I honestly say this to be helpful, not a jerk, but a lack of money is not an excuse for not working on yourself and trying to overcome issues.

I do this largely to make room at the table for drinks and conversation. Sure, I always assumed it was helpful, I always make sure all the silverware is on top, and never leave napkins or scraps in the middle of the stack, but I really don’t do it for you.

Just for the record, since I feel I may have been a bit unclear, I don’t blame or judge anyone for having issues. Everyone has them. I do blame people for not at least trying to work on their issues and grow as a person.

My wife tells a story about waiting tables in high school where she walked up to a table and asked if “you guys have everything you need.” After serving the party of eight (mixed men and women) all night, she picked up the check to a zero dollar tip and a note that said “how many ‘guys’ did you see at this table?”

Haha, you should hear my inlaws explain what percentages of poodle and lab their labradoodles are. I’m not 100% sure some of the numbers they say are even possible.

Agreed. I have three. My wife had two and I had one when we got together, so we’ve got sort of a four pawed Brady Bunch thing happening.

I hate it when people do this. “I had a bad experience with a dog when I was five, so I can never be around them again.” “My dad forced me to go in the pool before I was ready, so water is a no go for the rest of my life.” “A masked gorilla scared me at Halloween as a toddler, so to this day I keep trick-or-treaters…

There’s a horrible old myth that to fix cracked feet, you should urinate on them. I think someone saw “urea” on a tube of hand lotion and thought “lifehack!” For the record, that’s bad. Don’t do that. All the bathroom lessons from preschool still apply.

I played in a band in college with a majorly aggressive bass player (aggressive in how he played, the guy was a teddy bear). If we had a long show, by the end of it, he’d have split the skin off of his thumb, as well as at least one or two of his finger tips. Between songs, he’d pour krazy glue in the cuts, largely…

Right, my whole point with the pop vs soda comment was that it’s a regional dialect thing and that one isn’t more right than the other. . . The poster I was discussing it with was claiming one accent was the default, or neutral one. I was pointing out that there are major identifying dialect features, in addition to…

So, random piece of movie/broadly accent related trivia, Hollywood actually gave frogs an accent. Very few species of frogs “ribbit,” but when sound guys went out to record nightime scenes for the first times in early Hollywood, they were in Southern California, and got the local frog, the pacific treefrog if I…

It’s not hard to pin down though. A good linguist can determine what part of the midwest (assuming that is what someone thinks is this neutral accent is) a person is from by listening to them. Hell, even a decent dialect coach can do it. The region may be larger than somewhere like New Jersey, but that doesn’t make it…

haha, thanks.

Interesting, that’s a cool example of a fantasy world filled with accents, especially when you consider they used accents to differentiate planets as well. Tattooine and other sort of rural worlds seemed at least mostly American, but once things got more technologically advanced and city like, the RP British accent…

I don’t doubt that an ESL class in Ohio, would teach the local dialect, but having interned in ESL and ASL classes in college, in Southern California, they teach a Southern Californian Accent.

Absolutely disagree. An accent is about the way you produce phonemes when you speak a language. Someone from Ohio has a way they pronounce those phonemes as does someone from New Jersey as does someone from Georgia. None of those are more “standard” than the other. It only doesn’t have an accent from ther perspective…

I get what they are saying about the “like us” vs “not like us” thing. Accents are used to differentiate groups constantly, but I disagree with the idea that it is more commonly than not, villains.

This teacher is an idiot. I had a very similar essay question asked on a high school AP History test, but phrased way less F’d up. Something along the lines of “Give three of the confederate justifications for the practice of slavery, and briefly explain the abolitionist response to each at the time.”

Yes, absolutely. Until a kid is old enough to start heading places without supervision, you control their environment. If they’re eating too much, eating unhealthy foods, or not getting enough exercise, it’s on you. It’s a massive responsibility, a huge pain in the butt, will make you feel like the villain over and…

Yeah, I saw that, but newfoundlands, St Bernards, breeds that pull sleds, should all probably get an extra -2 or so. I feel like when they say “heavy coat,” they must be picturing retrievers or something.