MsGuy

They tell me I'm riddled with cancer So I'm planning to croak with elan If you'll pass the cigars and decanter I'll be dying as hard as I can. The late Felix Dennis, media magnate, popular English poet and bon vivant.

Well, when you put it that way, I have little choice but to concede the point. My apologies, RA1.

Erm...I think the blogger meant bated breath, RA1.

Nope, they're his balls. Poor sucker had elephantitis (caused by a round worm infection of the lymphatic system). The above image is among the least creepy found on my Google search.

Are you sure about that?

Photographs of two gay dads at the birth of their son seem to have gone viral.

Back in the day, Sucky, folks used to say "Today's trade is tomorrow's competition." Just saying it ain't always so simple.

The development of the private perpetual corporation as a form for economic enterprise is one of the truly great innovations of the 19th Century, every bit as important as the build out of the rail roads (which, by way of example, could not have been constructed under any of the prior forms of organization). And, given the constraints of the procedures and concepts available under English and American common law, treating corporations as legal persons was about the only way to handle these new entities. But it's nuts to endow them with civic and political rights like free speech and judges know that. When you see a court doing silly stuff like Citizens United, what you're really seeing is are judges who favor whatever political agenda they figure will benefit from from freeing the folks who run those corporations to use corporate money to buy more heft in the public arena.

One can not imagine (& one does not want to know, thank you very much) what search terms you were using that led to an article on Jeffersonian poopery.

If ya gotta be done in in extra time, I guess it's some consolation that De Bruyne, a really cute blond Belgian fut-baller, done the deed. Just turned 23 last weekend. ----- Current score 2 to 1 Belgium. Still a chance. USA? USA? ---- As the announcer said, if the United States team goes out, it's going out on its shield. Just no quit in these guys. ---- OK, Belgium goes through. Pooh! ==== But Tim Howard, the American goalkeeper, set some kind of record with 16 saves, some of them spectacular. He single handed kept the US in the game. Sucker deserves a medal or something. ---- I can't believe I actually watched a damn soccer game and actually cared who won. GO USA!

You two are uber cute!

One would think that they would be better advised to take that shower before.

Best line tonight: "I'm never quite sure if I'm stepping over the line...But I so much enjoy it when I do!" In short: pretty bad. And tedious. And too damn English. And the kid upstairs kept all his clothes on and announced he was straight.

OK, it's 9:00 pm, CST, and Vicious is just starting on PBS. Oh and there's a cute 20-something living upstairs from the flat who seems to be a regular. With any luck maybe he will find frequent occasions to take off some clothes.

Now that really is good news!

Oops, I now see that Expat has already started a thread on 'Vicious'. And in fact he appears to have done a better job of promoting the series than I have. I suggest we confine any further posts to his thread.

Can anyone here with access to English TV give us a queer's eye view review of 'Vicious'? The series is scheduled to kick off this Sunday on PBS. Ian McKellum and Derek Jocobi play two old queens who've been together for 30 odd years. With those two in the central roles, it's hard for me to believe Vicious won't be worth a look but then you never know with the English and their odd sense of humor. Anyway, after I ran across the above linked article in the NYTimes, I thought it was worth a head's up post here in the forum. Assuming I don't get so addled in the next couple of days I forget to watch, I'll post my take on the show here afterwards.

I'm with TampaYankee!

Now why couldn't I have come up that pairing, lookin, instead of my own feeble dived/ dove exemplar? Ooo, I'm green with envy.

On the other hand (quoting the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, 1994): "The distinction between hanged and hung is not an especially useful one (although a few commentators claim otherwise). It is, however, a simple one and easy to remember. Therein lies its popularity. If you make a point of observing the distinction in your writing you will not thereby become a better writer, but you will spare yourself the annoyance of being corrected for having done something that is not wrong."

Near as I can tell, it's just another way of saying regular (weak verbs) and Irregular (strong verbs). The central conceit is that irregular verbs are so"strong" that they can form their past tense and past participle without the crutch of calling in the "ed" suffix.

Ah but I'm not an English major so I'm free to indulge in mindless babble to my heart's content, AS. The applicable rules of posting, though subtle, are quite clear in this regard. For instance, when I wrote my screed above on behalf of strong verbs, I had no knowledge of what might constitute a strong verb (other than what little I could gather from the context of the term's use in the article I cited). Now that alone makes crafting a post in their defence while concealing my ignorance of the subject matter (w/o coming across a complete idiot) a true high wire act. Frankly I'm rather proud of how well I pulled it off. And no, don't bother to educate me on the matter. Just now I went and looked it up just to deny you that small pleasure.

Many folks with a stutter can sing w/o any problem. Theory has it that when one is singing the brain recruits different &/or additional circuits than when one is speaking and this recruitment eliminates the stutter. It's not so much that the guy controls his stutter better while singing as he doesn't have a stutter to control when he sings.

LOL...Once a school teacher, always a school teacher. Thanks for making me think of my 8th grade English teacher. She was a real sweet heart and smart as a whip too. ==== Hmmm...On further investigation, while many (but not all) authorities have a clear preference for "hanged" when referring to the execution of a person, this may well be an instance of the creeping Frenchification of past tense and past participle forms of English strong verbs. Even today kids are telling their parents that they "hanged out with their friends last night." If we don't resist this mindless drift now, no doubt our (figurative) grandchildren will be substituting "runned" for ran. Already we foolishly accept learned for learnt and burned/dived are crowding out burnt/dove. I call abomination! Let all men of good will rally to the cause of the strong English verb and see off this cursed usage. Let all who dare speak it aloud be hung from the nearest gallows. http://www.englishrules.com/writing/2005/hanged-or-hung/

Thanks for the post, Boiworship. I had read somewhere that Von Steuben might have been gay but didn't know it was so well documented. -And it was interesting to finally find out how a disgraced former officer in Frederick's army wound up training the American army for Washington. P.S. King Frederick was himself homo. As a teenager, he ran off with his lover, a young officer in the Prussian army. After they were caught, his father forced Frederick to watch his lover being hung. Frederick remained a bachelor for the rest of his life and, after he died w/o issue, the kingdom was inherited by a collateral branch of the family, all of which served as a just revenge on the hopes of his father.