Monthly Archives: May 2010

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Fanboy! [A history]


I didn’t know, however, just how “fanboy” entered the language in the first place. It’s an interesting story, but you won’t find it in the dictionary. The word is there–in fact, when Merriam-Webster added it in 2008, numerous celebratory news stories marked the fact.

But everybody was so tickled that they failed to notice that Merriam-Webster’s definition stunk. A fanboy, that dictionary says, is “a boy who is an enthusiastic devotee (as of comics or movies).” As anyone who’s either been called a fanboy or called someone else one knows, the boy part isn’t a reference to youth. More often, it’s a taunt, suggesting that the person in question is goofy and childish. Fanboys come in all ages, and fanboyism isn’t the exclusive preserve of males.

Merriam-Webster’s entry says that “fanboy” dates to 1919–the same year specified by the Oxford English Dictionary, which quotes a newspaper’s reference to baseball “fan boys.” The second reference to fanboys identified by the OED occurred in 1985.

(read the rest of this fascinating lexographical usage at the link below)

via Fanboy! | Technologizer

 

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An Open Letter to the so-called Gay Defenders


Dear Kristin Chenoweth, Dustin Lance Black, and Aaron Sorokin:

While your weighing in on the Newsweek article has left me nothing but perplexed, it would seem in many cases or all – you would ride the wave of what you consider a valiant fight while actually doing more harm, in the name of righting a wrong. I’d like to address each of you, and the author of this tempest in a teapot which you’ve cast the glaring klieg lights of Hollywood onto and made into something almost too wretched to watch and more harmful than you can even imagine. Each of you presuming to speak for us, the real people, the ones who are now clamoring for blood and boycotts, and hurling vile epithets all around cyberspace to ease our perceived pain. Continue reading →

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Dear God,


… you took Nina, Lena, and even ol’ Eartha, please let Dame Shirley Bassey stay just a little bit longer, or else I fear I won’t know how to go on…

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Jump at de Sun


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Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

„

 

— Zora Neal Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942
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American Woman:


Has a ticket to the Met today, a private viewing of American Woman (Fashioning a National Identity) at the Costume Institute which was the scene of last night’s gala and free +1 to see Daniel Merriweather on Saturday …but can’t seem to find anyone to go!!!

 

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Whispers of Truth


It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.

— K.T. Jong