot above a small 'i." Unless it was someone's birthday. Which would be the pits? - a Twitter mobbing or no response?
My friends always like all my photos.
“All my friends always tell me I am a good singer,” as said by all abysmal singers auditioning for American Idol.
Yes, I keep reading about people with pits forming in their stomachs. It reminds me in a way of the phrase "begs the question," now so commonly misused we might as well cede it to the New Illiterates.
Oh my! Poor sensitive baby, :(.
There have been a couple of times when I've read a text from someone and my first impression was that it was terse and snippy, but then I reread it, mentally hearing the other person's voice as I read it, and my perception of the text changed and I realized there was no ill intent.
So, she can wait for the pendulum to swing back.
Deirdre Mundy said what I was thinking (and did it better than I could have).
When I grew up, I never heard anyone call a fruit seed a pit. I learned about that from reading. It never made sense to me. A pit is what's left after you remove the seed. A pit is some kind of concave structure, like an arm pit, or gravel pit.
Irregardless, I could care less.
It's a mute point.
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