My Garbage Can Lid Won’t Close, So I Now My Gargoyle Is Now Keeper Of The Trash

Golden Retriever shows puppy how to use slide

"Where is a frown?" Americans say mouth, Brits say forehead (my mind=blown)

This recent post from Lynne Murphy on Separated By a Common Language created much discussion in my Twitter feed and over dinner with a collection of American, British and Australian English speakers. Many of us have been living with semantic variation staring up in the face. Even (American English) Lynne didn’t realise her (British English) husband had a difference sense from her:

When I tweeted the question “Where is a frown?” British people told me “on the forehead”. When I asked the Englishman in my house, he said the same thing. Fourteen years together and only now do I know that he’s been frowning much of the time.

And like one of the blog commenters, the Brits I talked with had an epiphany: so that’s why Americans say “turn your frown upside down!” to mean ‘cheer up!’.

Older Australian English speakers I talked to identified the forehead frown as the sense that they have, but a frown has always been the opposite of a smile for me, all about the mouth. Otherwise, what is the opposite of a smile? It looks like we have some intergenerational semantic shift happening right under our noses.

See Lynne’s original post on Separated by a Common Language.

People like that…corporations like that, they have all the money, they have all the power, and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now, you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide…Leverage.

~Nathan Ford from Leverage

Copaxa syntheratoides by Johanna Murillo

Indian villagers knit jumpers for elephants to protect them from near-freezing temperatures

where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry

its like marine biology Jackass

My emotions are valid*

*valid does not mean healthy, or good, or to be privileged above common sense and kindness

its like marine biology Jackass