Questions

[slemslempike]

[Poll #1057240]

Also, is it fairly normal (in an unlikely to die, don't bother the doctor way) not to properly digest skins of vegetable? For example, if I eat peppers, then in my poo afterwards there are almost invariably fairly sizeable pieces of the waxy outer skin. This happens with quite a few vegetable type things. Also, I was given a HUGE bag of wine gums/pastilles for lending someone some books. I like them, but worry that the gummy nature of their deliciousness will lead to constipation if I eat too many. Is this a wise and informed hypothesis, or can I scoff them with impunity?

Today I bought lots of brightly coloured biros and gel pens from Sainsburys. Frustratingly, the lids do not fit on the base of the biros. This is annoying, but the perky pink ink assuages my anger.

My mum is awake again after her operation and seems to be doing okay. I am a bad daughter as I forgot it was today until my dad texted.

I want to go home, but I can't until I have finished copying the notes for Undoing Gender and written 200 words of my own. I may miss Gladiators at this rate.

Comments

[leedy.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to give both answers to the poll - basically, I worked for a company where the house style guide/editing tyrants made us use the Oxford comma, and have now so totally internalized it that not using it looks wrong. Even though logically, I don't think it's necessary. Sigh.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I really like it, though I don't think I was ever taught to use it. I skid a bit when I come to an un-Oxford comma-ed list when I'm reading.

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

I'll use either form, actually, depending on the effect I want to create, or depending on the sound of the words.

In response to both scatalogical questions, I think you are fine. From what I understand, I think it's normal not to digest the skins of veggies. I know the skin on kernels of corn doesn't digest. And I have the digestion of a horse (so to speak), but gummy candies generally leave me unaffected.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about the digestion of a horse to understand what that means! Are horses notoriously constipated? The only thing I know is that you mustn'y let a horse with colic lie down (I learnt this from Third Year at Malory Towers, and it heavily informed my later drinking escapades). But I will be eating far more of the gums now.

Generally I like the Oxford comma, but you're right, it does depend on the sound of the words a lot.

Also I now want barbeque from seeing your icon. Hungry. I'm having pork kebabs with pepper tonight though (and now I won't be worried tomorrow either! Hurrah!).

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

Oh no, sorry, it's a sort of expression meaning that I can digest just about anything.

Barbecue! I want grilled squash at the moment, actually.

[tornyourdress.livejournal.com]

I thought I was anti-Oxford-commas, but then I looked up something I'd written recently (book synopsis thingy), and oh my, they abound!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Hee! It's always a shock to go back to your writing and discover that your hand apparently holds different views to your brain.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I saw what you did there.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Hee! I confess, it was the main motivation for the poll. And you are the first to call me on it.

[gair.livejournal.com]

My head just nearly exploded from the strength of my need to click 'Yes!' coupled with the strength of my need not to click on the button with the glaringly absent Oxford comma. DAMN YOU Well done!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yay! I don't know which I'd have picked. I was half hoping the world would implode from paradox.

[jinty]

oh damn! I wish I'd spotted that... well done for the sneaky trick! heh.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in answer to your first question: I had a beanshoot-heavy Chinese meal last week, and the next day convinced myself I was passing tapeworm segments. I am still alive.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I have done that before! I am mortally afeared of worms, so dread tapeworms very much. When I was in nappies my childminder thought I was dying because of my beetroot poo.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I don't think I *generally* use a comma there, but I would feel free to, if it seemed to make the sentence work better.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I suppose I generally think it makes it work better. I can't think of a sentence I wouldn't use it in, though it's not a hard and fast rule.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's pretentious - I just think it's unlovely. I missed the thing about your mum's being operated on (not that I'm saying I was intending to try for tickets), so sympathies and hurrahs that she seems to be doing okay.

[chiasmata]

[N]ot that I'm saying I was intending to try for tickets -- that really made me giggle... Ms Pike: glad to hear your mum's doing OK. Also, I had my brain slightly broken by the questions and the cunning comma useage. And I think I use them, but really don't know. It's likely, knowing my other comma habits...

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I giggled at that too!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd mentioned that it was today - I'd missed it too, pretty much! But I spoke to her on Sunday, so that's fine.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Commas for phrases but not for lists. Level of importance assigned to this fairly low. In Latin you either use all "and" or all commas, which is nifty. Sadly, all-commas in English looks not classical but ponderous. Bah.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about Latin. But then I know virtually nothing about Latin at all.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Latin is a weird thing to know about, really. It does, much as I hate admitting it even now when I have largely forgot it, have a definite aura of Appearing Clever And Posh In One Easy Step. As if having the grammar of a dead language drummed into you for years somehow conferred a special sort of intellectual superiority simply because most people don't learn it. It makes me think of posh people not so long ago talking about people having a mean sneaky sort of grammar-school cleverness and contriving to imply that having expensive highly refined pigheaded stupidity is somehow superior.

Maybe combining this particular view with reading Classics at uni was always going to be a smidgen odd even if I hadn't gone nuts. Oh that things could just be fun and not have such absurd baggage.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

I noticed, but only after answering the poll.

The problem with not using the Oxford comma is that you might end up with a sentence like this:

I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

(NB this is not to imply that you would wish to thank Ayn Rand or God for anything.)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I have never thanked either for anything, and fully intend never to do so.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I like you :)

What a great description of the problem. I shall now feel far more in sympathy with it.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Alas I cannot take credit for it; heard it who knows where.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I don't like Oxford commas, I'm afraid, any more than I like their way of calling doctorates DPhils rather than PhDs, just to prove it's "from Oxford". (I may be biased by my sister having a DPhil and me having to remember it every time and that it's not a PhD...)

Also, and apologies for TMI... sweetcorn goes STRAIGHT THROUGH the Mouse. I change his nappies: I know. I sometimes wonder why I give it to him, when I am going to be removing it, pretty much in its original state, at the other End. In fact, I try and give it to him on days when Jay is changing his nappy.

As for (this is more TMI - even worse, possibly) gummy sweets, I find I have more trouble with the white stuff on the back (for example, the white bit of 'fried egg' sweets or those hearts that you get in the Haribo Star Mixture). But that's because they tend to make me vomit with large bits of white stuff.

Okay, now that you know WAY MORE than you ever needed to know about our family... when are you coming Kent way?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think that DPhils came before PhDs, so it's not entirely their fault!

I don't eat sweetcorn at all, and now I will add this information to back up my reasons. (It tastes disgusting.)

I don't know yet - I am hoping to have some London trips later in the autumn, so I will try and incorporate it then!

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

My primary school was very hot on the Oxford comma, but we weren't supposed to use them at secondary school, which I found weird because we sat Oxford Board O'levels.

I don't think humans do digest vegetable skins; if I'm feeling energetic I char grill peppers and take the skins off them. My grandfather, who had that sort of very British obsession with his bowels, used to insiste on everything being peeled and skinned for that very reason - it drove my grandmother mad.

I've never heard of fruit gums causing constipation. Perhaps I should go and eat a big bagful for research purposes.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am glad to know that about the vegetable skins, though I am not going to stop eating them or anything. I would be very grateful if you could report back your fruit gum findings!

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

We went to the cash and carry which was a dismal place but I was foolishly overexcited at being a shopkeeper and able to buy a whole box of penny chews (or 4p Haribo type chews to be precise). I will eat as many as I possibly can and then report back.