Guest poster.
I submitted the question to Cecil about fingernails… and I too am a little let down…I thought the real use of the fingernail was PERSONAL hygiene, of the most posterior nature…but if Cecil says it ain’t so…then perhaps it is not.
Osage
:eek:
You may of course report me for for bad spelling or bugging you or splitting infinitives or not flossing. Be sure to copy me on the report–I embrace opportunites for personal growth. Behold, Gaudere’s law is my unyielding schoolmistress, my syntactic spirit guide, my jealous drill sergeant, and I am not afraid.
I trust that the double-posting thing has proved similarly enriching for you.
So it wasn’t some kind of Lief Erickson reference?
is no one else on this board offended by the freakin idiot who posted the obviously racist comment regarding the long pinky finger nails on people from the Orient, who he singles out as Middle East, Southeast Asia, and India. WTF!
First of all, India and the Middle East are clearly NOT in the “Orient”, and only some backwoods inbred cracker would think so. Additionally, calling an Asian person an Oriental or coming from the Orient is akin to calling an African American a “negro”. Clearly an ignorant, insensitive retard. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.
Oh, yes, “Orient” is awful, isn’t it? Give me the good old days when people knew etiquette and referred to others politely using such delicate and refined terms as “sir” and “madam” and “inbred cracker” and “retard.” Those were the days.
Meanwhile, the forum for getting-things-off-the-chest is still the BBQ Pit.
You mean like those backwoods inbred crackers who ran the famous Orient Express train line? Until 1977, the easternmost stop of that line was Istanbul. Which, if I’m not mistaken, is not even so far east as India or Arabia. And maybe I’m just not keeping up on my PC terminology, but I was under the impression that “Orient” and its derivatives was still acceptable for geographic locations, just not for the people themselves.
Part of the Chinese desire to grow a pinky nail that surpasses the last knuckle on the ring finger has its roots in feng shui. In the west, you could probably find a chirognomist or two that have tweaked this superstition to suit their own needs.
There are a lot of threads in the past on Orient versus Asian.
However, let’s just fight ignorance. Check the dictionary for the word “Orient”, and it basically means to the east. You’ll find that the Middle East, SE Asia and India can all be considered part of the Orient.
o·ri·ent (ôr-nt, -nt, r-)
n.
a. The luster characteristic of a pearl of high quality.
b. A pearl having exceptional luster.
3. Archaic The place on the horizon where the sun rises; the east.
adj.
a. To locate or position so as to face the east.
b. To build (a church) with the nave laid out in an east-west direction and the main altar usually at the eastern end.
3. To align or position with respect to a point or system of reference: oriented the telescope toward the moon; oriented her interests toward health care.
4. To determine the bearings of.
5. To make familiar with or adjusted to facts, principles, or a situation.
6. To focus (the content of a story or film, for example) toward the concerns and interests of a specific group.
v.intr.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin orins, orient-, rising sun, east, from present participle of orr, to arise, be born; see er-1 in Indo-European roots.]