There’s more to language than spelling.

I’m speaking with reference to grammar and vocabulary, not spelling/orthography.

I’m not talking about orthographic reform. I’m talking about in terms of vocabulary and grammar—how it is under the hood (or bonnet, if you’re across the pond).

Funnily enough, this is backwards. American English is more conservative than British English.

Pretty much any of mine, including but not limited to:

• @amenbreak
• @deepspacenine
• @djent
• @drums
• @fakealbumcovers
• @imaginarytechnology
• @neography
• @scenesfromahat
• @steamedhams
• @vaporwave

> mental illness has entered the chat

I posted it there.

I’m bipolar. Something like this happens practically every time I find myself in an episode.

More recently it was when I realized my band wasn’t going to make it.

In Alastair Reynolds’ The Prefect, this was the exact idea behind the VTs (voluntary tyrannies).

If /kbin had a BestOf, this would go there.

😔 I want to help you somehow but I can’t think of a way to do so.

I get accused of not knowing about linguistics or history a lot.

I am a degreed linguist, and the people who accuse me of it tend to be ethnic nationalists or right-wingers. You can’t reason with them. People don’t like being told that their language isn’t the end-all be-all or that minorities (gasp) have their own speech patterns.

There was a notable incident on Reddit where someone complained that African-American Vernacular English wasn’t legitimate. I responded to the guy, who, in response, kept moving the goalposts. He asked if AAVE let Blacks “flourish”, I directly addressed it, then he took me to task because that was supposedly something he didn’t ask about. Then he spouted off about how Indigenous American languages were inferior because you couldn’t talk about quantum physics with them (which is false, but the hard Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a tough bug to kill). The kicker is my interlocutor was from Texas. He shut up when I pointed out that “y’all” is, by his own metric, “incorrect English”.

Watch their brains implode when they talk about how French is “legitimate”, and Latin is even more “legitimate”, and then you point out that French developed out of Latin via the same means and processes they demonize in minority speech.

Or when people bitch that “I could care less” is incorrect English. It’s not; it’s an idiom. “Brazen” as a descriptor of methods or attitudes is descended from an idiom (nobody says “bold as brass” anymore though, so its origin is obscured).

I even run into this on the fediverse (search my comment history).

It gets worse when people write sources and facts off because it’s inconvenient. I was into it today with a Turkish nationalist who claimed that Turkish was the mother of all languages (it’s not even the mother of Turkic generally) and then went on to deny the Armenian genocide. I also ran into someone who tried to deny that Russian was a legitimate Slavic language because I cited George Shevelov’s work and obviously his last name was Russian, so he was a propagandist…when Shevelov is Ukrainian-American and spent a long time teaching at Columbia.

Being a linguist on the Internet is an utterly Sisyphean task.

OP here. It’s not my disposition that is causing this, it’s the multiplicity of different attempts and approaches that have not resulted in a positive outcome.

I don’t want to change my mind. I already did in getting to this point and I am determined to follow it to its logical conclusion.

The trick is finding that person who can tolerate your annoying habits.

That’s part of the problem. I am autistic, first off, so I absolutely do not understand social paradigms, and even excepting that I am very much not a normal person when it comes to interests/hobbies.

As I related in a previous comment, I’ve tried multiple online dating platforms, including:

• OKCupid
• Tinder
• Bumble
• Hiki
• Hinge
• No Longer Lonely
• Meet Metalheads (which was a scam, unfortunately)
• Coffee Meets Bagel
• Birdie
• Siren
• Facebook Dating

I also attempted to use a matchmaking service, It’s Just Lunch.

deleted by creator

Also a dog, one who likes to cuddle and needs to be exercised daily, could improve your life.

I have one. She is my best buddy.

So you answered my questions, but at the same time you didn’t.

I do that.

Congrats on losing 80 lbs! That’s a massive job well done.

Thank you.

Are you still overweight?

Not anymore.

Facial hair: Who said it looked good? Who said it looked bad? Did several people compliment it, but one or two tore your self image back down? If it really was bad: Try something new.

Some close female friends (in whom I have no romantic interest) said it looked good in theory. I grew it out for about a month. It was a poor choice. I don’t grow facial hair. What some people call a five o’clock shadow takes me a week. I ended up looking like an incel.

but are these deformities impossible to hide or improve upon?

Yes. One is a combination of an injury I received in college and an autoimmune disorder. Another is…I guess just the way my bone structure developed.

It’s always your choice if you wish to give up or not, but as long as you seem to have a semblance of hope I’m gonna try to be a positive in your life.

I resign.

You have given up on finding a partner, but have not really let go of the idea and still grieve over it.

This is exactly it. I need to figure out how to let go. It is not within me to simply let a thing die.