Touring the Valley

Random Stuff

I'm fed up with "safety" caps that can only be opened by a magician or a contortionist. Squeeze here while twisting and pressing there. Push down while pulling up....

Some people seem to think that any well-known abbreviation is an acronym. Actually, an acronym is an abbreviation that is also a pronounceable word (not just pronouncing the letters of the abbreviation). NATO and FODMAP are acronyms. FBI and NAACP are not.

I am really tired of packaging that is deliberately designed so that it can't be opened, but must be destroyed.

Sometimes when I'm ripping and cutting a package, I remember an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where Larry complained about items that were sealed in plastic clamshells. His friend said he should use a box cutter. He bought a box cutter, but couldn't use it because it came sealed in a plastic clamshell.

Please stop putting peanut butter in everything.

The Mail

Punch Lines

My work friend Alice was great at telling jokes. Her delight was infectious, and every joke she told seemed hilarious. Even a bad joke sounded really clever when Alice told it.

I wanted to be funny, too, so I tried telling some of Alice's jokes. Clearly, I didn't have her talent for entertaining. People rarely laughed, but just sighed. The truth is that most of Alice's jokes were terrible, the kind of material one might expect from dirty-minded twelve-year-olds. They seemed funny because Alice was energetic and happy when she told them, her timing was excellent, and she usually told them in a bar after everyone had had a few drinks.

Sex and Gender or Whatever

I'm tired of people insisting "There are only two genders", when what they really mean is two sexes.

Gender is a grammatical construct. Some languages, including English, have two or three gendered pronouns (he, she, it), but do not classify other words by gender. Some languages have two genders (Italian and French are examples) that classify all nouns. Although those genders are called "masculine" and "feminine" they really have no relationship to sex, but are arbitrary designations. There is no reason for a table or a shoe to be masculine or feminine, except that it just is. A word that is feminine in one language may be masculine (or neuter) in another.

Languages in which gender is applied to nouns may require agreement; that is the practice whereby words modifying (describing) those nouns are changed (inflected) to take on the noun's gender.

Languages that have grammatical gender typcally have two, three, or four genders. A few have as many as 20. These genders, or noun classes, may include masculine, feminine, animate, inanimate, human, nonhuman, or other categories that have significance within the language.

Note that this is an overly simplified explanation. For more details and a better understanding of how gender operates in languages, see the following links.

● Wikipedia article on grammatical gender
● Duolingo: What is grmmatical gender?
● Toppam: Grammatical genders in different languages

In the meantime, for people who have strong feeling and opinions - or just a bit of curiosity - about dividing humans into two biological sexes, here are some interesting articles.

● Sex Redefined
● The Five Sexes
● Biological Sex is Not a Spectrum
● What's the Difference Between Sex and Gender?