Not a rant, a request

[fluffyllama]

Today I caught myself rolling my eyes as I scrolled past someone enthusiastically promoting their latest OTP, and I hate that. I'm in no position to judge a complete stranger's reasons for choosing what interests them, and I don't like it when people want to tell everyone what they *should* be writing. I do, however, think it's good to question my own preferences and assumptions when I see people bring up neglected characters/pairings/genres or whatever.

So the questioning is what this is about, though it's about a use of words.

Spoons.

I don't like using the term myself, as it makes me feel labelled sick. (My brain, sometimes it makes no sense.) So maybe I notice it more, I don't know. I think it's great for its original purpose, and I like that people know what it means, and when I see people use it about themselves I assume they have a good reason to do so.

But if your post is along the lines of 'I did a full day of work and omg long hours and overtime too, ran a marathon at lunchtime, cured cancer in my coffee break, and astronaut training tonight was soooo tough and I was going to finish that fic update you're waiting for tonight but I'm sorry I have no spoons left'... then maybe consider that it might not be the most appropriate phrase to use.

Everything is relative, but really. You're allowed to be tired after all that. And needless to say, I'm jealous of the astronaut training. *g*

Comments

[fluffyllama]

You could be right, and maybe it's inevitable that the use changes as it gets more widespread. I find it interesting to watch language change but sometimes I do want to try to hold it back *g*

Spooky about the real spoons. For some reason we have a similar problem with knives, and it's hard to blame the dog for that one!

[pauraque]

Yeah, sometimes I find myself looking at it from two angles at once. On a linguistics level, semantic change is interesting -- extremely so -- and one records and analyzes the full range of usage without prescribing which directions of change are "good" and which are "bad".

Then there's the personal level. I mean, it is true to say that using "gay" to mean "bad" is a case of specific-to-general semantic drift, but it is also true to say that it hurts people's feelings. And that's the point where I find it quite justifiable to take off the linguist hat and start prescribing usage all over the place. :P

Clearly our spoons and your knives are running away together.

[fluffyllama]

Oh yeah, and there you pick the one example I hate more. Ugh. If my stepson ever comes out with that one like the neighbourhood teenagers, there will be trouble.

Do you think anyone is missing forks? If so I hope the cutlery is mature enough to handle it *g* (Ours is certainly old, but I'm not sure that's any guarantee.)

[pauraque]

BTW, are you cross-posting identically between DW and LJ? I'm trying to have each person only friended in one place.

[fluffyllama]

That would require me having a plan. *thinks* That seems to be the general way I'm going, but I'm not concentrating comments anywhere for now.

I am reading both flists but this one is a bit easier to manage, so if you're going for one I'd make it DW :)

[pauraque]

Basically, I don't want to miss anybody's posts, so if there's any difference I just keep a person on both lists, but if it's strictly identical crossposting, I pick one (generally DW unless they're trying to concentrate comments on LJ). I read both flists every day and don't intend to stop, so it's just a matter of avoiding duplication when possible. :)

[fluffyllama]

I am a creature of whim and vagueness, so strict anything... tricky.

Did you import your whole journal over? I don't even know if I still can since I have posts here, but I suppose if I move people to only having them friended over here they won't be able to access old locked posts over there. These are the things that make me vague and indecisive *scratches head*

[pauraque]

Right now I'm being kind of strange and posting most fandom/general-interest stuff on LJ and most personal stuff on DW. I don't feel like it matters if I don't have people friended on LJ because I barely ever posted anything locked there (except stuff like signal-boosting for secret gift comms), and I never do anymore. I haven't imported anything and I don't know how it works if you've already posted to the account.

I'm just being flaky about the whole thing, heh. So many people are cross-posting or have moved-but-not-really, it feels like my whole group of fandom and ex-fandom friends have one leg here and one leg there. I don't know what's going to end up happening with it all, though if LJ keeps pissing people off so royally, well, that'll be that eventually. :P

[fluffyllama]

Yeah, I poked around and it looked different, but I find it hard to keep straight in my head who is posting what where and just looking at my LJ flist with a mind to actually changing anything makes me want to run and hide *g*

So basically, if you want to keep me friended here and remove me on LJ that's cool, but I'll keep you friended over there either way. I've discovered the crossposting feature after a bit of digging, but I'm going to use it to post to IJ automatically for now I think as I don't have as much motivation to manually post there as I do IJ.

If I stick with it over here, I manage to post regularly, and it's usable with the Lynx scheme long term (or they come up with another option that works for me) then I'll get the family to contribute to a paid account for Christmas. Then yay, crossposting heaven and no waffling *g*

[fluffyllama]

* 'as I do to LJ', that should be.

[ariadneelda]

Did you import your whole journal over? I don't even know if I still can since I have posts here

I believe you can. Check out this thread: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_releases/61333.html?thread=3837589#t3837589 I think it answers a lot of things about importing.

[fluffyllama]

Oh, thank you! I will check that out. My LJ is a permanent account so I won't be getting rid of it no matter what if only to get my money's worth, but I'd like to look at all the options available over here :)