Fee Fi Fo Fum - what does it really mean?

Factual Questions
61

‘Lo there, this is “meat” talkin’:

Gotta keep this short. Essentially no substance in this blathering. Asemayo called me tense. I wonder what he would call these two phiction phreaks. Pld seems to have a little trouble counting today – two '7’s and two '8’s, although one of the latter is empty. Oh well, that made it come out a nice religious list of 10 items.

  1. Dunno where this came from, but 100% - most = a minority, in my book.

  2. I’m not claiming they can’t so distinguish; I’m just claiming the tend not to and try to get others confused by what they read.

  3. How Galileo and the Church tangle was never any point of mine, and I didn’t say what their contention actually was. This is history, open to all kinds of interpretations nobody is able to completely establish. I’m not interested in history. I only commented as to their having been some kind of issue there that wasn’t resolved until some recent Pope apologized about the issue in some way. I certainly don’t know anything about any details of this quarrel, only that it has been talked about. However, Copernicus, quite before Galileo, is the one best and first known for a heliocentric planetary system. I never made whatever point you claim I screwed up.

  4. OK, I didn’t do this one up right. Hey, you’re desperate for a point? Here ya go; ya got one.

  5. I know quite well what an analogy and a metaphor are. But I don’t have the slight idea what your problem here is. O Owner of the Planet, if you can stop it, I’ll consider getting off it and finding a less contaminated one – and one where I have the right not to read adult fairy stories.

  6. Well, looking up the word ‘(a)esthetic’, I do see that – although I used the word in a meaning related to its meaning listed second in my dictionary, ‘of or pertaining to the sense of the beautiful’ – the first sense listed in my dictionary, ‘of or pertaining to the criticism of taste’ sort of covers your use of the word. I actually used the word to mean ‘of or pertaining to that which is subject to the sense of the beautiful’, but I don’t see that meaning listed in my dictionary, although I hardly ever hear any other meaning than that modern one. I don’t like the word because it sounds like one’s trying to be complex about something simple. What I was trying to say was that the visual or aural arts your referred to produced works that appealed directly to the senses (or sight and vision). Literature doesn’t do that, so that if you use some term which I meant to apply to sensory appeal in application to literature, it is only appropriate in a metaphoric sense. OK, so if ‘esthetic’ has been in use directly in respect to criticism of taste of any sort, I should’ve made my distinction with the use of a different term, say, ‘sensory appeal’. If you want to say literature has that, I say you’re just getting too metaphoric to continue the discussion. So the bottom line here is that your juxtaposing visual arts and music to fiction or literature in general is wandering off into a different territory. Literature does not directly involve one of the five senses, so that I can like or dislike art and music independent of the issues we have over fiction.

7-1. Dunno what this refers to.

8-1. Most intelligent thing you’ve said yet.

7-2. I never said he did. All I did was pooh-pooh the influence you said his fiction had on the events of history.

8-2. Ooooooooh, how pldish! I think your real name is ‘Dutch’. You supposedly write about the real world, but everyone says what you wrote is fiction. Whatever the intent, factual reading or fiction, lying or entertaining, the result is a problem I don’t have respect for. (Maybe you people get your high numbers for the number of fiction readers because you count what is sold or loaned as nonfiction, but which turns out to be fiction.) So now I flunked out of college. Yes, Dutch. I nearly died when they tried to assassinate me also. And, well, it is not permanent constipation or latanoprost (Xalatan) that has made my eyes brown; they were hatched that way. People with blue eyes are aliens. Pass it on. Also, you can’t tell whether such people can distinguish the truth from unreality or not.

  1. There used to be a lot more lemmings, before they caught their romantic-novel habit.

  2. “No, I don’t know what a media relations (news)wire is.” OK, there, I’ve said it with no bells and whistles. I wonder exactly how many people reading this thread know what such a thing is. Why don’t you produce here just one here-and-now informative piece of information? Tell us what that is, and since that doesn’t sound like exactly what you function occupationally as (which is the question I asked that brought forth that designation), please tell us what you do also.

rmariamp:

So? I didn’t deny that anywhere. I had never heard of them. I don’t understand what you think it means that they are on the NYT Best Sellers List. Do you envision that that means that suddenly the kids of America are no longer playing in the ballpark, at the video arcade, launching rockets, skateboarding or getting in trouble. . .and are now curled up in an armchair reading how to be wizards? The page doesn’t say whether these books are for adults or kids, or whether this “Best Seller” list in cludes both or what. If the list is only for kids’ books, even if only one book each a year were sold and no other kids’ books were, these would have to be placed at the top of this list. If the list is for adult books also, then I would guess these are at the top because adults are reading them. But, whatever, what does such a list mean even as far away as Hoboken?

Please don’t. That wouldn’t solve any issue stated in this thread.

“What, me worry?”

. /""""###
@^ A ^@
. … ‘–’ ./

Kat:

  1. I had no hard evidence to back it up. I do not believe it is fiction. :wink:

  2. Yes, I am unable to do the research to get hard evidence, in a reasonable time, to back my statement up. The reason why that is is that I need to get some other things done. Why, since you believe the opposite, don’t you do such research. Since you apparently currently buy books, you probably have contacts to find the hard data more easily than I. I’ll tell you what, though, I’ll ask at Black Oak Books in Berkeley (whose management probably knows 6 times over whatever there ever was to know about books) where one could get such unbiased, hard data. That store sells a wide variety of both fiction and nonfiction books.

Rysdad:

They SUCK. . .and HOW they suck!!! I mean, just look at these posts from friction-feeders. . .I mean. . .fiction readers.

Cristi:

[quote]
Well. I may not know anything about any phone booth in t

62

And bowling. . .let me tell you about bowling. . .oops, that’s a different thread.

Ray (rolling down the alley with his thumb stuck in the ball)

63

The ‘here’ after the phone number in my second post back was supposed to be linked to this map.

Ray

64

BTW:

Cristi’s Report Card:

  1. My kitchen has dishes in it that need to be washed.

F

2)I balanced my checkbook last night.

A

3)I went bowling this evening.

C

4)After I get up tomorrow morning, I have to go grocery shopping.

A only after check-out

5)My grandmother has a doctor’s appontment to tomorrow, and her doctor thinks she may have bone cancer.

E incomplete

6)I paid my rent this afternoon.

A

7)I read fiction.

F- I’ll see you after school.

8)My parents read fairy tales to me when I was a child.

No credit

Mr. NanoByte, 5th Grade Errand Studies

65

Ray, get back on the medication.

It does when it’s read aloud, like, oh, say, nursery rhymes.

And I’m a she, not a he.

66

So, we’ve established you can’t prove a single one of your assertions except through further assertion, which isn’t proof at all. Just as I thought. And the backpedaling on the Galileo thing was simply masterful.

Oh, and the fact that I mistakenly repeated numbers seven and eight pales in comparison to the fact that you’ve cluttered up more than one thread with multiple attempts to correctly post hyperlinks and silly little ASCII graphics. I’d try to be a tad more parsimonious with my criticism about that sort of thing, were I you.

67

HP 1, 2 & 3 are on the “regular” bestsellers list. the New York Times bestsellers list is compiled using data from thousands of bookstores around the country, including major national chains like Borders & Barnes & Nobles, and lots of independent stores around the country. being on the list means that you are selling millions of copies of this book.

perhaps I should have pointed you to this list instead, which compares ranings at Chain and independently owned stores: http://www.nytimes.com/books/yr/mo/day/bsp/fictioncompare.html

As stated at the bottom, chain listing represent 2,225 US locations of the 4 major chain booksellers, while “Independents” represents hundreds of independently owned stores nationwide.

While some adults may be reading this title, it is aimed squarly at the 10-12 year old set.

I’m not saying that kids aren’t out there playing arcade games, skateboarding, shopping at the mall etc. You just claimed that kids have no interest in reading. Clearly, someone is reading all those Harry Potter books. I have a feeling that (gasp) its mainly kids.

68

Nano: Please forgive my Middle East/Mojave Desert error. I grovel at your feet.

You still didn’t do what I asked, though. You wrote some dippy-assed poem (in which you spelled my name wrong) and graded my post as if it were a homework assignment. If this was meant to make me laugh, it didn’t. If it was meant to intimidate me, it didn’t do that either.

I’m not good at flaming. I’ll leave that to the pros. I will say, though, that you’ve yet to make me believe that people who read fiction have problems with reality.

If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have to go wake up my husband. He has to put together the dresser we just bought for the son we’re expecting in two weeks. Damn reality. Keeps getting in the way of my actual life.

69

So, you’re claiming you had some evidence? And what evidence was that? That hastily thrown together little thing you posted previously? Exactly what part of that? Anyway, I was under the impression you came up with that after my second(?) request for you to post your evidence.

And “what X believes” isn’t any sort of evidence, is it? If I believed that “Most people eat rabbit dung.” or “Most people don’t watch sit-coms.” or “Most people drink orange Kool-Aid.” and had no evidence and requests for such were repeatedly met with tangential (is that a word?) comments or irrelevant information, would it be reasonable for me to expect people to take my word for it, whether it’s true or not?

No thanks, I will simply not take any information you post as valid, considering that this is obviously an issue you feel strongly about, and yet you can’t be bothered to get together any facts on the subject.

70

My post referring to a number of Web pages included a few non-numerical indications. One point mentioned more than once in them was that women spend considerably more time on fiction than men. I think this reinforces that. Other than the Harry Potter stuff, which apparently had to do with indicating more interest in books/fiction by children, a different subject, no one here wants to list any evidence, forgetting proof, as to whether more people read fiction than don’t. At this point, the thread has just degenerated to a silly, surly hen party, and yet another one wants to redefine ‘flaming’. I think these pro-fiction posts here also show up some of the problematic natures that lead their owners to the desire to read a lot of stuff that isn’t true.

71

And the one who doesn’t want to explain his wiring wants to put fiction into the domain of things having sensory appeal by mentioning its being read aloud. Whether a book of fiction sounds good as read aloud is clearly only a side effect and would never determine its standing on a best-sellers list. Most books, including fiction, aren’t written to be evaluated as to whether they are esthetic when read aloud. This tribe just sounds like a bunch of smokers screaming that their cigarettes and smoking locations not be taken away from them. . .but nobody’s burning you people’s books.

Ray (THE END. Close the book. Fiction readers suck. QED, reality proves it.)

72

Fee Fi Fo Fum I smell a great debate. Shall I transfer this?

73

Person 1: “Reading fiction endangers the survival of the species.”

Person 2: “Prove it.”

Person 1: (Glib, irrelevant comment about lemmings and romance novels.)

Person 2: “Oh, well, you’ve definitely established that premise.”

This is the fantasy exchange that is repeatedly taking place in Ray’s head. I can nearly guarantee that an overwhelming majority of regular SD posters are readers of fiction, which really leads one to questions Ray’s underlying assumptions.

Oh, and I hope he isn’t claiming that I referred to fiction being read aloud to establish an aesthetic component, because I never did any such thing. To claim otherwise would be an outright lie.

74

I suppose I should ask this question, just out of curiosity. Does this fiction that Nano is so opposed to cover books for very young children as well? Not Harry Potter-age readers–I mean my two-year-old. Should I be concerned that I am warping her little psyche by reading books to her about very large cats that wear very large hats? It is fiction, after all. Or should I just let her have at my (substantial) non-fiction collection? Yes, I read fiction, but I mix it up, as I’m certain most of us do.

75

Note: WOMEN SPEND MORE TIME ON FICTION not Men do not spend any time on fiction. Say you choose a representative group of 100 women and a representative group of 100 men. 79 of the 100 women read fiction, averaging 10 hours a week. 82 of the men read fiction, averaging 2 hours a week. Have you proved that most people don’t read fiction? Have you proved most men don’t read fiction? Have you proved more women read fiction than men? No, no and no.
Without the numbers, the statement “women spend considerably more time on fiction than men” means nothing.
All I ask for, Nano, is some evidence, no even proof, to back up your statement. Evidence that a thinking person would accept as being relavent to the statement “Most people do not read fiction.” As I said before, even if all you have is a TV Guide survey that says “Out of X people surveyed, this high percentage say they do not read fiction.” It doesn’t even have to be a representative group.

76

You thought this one was dead, right? But this is back to the original topic.

But by happy coincidence, I stumbled across a list of expletives used by Shakespeare, and lo! there, prominently displayed, is: “Fie, foh, fum!”

Unhappily, the author who compiled the list did not bother to accredit which play, nor where, nor said by whom. Perhaps someone with a Shakespeare disk-and-search-engine can enlighten us. However, at least we’ve tracked at least 3/4ths of the opening verse to Shakespeare!

77

Wow.

Great thread. Probably more suitable to Great Debates.

Nanobyte:

By lumping all fiction readers into one category of people unable or unwilling to differentiate between reality and fiction, you are just as guilty of bigotry as the most virulent racist or misogynistic sexist. I think that, more than anything else, damages your argument. If you have no use for fiction, that’s fine. It doesn’t mean, though, that those of us who do are in any way deficient.

It’s pretty much an accepted groundrule of debating that if you make an assertion (such as “of people who read, less than half read fiction”), you need to back that assertion up with some proof. Proof can take many forms, but an additional assertion is not one of them. If you can’t produce proof, then you need to take back your assertion.

It is my opinion (not assertion, but opinion) that fiction is part of the human condition. Whether it takes the form of myth, legend, story, poem, song, or narrative art, there is evidence of it at least as far back as 14,000 years ago (the cave paintings of Lasceaux and other sites in southern Europe).

Fiction is not a replacement for reality, but rather an addition to. It does not destroy a person’s ability to deal with reality; it enhances that same ability. It is evidence of our ability to look at ourselves from a different perspective, see beyond present circumstances, and imagine something else. It may even be a defining factor of who we are.

There are some people who are incapable of differentiating between fiction and reality, but I would hazard a guess - a Wild Assed Guess at that - that they number no more than those of us who have no use for fiction, imagination, or narrative.

78

‘Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still, “Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.”’

It’s from King Lear, said by Edgar, son of Gloucester, at the end of Act III, scene iv.

It doesn’t appear to be a coinage of WS, however, but a recitation of an already familiar phrase.

79

Thanks for bringing this back on topic aseymayo :slight_smile: My roommate (who’s abroad at the moment so I can’t doublecheck this right now) whose parents are native Irish speakers told me once that the origin of the phrase is Irish, but I can’t remember what it meant (much less the original spelling :)). I’ll try to remember to ask, though, if anyone still cares…

80

In “The Classic Fairy Tales” by Iona and Peter Opie it is stated -

"And nine years before “king Lear”, Thomas Nashe, in "Haue with You to Saffron-Walden,…gave a warning…

'O, tis a precious apothegmaticall Pedant, who will finde matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first inuention of Fy, fa, fum, I smell the bloud of an Englishman.'