The real question is Should people be allowed to divorce themselves?

I say no. Make them stay together and work it out.

This is oddly, and depressingly apt.

I was unemployed for three months when I was 24. I had enough savings that I could pay my bills and be comfortable for six months, but despite lack of financial stress, I was emotionally stressed out.

I realized early on that, because I lived alone, nobody would be likely to look for me or find me accidentally if something happened and I could not move or reach the telephone, etc.

Because I did not have a job, I was not expected to show up anywhere. Nobody would have missed me.

Had my friends knocked and I did not answer, they would have assumed I was out.

Had anyone called, they would have assumed I was out.

I could have been injured and incapacitated, and NOBODY would have missed me or come to check on me while I slowly died of thirst or starvation.

A hole with two holes close to each other is no longer a straw, it is a ring.

Why only 2 holes? A hole does not have thickness per se, so it is just as logical to say there is an infinite number of holes at intervals of every irrational number between each edge of the ring's thickness.

The minute we start playing with irrational numbers, and infinite numbers of abstract things (such as holes) we have left actual rationality far behind in favor of rationalization.

A ring, like a straw is defined by where it has mass, not by its negative space. A ring is a bar curved in a circle so that its ends meet, just as a straw is a rectangular sheet curved so that opposite ends meet.

No holes.

Technically that is a slit.

Do we want to discuss whether a slit is simply a hole that tapers at two ends?

However, it is interesting that you say that a straw can have a hole. Tell me then, does a wooden straw have a hole(s)? ;)

If you pierce the sheath around the cylindrical space, a straw made of anything, including straw, can have a hole. ;)

One elongated hole on the same general principle as a tunnel is a hole through a solid mass, usually rock.

The tunnel through rock is not an apt metaphor.

The rock started out as a solid mass with a volume that included the location of the (future) tunnel. The hole/tunnel was put into the rock, reducing the volume of rock.

By contrast, the straw's volume never changed. The straw was extruded around a tube-shaped space. The straw's tunnel was produced by inserting a separation between it and the surrounding space.

There is even Biblical evidence of this, so hear ye the word of the Lord.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the space, and let it divide the space from the space.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the space which were within the firmament from the space which were outside the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament straw. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8)

Here endeth the lesson.

Thank you Jesus; thank you, Lord.

So..., the sheath is not solid ;)

The sheath is solid, but it has no hole in it. If it had a hole, you could not get enough suction to draw the liquid from the cup to your mouth.

No hole. A hole implies a solid thing has a space in it.

By contrast, a straw is a sheath around a bar of air, a vacuum, or a liquid as it is drawn through the sheath.

Excon,

In that regard, black people are WAYYY ahead..

Except for White gay men. Some of those guys raise insult delivery to an art form.

A really catty drag queen can take the delivery to a professional level, and some actually do. The waitresses (waiters?) and other performers at Lips in San Diego make their livings by singing Liza and Cher songs, and insulting the customers. They are HILARIOUS, but it is all in the delivery. To give you the idea, the Wednesday night show was called "Bitchy Bingo."

Hi Excon,

In my view, it's NOT about the NUMBER of words. It's about DELIVERY.. In that regard, black people are WAYYY ahead..

I definitely agree about delivery being of paramount importance.

You are probably right about Blacks having a cultural advantage in delivery of insults.

When I taught in the inner city, some of my Black students would play Snaps. The White, Hispanic, and Asian kids never got into it. That game is targeted training in the delivery of insults. There is a lot to be said for cultural influence in the development of insult culture.

I think the ideal insult has a punch line that catches the target (or audience) by surprise. The first part of the insult should be innocuous, or better yet, should look like it might be complimentary, and then the last line needs to twist it into insult.

There is also the variation that uses double entendre, so the meaning of the statement sits and stews for a second before hitting the insulting punch.

There is a story that when Joan Crawford died, a reporter called Bette Davis up for a comment on it. Davis said, "My mother taught me not to speak ill of the dead, but to say only good. So, my comment is, 'Joan Crawford is dead. Good.'"

Dermot,

one never saw a black man or women in Ireland unless it was a tourist ; Dubliners used to joke about the late Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy fame being the only black man in Ireland

Ahh! "Black Irish." :)

Dermot,

I do not see anything intrinsically insulting in many of these. Most of the items on your list are primarily insulting by fiat.

This brings up an interesting social reality. Offense in not given, but rather is taken.

Whether a person feels insulted has little to do with what is intended by the speaker, than with whether the recipient with that person has been conditioned (culturally or personally) to feel insulted by the particular slur. A scene in Clerks II illustrates this humorously. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qc0akWRBQk )

In order for a racial slur to be insulting, there needs to be something culturally distasteful in the referent of the metaphor.

Ape, Jim Fish, and porch monkey are distinct from others by virtue of the animal referents, indicating being less than human, without being associated with animals commonly admired.(Black Panther was not considered insulting because large cats are cool.)

Often a term is "insulting" for no other reason than referring in an off-hand way to physical characteristics that are distinct from Whites. (e.g., bluegum, burrhead, fuzzies, powder burn, thicklips). It is worth noting that Black culture has taken references to their physical characteristics to be insulting. This indicates a self-esteem issue within the culture.

By the way, it is anomalous that Sambo is considered an insult by anyone of African descent because it is from a humorous story called "Little Black Sambo" about a rich Indian (from India) boy being tricked by a tiger.

It is a testament to how culturally impoverished racists were in the US in the late 1800s that they conflated Africa with India.

When I was a child in the 60's and 70s, there was a chain of diners in the US called Sambo's. The walls were decorated with images from the story. The pancakes came with Tiger Butter which was butter whipped with maple syrup. The chain went out of business in the early 1980s because of lawsuits by even more people who did not understand the difference between Africa and India.