If this is how you act on a website that purports to be “fighting ignorance”… just, wow.
Look, if you’re just having a pissy day, then some of us hope you come back (when your mind’s more open). But if you really hold onto anecdotal opinions this tightly, I don’t think you’d be happy here. Or that many here would miss you.
Seriously, think about it.
[/Pretentious Speaker-For-The-Pit Attitude]
Well, I did mention Bentley and Rolls Royce as being pretentious; probably could have added Hummers when they were still making those. Otherwise, it’s a person’s attitude about something, not the thing itself. For example, if people are talking about going out for dinner in midtown Manhattan and you mention that your spouse took you to Le Bernardin (really expensive, ritzy restaurant - the kind of place that’s “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”), and I follow up asking you about the experience and you rave about it or knock it, that isn’t pretentious. If, however, we’re talking about where to go for lunch that day and you swing the conversation to your having been to Le Bernardin and how you couldn’t eat again at anywhere else on that block (which has one of my favorite delis), that’s being pretentious. Eating at Le Bernardin isn’t pretentious - constantly inserting that you ate at Le Bernardin into unrelated conversations is.
Another example would be DarrenS’ post. There are ways to say you don’t use Microsoft products (assuming it comes up in conversation) that doesn’t infer (or outright say) that those who use MSFT are inferior.
Oh, and at various times I’ve studied and spoke (and then forgotten through non-use) French and Russian, studied but never got good enough to speak Italian and Latin, and I’m currently studying Tagalog (Filipino). Don’t have an iPhone, though.
I thought this was how it was usually pronounced.
Indeed. It is probably completely off-base but I have always seen ex-pats as people that just live somewhere and make no effort to integrate. Immigrants see the new place as their home and try to integrate. For this reason I have never described myself as an ex-pat. I don’t like the connotations.
Well, to contribute seriously to this tangent, there are Asian countries (I’m thinking Japan, for example) where I believe in most cases it’s difficult to impossible for a Westerner to be accepted into society either legally or culturally. Even if they lived there 20 years, it’d be factually incorrect to refer to such foreigners as “immigrants.”
It’s perfectly possible for whitey to immigrate to Japan, and to become a Japanese citizen.
Culturally… well. I suppose many Asian immigrants to the US would say they’ve never really been accepted (see the ‘where are you from?’ threads)
pdts
Scotch drinkers who think it’s macho to drink it neat, use an eyedropper to add water, or automatically turn their nose up at blends.
Scotch, whiskey, whisky, etc., are a lot like wine (and the associated snobbery). There is a lot of good, there is a lot of bad, and there is a vast range between. Knowledge of it can be shared if it’s warranted; else it’s shown off.
Me too. Perhaps more to the point –
I agree with Sampiro that someone’s name should be pronounced (and spelled*) any way that person wants. A name seems like the most personal thing imaginable; taking control of it away from a person – especially for petty reasons like being miffed – seems very petty indeed, if not downright Big Brotherish.
*and I’m a Spelling Nazi too, but I draw the line at names. Spell them any way you want, as long as you’re consistent each time.
You say ‘it’s not an old-man pub’, or at least I do.
Yeah, but that “not an old-man pub” could also be a “fake pub where young d-bags hang out.” Several places in Houston would qualify as “gastropub” but only one that I know of actually claims the title.
People who think that people who hyphenate their last names are pretentious when all theya re really doing is either following a scultural custom or adaptinga cultrual custom to their current environment.
People who think the only reason to own an iphone is to show off. They’re $50 ferchissake (if you sign up for a 2 year contract).There are 100 million of these things flaoting around. We are about 5 years past the date when owning an iphone was about showing off.
Vegetarians.
Peolpe who lease high end luxury cars because they cannot afford to buy because they want to drive into their church parking lot in a mercedes.
I don’t know if my immigrant mother and father ever really felt accepted into society.
Wow, you’re really judgmental. I recently married and, after much discussion with my now-husband, we both kept our original names. We’re going to give our kids hyphenated names because I’ve heard of parents who have run into legal trouble/general problems when their last names don’t match the last names of the kids. Furthermore, I don’t like the idea of just picking one of our names to give to our kids; we’re a family.
Why didn’t I take his name? Well, for one, I hate the idea of a woman becoming property of her husband. My dad’s family is a very important, dear part of my life and I identify very strongly as a [Mylast]. I’ve never met his father (who’s nasty, bitter man), nor anyone else with his last name, so I have absolutely no connection to it. Also, those of us in the sciences who publish papers lose a lot when we change our names.
Why didn’t he take mine? I have an older brother with the same name as him, which would have made things confusing. He’s also in the military, where changing the last name is a huge hassle.
Pretentious? Maybe those who insist on calling me Mrs HisFirst HisLast because it’s ‘proper’.
Oh, good, it’s in the pit now.
Sorry for the off-topic post, but Yara-Mateo, you’re a pretentious fucking dumbass.
Lording the fact that you can put people on your block list because you have the power to is pretentious, numbnuts. :rolleyes:
Ooh, who wants to start a “What’s the opposite of pretentious?” thread? Because I’d put Plain Ol’ Swearin’ in there. Put someone down with the word “jejeune” and it’s Palooka-time. Call someone a dumbass and a numbnuts, and you’re instantly my friend.
And if you were standing over a bleeding victim yelling “Is there a doctor here?!?”, and a doctor of Medieval French Literature rushed up…
Dumbass.
I think the difference can be summed and illustrated by contemplating the different connotations of the phrases, “becoming an American,” and “becoming Japanese.”
I was talking to Micheal Jordan today and he agreed that it was bad.