Yeah, I have to say I think it was the defensive inference rather than the nonexistent implication which was at fault. However, I suppose I’ll try to make more obvious sense in future.
And so… I meant it’s easier to regulate your own temperature in a climate which is already temperate than it is in one with extremes, no matter how acclimatised you may be. I realise that’s not what I said, but that time I was implying something!
You tell us to be nice. Then you wish her to go to some place somehow hotter then the thermonuclear core of the sun that warms it.
I’m getting mixed messages here.
Please do not call me ignorant. We have already established that someone who clearly thinks everything said by anyone non-American is an attack on the dear old US of A has read something into my post which I had not intended. I am fully aware of extremes of temperature, and it is rude and unnecessary to suggest that someone who is clearly able to write would be unable even to read, let alone to travel. I did not for a moment suggest that people should not use air conditioning, I merely suggested that in a temperate climate such as Britain, we don’t tend to need it.
Yeah, while we’re at it, in the winter you Americans use heaters too much! :rolleyes:
Ahh. I think what got me was the way an automatic biological system read to me phrased like a deliberate action. I was left picturing an Inspector Gadget type deciding he was too hot and twisting his nipple to turn down his internal thermostat. Like if I said "Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating."
Edit nothing meant about your writing. That was just the first example that came to mind.
I hardly ever use my heater at any time of the year. I do get irked when it’s so hot in the winter that I have to turn on my AC, though.
Yes but that was Americans as a group, and clearly kidding. Do you use enough AC to cancel out Alaska?
I am sorry that I read something into your post that was not intended. I apologize. Please note that I did not call you ignorant, and didn’t imply it, either.
I keep re-writing the next sentence of that paragraph, so perhaps I’ll just leave it out, as I should have done with my original comment.
Thanks StuffLikeThatThere. It wasn’t you that called me ignorant, it was Jackmannii, and that whole post was addressed to her/him.
The Tao’s Revenge, I love that image of all the Brits tweaking their nipples to turn the heat down! I can just picture the judges **AK84 **linked to fumbling under their robes. Though I must point out, part of the reason I phrased it like that was because as well as the automatic heating/cooling systems of the body, we can also take off our jumpers!
(And of course I was kidding about the heaters. Hell, we’ve still got our heating on and it’s nearly June. That’s London for you.)
When pantsuits first came into fashion, certain snooty restaurants would not let women wearing them in. I read a few of those women REMOVED THE PANTS part and were admitted wearing just the jacket part. So there we have: pantsuits; skivvies; pantyhose; what-appears-to-be-a-really-short-dress. I vote we should all of us, men and women both, start wearing burkas or caftans or Jedi robes out in public and dress however we please underneath.
Teacake said:
Really? You really can’t see how that sounds snarkish against Americans? You pointedly mention Americans, then say “most of us” meaning Brits, and then follow it with the contention that using air conditioning is wasting money.
Now you have clarified that your meaning was that your climate is more moderate, so open windows give a much more tolerable environment, but that certainly wasn’t conveyed in your original comment. Then you say:
Again, clearly you are snarking someone. In this case, you are snarking on your fellow UK folk who use air conditioners despite not needing them (in your opinion). But if you are snarking toward the attitude of using air conditioners, you start the paragraph pointing at Americans, and you cast yourself as more noble for not using them, can you really see why that would not come off as an attack on Americans?
Irishman, I did not “pointedly” mention Americans. I mentioned them because it seemed to me that the posters who were asking about it were overwhelmingly American or based in America, and perhaps didn’t realise that we didn’t need it over here. So I addressed my comment to them because I wanted it to be clear that I was specifically answering their querying of why women didn’t just turn up the air conditioning. I felt it was relevant due to the fact that AK84 seems to be based here in London, and so was complaining about British (or based/working in Britain) women.
If you use something you don’t need, then indeed it is wasting money. That would be, to clarify for the hard of thinking, us, who if we used air conditioning when we don’t need it would be wasting the money. If you chose to believe that the original comment was somehow about Americans being wasteful, when after addressing it specifically to the Americans who had asked about air conditioning I then only spoke about us over here, I can’t help you.
The second post you quote does indeed contain the information that I am saddened by the mindlessly consumerist attitude of British people who use things they do not need merely because they are following what they see as an American trend, when actually they have no corresponding need of the item/system/amenity in question. I did not suggest that Americans (or others in hotter climes) did not need it either. I thought it was perfectly clear that it was British people who were saddening me. I wouldn’t call it a snark; I stated explicitly and clearly exactly how I felt (sad) and who was making me feel that way (British people). Clearly it is in my own opinion that they don’t need them, but with summer temperatures here rarely breaking 30, and legal maximum temperatures for the workplace (above which you can leave) only slightly higher than that, I do NOT think that we need air conditioning over here.
You say that I “start the paragraph pointing at Americans”. I started the paragraph you quoted by explaining why I had not phrased my original comment about air conditioning in a more sensitive fashion, and the reason was that it had not crossed my mind that Americans would take the temperate British climate as a slight on their consumer habits.
At no point have I “cast myself as more noble for not using them” or suggested that anyone who needs one should not have it. Yeah, those kidney dialysis machines really use a lot of power, and I don’t need one, so no-one should have one. See how that isn’t what I said, or implied, and in fact clarified in a later post that I did not intend to imply that people who actually need air conditioning shouldn’t have it? You reckon I am “snarking toward the attitude of using air conditioners”. I contend that I am doing no such thing. I am saddened by anyone using anything they don’t need. And that includes when I am wasteful myself. I have no problem whatsoever with anyone using anything they *do *need.
Now can we get off our high-horses, accept that what was read into my comment was not what I intended, and get back to calling the OP a sexist pig?!
Quoted because this post nailed it!
You guys, pantyhose has nothing to do with it. Coming up with reasons why pantyhose are uncomfortable or impractical is just a defense to dressing less than perfectly feminine, when really we don’t owe anyone any explanations. It’s not unprofessional to dress in a way that does not accentuate curves and legs, because that shit is completely irrelevant to doing the job. But the OP is unnerved by women who are not sex objects.
And yes, if the same women wore skirts, they’d get comments either about showing skin when not being sufficiently young or modelesque, or if they are young would get comments about being inappropriate. Being a woman means someone is always going to be nasty about your clothing, no matter what you wear.
Not counting English, right?
Oh, I’ve been wearing loungers like this one in public for a decade or so. Maybe even 15 years. No pantyhose, no bra, but I do wear panties or women’s boxers underneath. I find this style of dress to be comfortable, modest, and non-binding.
Speaking of non-binding, I am slowly switching over to knit cotton boxers made for women. They don’t bind or chafe around the legs, and I don’t get a heat rash. Now I know why men like boxers.
I’ve also thought about wearing saris, but those require a petticoat/underskirt with a tied non-elastic waist and a tshirt. I’m not willing to take the ten or fifteen minutes to put it on properly, either. Plus I don’t want to buy the saris online or by mail, I want to be able to feel the material.
Why of course, your intentions were of positively opalescent purity, and your explanations are accepted in their entirety and not dismissed as ludicrous self-justification.
I have learned not to get hot under the collar about mindless jingoism (a peculiarly British term and for good reason), mainly because I have learned to self-regulate my temperature. 
I wear something similar around the house in the summer, though a little shorter, and sleeveless, panties only underneath. I find shorts and t-shirts (that need a proper bra underneath) hot and binding, and with no AC in my living room, welll…
Are you actually reading what I’m writing at all? Or do you perhaps not know what “jingoism” means? The only people I have insulted… no, not even that. The only people whose behaviour I have questioned is the British. It is British behaviour and needless waste I have a problem with. How is that not clear from everything I’ve said? I said that we don’t need air conditioning over here, and that it makes me sad when people unthinkingly install it just because it’s seen as the “latest thing” and thereby are wasteful and unintelligent. These people I am talking about are British. Ask AK84 if you can borrow his dictionary when he’s finished, you can look up jingoism.
Personally, if someone’s intentions are not completely clear to me, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, rather than immediately assuming they must be attacking me. If you are over-sensitive or feeling some sort of pang of conscience, I’m sure you will read something vicious into whatever I say, no matter how far the stretch or how obtuse the reading. I do not need to justify myself to you or anyone else. If I thought Americans sat there ripping the environment to shreds over their own childish whims, then I would say so and your vanity be damned. However, that is not what I said, so stop being a twat.
Teacake, I don’t give a ratfuck either way. I was responding to your apparent confusion over how your comment could be taken as a snark against Americans.
Where I said “pointedly”, substitute “specifically”.
The point of my comment was that your intention was not clear in your original comment. You have sufficiently explained afterwards that your intent was aimed at British folk using A/C they do not need because the climate is moderate. But that was not clear from the original comment.
I really don’t give a ratfuck whether the lack of need for air conditioning in Britain is an opinion or an objective fact. You don’t have to justify that to me (though admittedly my own comment might have left that impression).
Uh, you certainly have cast yourself as more noble for not using A/C that you do not need than the people who do use A/C they do not need. Which is what I was saying. I did not intend to imply you were trying to cast yourself as morally superior for living where A/C is not necessary.
Anyway, I’m done with the point.
Really? Where did I display confusion? Was it not apparent immediately that as soon as I saw how StuffLikeThatThere had responded, I realised that what I had said was unclear and clarified it? If I look a little dazed now, perhaps it’s because everyone’s suddenly piling on and accusing me of hating America because I don’t have air conditioning!
The term 'jingoism" derives from a British popular song used to express chauvinistic patriotism:
*"The chorus of a 1878 song by G. H. MacDermott (singer) and G. W. Hunt (songwriter) commonly sung in pubs and music halls of the Victorian era gave birth to the term “jingoism”. The song was written in response to the surrender of Plevna to Russia by which the road to Constantinople was open, allowing the Russians to take control of Straits of Constantinople. The lyrics had the chorus:
We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too,
We’ve fought the Bear before, and while we’re Britons true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople."**
I’m not the one who’s reeled off eight posts trying to explain away her xenophobic silliness.
Really, kiddo, put down the shovel. The hole is quite deep enough. 
Is this song the epitome of 19th century suckitude, or what?