Wash out your mouth

[mollyringle]

I just got this email from my little sister, who does admin work at a company that paints streets and curbs and things. It was too funny not to share with you:

---
I was trying to explain to many of you, individually, how the swearing
happens so casually and amusingly at my place of employment. Well. One guy
was talking about The Time His Fuel Pump Died Outside Of Prineville.
Normally, this wouldn't be an extraordinarily great story, but there was
*so much* swearing, I was cracking up- cuz it was so pointless! So I
jotted down my favorite sentence:

"So, I was driving back in the pitch-ass dark from f@#king dumbf@&k nowhere,
when all of a sudden there's this god-ass bitch bad smelling smoke coming
from the god@*&m f*%king engine!"
---

Naturally, as a linguist, I find this fascinating, for in lexical and syntactic choice it reflects both sociolinguistic and pragmatic...oh, who am I kidding? I just find it hilarious.

I was disposed to be in a good mood anyway, since this morning I signed a publishing contract, and that always feels good. It's for the electronic distribution rights to SUMMER TERM, one you've technically already heard about, and yes, that WAS seven months ago. Publishing, even electronic publishing, is a slow process. In fact, I think in the official list of slow things, it's placed thusly:

Evolution
Glaciers
The 3-toed sloth
Slugs and snails
Publishing
The Pony Express
A 14.4k modem
Paint drying

Comments

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

So yes. That comment that got deleted, before? Was me. My friend logged on and left herself on.

Now my comment lost its power.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hee hee. That's okay; I'll still adopt ya. ;)

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

Woo! Is this your 3rd novel published now? That must feel cool :) BTW, I know you don't make money out of e-publishing, but do you get many downloads (as that to me is the most important thing)?

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess technically the 3rd, though all e-books; and the first one ('32 and Raining') is no longer available, as the publisher folded a while back...so two, in a way. :)

So far, the one available gets a handful of downloads per quarter. Nothing remarkable, but it still impresses me that anyone would go buy it at all, ebooks being not very well established and all.

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

It must be nice to know that people are out there reading your books :)

The thing that puts me off e-books is just I find it hard to read long pages of text on screen. Otherwise it's a cool idea.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

It's a bit easier on a handheld/PDA thing, as long as the screen is good. Also, you can carry lots of books without the extra weight! But until those get more widespread, and until ebook file types get more standardized and easy to use, ebooks won't be extremely popular. Maybe someday they'll take off like mp3's, though. (With as little profit to authors and publishers, I'm sure.) :)

[bluesound.livejournal.com]

Evolution? You've got me off on a tangent. According to the entertaining muppets at Truth for Youth evolution is evil. Don't believe me? You'll clearly be converted by this end of the comic and all their others on various topics. I'd never realised the teaching of science had been so wrong all these years? Mind you... I wish could remember the other bloke who was so extreme he wrote a religious comic along these lines...

1. Religious extremist man walks past a mosque and starts telling on of the muslims they are worshipping their evil "moon God".
2. Lots of muslims appears.
3. Religious extremist man converts them all to hardcore extremist Christianity by merely talking to them.

These kind of things are hilarious and frightning at the same time.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

No need to tell me. I've heard the arguments since my teen years. You tend to hear them even more often when you major in Anthropology. I just tell people, "I believe God created evolution," and watch them sputter while their brain malfunctions.

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

You should read chick.com. Unintentionally hilarious.