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spelling lessons with THE LAW


Guest THE LAW

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"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."

 

found this on thehun:

 

Top 5 winners of the "worst analogies ever written in a high school essay" contest run by the Washington Post:

 

"She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again."

 

"The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."

 

"From the attic came an unearthly howl. the whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy" comes on at 7pm instead of 7:30."

 

"Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze."

 

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."

 

the rest of the worst analogies...ever. "Bob was perplexed as a hacker who means to access >> T:flw.quid55328.com/aaakk/ch@ung but gets Tflw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake"

 

"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."

 

"The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease."

 

"Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like 'Second Tall Man'."

 

"Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left cleveland at 6:30 pm travelling at 55mph, the other from topeka at 4:19pm at 35mph."

 

"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."

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Guest Are2

does anyone remember a commercial for one of those horrible preteen romance movies with freddie prinze jr...

he says "being with you is like going to a place i've never been before"

 

 

uuuggghhhh

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Guest TEARZ

Re: "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."

 

Originally posted by Smart

"The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."

haha, that's awesome. truly worthy of awe...

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Those are great, Smart. This leads us to our next lesson:

 

Analogy vs. Metaphor vs. Simile.

 

A Metaphor is using something as a stand-in for something else; the use of one thing to mean another, and is not always explicitly defined but rather intentionally left for the reader/viewer to decipher. It is usually a recurring thing in painting or literature, e.g:

 

Moby Dick could be a metaphor for God.

 

A Simile is a comparison introduced with "like" or "as," generally:

 

"My love is like some raven, at my window with a broken wing."

"Your shit is wack, it's like a man with no arms - it can't hang."

 

An Analogy is basically a comparative link between one thing and another that serves a purpose. Similes are analogies.

 

"Twelve Ounce Prophet's website is akin to a modern day council fire; village elders are its primary participants, though the young and foolish flaunt as well, albeit to the great chagrin of the masses."

 

And here's a question for the masses that has me a bit, though not totally, puzzled:

 

Shined vs. Shone?

 

I have to go to the dentist now.

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Guest Are2

i'll go with shone

 

although in conversation i'd probably be more apt to use shined

 

 

....uuuggghhh the dentist..i have not seen a dentist in so long i'm not even gonna say how long long is..

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I'll answer my own question here. Shined and shone are both fine (I knew that but wondered if there were certain uses for each) and they both mean the same damn thing and can be used interchangeably. Shone is newer in the language, and is gradually on the way to replacing shined. It sounds better, so it will survive. That's how irregular verbs come into being.

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Originally posted by Sonik3000

I'll answer my own question here. Shined and shone are both fine (I knew that but wondered if there were certain uses for each) and they both mean the same damn thing and can be used interchangeably. Shone is newer in the language, and is gradually on the way to replacing shined. It sounds better, so it will survive. That's how irregular verbs come into being.

 

This had me fucked for a couple days. I immediately knew it was all contextual, but I walked around trying to come up with some 'conextual rule' and only ended up lacking. Obviously there are times when one is preferable to the other, but without much change in the phrasing, both can cover most uses.

 

Grrrrr, fuck you and your trick questions Sonik:D

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Here's what dictionary.com says, as I suspected. Note the boldface.

 

shine Pronunciation Key (shn)

v. shone, (shn) or shined shin·ing, shines

v. intr.

To emit light.

To reflect light; glint or glisten.

To distinguish oneself in an activity or a field; excel.

To be immediately apparent: Delight shone in her eyes.

 

v. tr.

To aim or cast the beam or glow of (a light).

past tense and past participle shined To make glossy or bright by polishing.

 

n.

Brightness from a source of light; radiance.

Brightness from reflected light; luster.

A shoeshine.

Excellence in quality or appearance; splendor.

Fair weather: rain or shine.

shines Informal. Pranks or tricks.

Slang. Whiskey; moonshine.

Offensive Slang. Used as a disparaging term for a Black person.

 

Idioms:

shine up to Informal

To try to impress or please: shined up to the boss, hoping to get a raise.

take a shine to Informal

To like spontaneously.

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I'd be inclined to check several dictionaries on this one. I expect several different answers on shined vs. shone. While having your shoes shone doesn't sound right, I doubt there's anything wrong with it, simply convention. Dictionaries are written by committies of people like us smarties, and once in a while, I'll wager, they're reduced to bullshitting an answer as best they can. This is probably one of those situations. Look through that dictionary.com definition and tell me much of it isn't simply improvised....

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I think the past tense, shined, and past participle, shone, are pretty much interchangeable in all cases.

 

The sun shone brightly. The truth shone through. He shined a light in the cave. I shined my boots. She shined as both a scholar and athlete.

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On another note, I'm often infuruated by a mangled turn of phrase.

 

Just so you all know, the phrase is: Cut the muster (NOT mustard).

 

That's just a pacific example, I'll try to think of more when I'm at the liberry.

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Originally posted by Smart

On another note, I'm often infuruated by a mangled turn of phrase.

 

Just so you all know, the phrase is: Cut the muster (NOT mustard).

 

That's just a pacific example, I'll try to think of more when I'm at the liberry.

 

I was going to point out the specific part, but I assume your doing it to be funny, seeing the way you typed library......at least that's what you'll claim......:P

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Is anyone in this day and age going to understand a two hundred year old military reference? No, save us smarties. But cut the mustard sounds fucking great, slides off the tongue like a hot knife through butter, and is a nice example of language evolving. Sonik3000 DOES NOT LIKE MUSTARD.

 

King.

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Guest Are2
Originally posted by Sonik3000

Is anyone in this day and age going to understand a two hundred year old military reference? No, save us smarties. But cut the mustard sounds fucking great, slides off the tongue like a hot knife through butter, and is a nice example of language evolving. Sonik3000 DOES NOT LIKE MUSTARD.

 

King.

 

 

aaaahhhhh you son of a gun....

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I think some of us need to go back and read the Orwell essay again. I didn't know about "cut the muster" but I have a pretty deep contempt for mangled expressions, because if you can't get the expression right, it's a good sign that you don't even know what you're trying to say. The most notorious example in my book, and one I will never forgive under any circumstances including my death and obsolescence, is "vicious cycle". The expression was, is, and ought to remain vicious circle.

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'cut the mustard' is too much like 'cut the cheese'

 

I struggle with myself sometimes, wondering if I involve myself too much, but all it takes is somebody telling me what is or is not their 'fortAy' for my blood to boil . It seems ignite my desire to pummel fools with a dictionary tied to a large stick.

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Bringing the muster cutting to its logical mangled conclusion, we find people "passing mustard." Now, I don't find the image of someone passing muster the least bit interesting. The image of a body passing mustard, on the other hand, is rather multiplicitous, alighting on the tongue and nose and dancing upon the eyes with bright yellow. And passing muster does none of this, since barely any of us, even the smarties, know what the fuck muster is and why it needs to be cut or passed.

 

It is this knowledge of the rules and when their reinvention is beneficial that makes me so dope. It works with painting, too.

 

KING.

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Guest imported_Tesseract

Cracked is right, vicious circle sucks real bad...in my language the saying stays the same but 'vicious' is replaced by a word that has an ancient root and its not even used anymore. Most people dont have a clue what it means, still, they use the saying and most of them think that 'vicious' states some sort of repetition...

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

The spanish expression would be circulo vicioso, and "vicious" works here fine... at least in spanish it refers more to vice and addictive repetition than what it seems to in english. I think somewhere in the process of english language development, the meaning of the word got twisted to more closely mean "savage" or "aggressive". Beer,

 

El Mamerro

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Guest imported_Tesseract

True, its the same here, the ancient word has multiple meanings (like all ancient words) and in general, it means immoral...but just how silly is it to use a word you dont know, and if you do you have no reason to use...

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Vicious, in English, should technically mean full of vice. Just like malicious means full of malice. However, nobody uses it in such a sense any more, vicious now refers to something harsh, cruel, or brutal. Is it "correct" in its new usage? I don't quite care. There's always more than one way to articulate yourself.

 

Remember, the Lord sees your lascivious glances.

 

Whoops. I'm still King though.

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