Quoted for truth.
– I haven’t had a martini in long enough that I have no idea which one I’d prefer. And I don’t think I’ve tried some of those variations at all. Did not feel the need to vote in that one.
Me, too. I’m going to wait even longer if i go somewhere else.
I’ve walked out of a restaurant after being told the wait is longer than I’m willing to wait. And i once walked out of a restaurant after being seated because it was unclear if they would ever take our order. But a restaurant that is trying to serve me has never done anything bad enough that i got up and left. And I have been served the wrong dish, or a dish that has an element i asked them to leave out (and that prevents me from eating the dish) from time to time.
Not only do I think that aphorism is wrong, but I never heard it before.
I’d heard the trope from a friend (eldest sibling in her family) who complained that her younger sister was much more popular than her and apparently she herself had learned it from some sort of prevailing cultural notion - in her own words, “the eldest is doomed to be sidelined while the men all flock to the younger.” I don’t think there was any hostility at all between the two, but her envy or sadness was palpable.
And there were novels such as Madeleine Brent’s The Capricorn Stone in which the protagonist is the more homely-looking woman who has never had luck in relationships while her younger sister is prettier, more passionate, etc. Even in the Bible, Leah and Rachel are a trope of this.
And another friend of mine (again, eldest daughter) said her younger sister was her heroine and role model, and also the younger got married earlier than the elder, ditto for quite a few other similar such sister-and-sister situations in my church.
We mow a lot of grass and it is complicated. Our lawn tractor burns diesel, but now our push mowers are both battery powered, as are our weed wackers.
Trope it may be, but “aphorism” is definitely the wrong word.
For all that I am the more serious older sister and my little sister was more popular (seriously, she was like a bright, adorable little doll that everyone loved,) I voted no because I know as many where the opposite is true as those that prove the trope.
I am both more serious and more popular.
I’m the youngest. I was never popular. I’m also the only one who never got married.
I haven’t noticed any particular pattern among anybody I know.
@Velocity, if people in your social group talk about this a lot, it may be somewhat a self-fulfilling prophecy within that group. Or people may notice the families that do appear to work that way, but not notice all the ones that don’t.
My wife is the older of two sisters. She is definitely the introvert while her younger sis is very gregarious and outgoing. This proves nothing, of course. And I don’t know enough pairs of sisters to either agree or disagree with the trope.
I do think there’s a grain of truth in birth-order stereotypes, though. I’m the middle of three boys and I was totally a Peter Brady when I was growing up. There’s a guy on Instagram who posts funny videos of himself as three brothers, wearing t-shirts that say “oldest,” “middle,” and “youngest.” My wife and my brother’s wife often laugh over how closely he nails all three of our personalities.
There was a parody news segment that was popping up on my Facebook feed a while back about how the youngest child was The Worst. At the sign off, the anchor looks at the camera and says, “I was a middle child, but enough about me.”
Whenever my wife and our oldest commiserate about being the oldest child, I’ll often butt in with that quip. The littlest Magill (for now) will often pop in to remind us all that he’s perfect. Perfect.
We have an electric mower and 2 gas mowers. I use the electric because the self-propelled gas one is too heavy for me. Our weed whacker is battery operated and the rest of the rakes, shovels, and implements of destruction are manual.
I just finished (last weekend) having my entire yard replaced by xeriscaping and a metric buttload of river rock. I’m not going to have a use for my weed-whacker anymore.
In recent years I’ve been having more and more difficulty bending down to reach my toes with precision. So I’ve started getting pedicures. Such a luxury!
My 90 year old uncle got regular pedicures.
You will once the liner wears out and the weeds start poking up through the rocks, the pernicious little bastards.
I wouldn’t get a manicure or a pedicure if you paid me. Just contemplating it gives me the willies.
Same here. I was wondering what rich people like Trump do. Or real rich people.
Spoilered so as not to influence those who have not yet voted in the “gopher guts” poll:
I’m not positive, but as near as I can remember, it was “great green gobs…” (not “globs”).
Yeah, there seems to be dozens of variations of the gopher guts song, which isn’t surprising given that is transmitted mostly orally. The version I learned was
Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Dirty little birdies’ feet
French-fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood
Oops, I dropped my spoon