@DSeid is an excellent poster and never causes issues for the Mods.
I enjoy his posting as a fellow poster.
But in this exchange, he does seem to be the one that overreacted the most. Hopefully everyone can let it drop now.
Appreciated.
By my read it was a classist smug dig at with the friend having a “I’m so much better than the racist rural (redneck) trash I left behind” attitude now that I’m in Portland. Why else specify it? And the “sanctimonious” snark in response to Beck’s hey Oklahoma has its good points, lots of Native culture, was right in line with that elitist attitude. Completely uncalled for. Yeah reality check on Portland’s moral superiority over rural trash was a simple mild thing to my mind. The histrionic response accusing me of things took me off guard.
@needscoffee honestly there was no anger here. Annoyance yes. RF was, to my read being an asshole, to Beck, and to me, accusing me of saying things I did not say. Again I don’t do innuendo. It’s the Pit. Someone is an ass here I can, if I’m the mood for it, be Pit appropriate in response. I was having fun. Sorry if got carried away
But you are right. I rarely get angry here. Maybe three times total. Worst one was back in QZ days.
But that’s not what was getting at. Sometimes 2 people can read the same thing and get a completely different take on what was written.
It reminds me of when my mother-in-law was asked by her hairdresser how long or short she wanted her hair. She said “I want it over my ears”. She got the opposite of what she thought she was asking for.
Seriously then, if the point was only “I’ve only known one person who actually used ‘otious’ in conversation” why bother with the specificity of their being in Portland and their being anti-Oklahoma, where they came from? And to then react that way to Beck’s completely benign comment? If it wasn’t meant as an elitist and somewhat ignorant dig at “rednecks” then why react so defensively on attack to that?
There’s a difference between “left over my ears” and “cut over my ears”.
I’ve found it’s more useful to tell a hairdresser (or barber in my case) where I want my hair cut rather than where I don’t want it cut. You don’t want to give ambiguous directlions.
That’s probably a good philosophy in any situation really.
Oh, sure, but at the time it never occurred to her that it could be taken any other way than the way she was envisioning. You (not you you) don’t know what you don’t know.
(Anyway, she got a good laugh out of it and decided she liked the new look.)
I’m not going to get involved in the larger conversation here, but this bit really annoyed me. And no, incidentally, I’m not a knight, white or otherwise.
You would do well to recognize an important distinction between “content” and “tone”. “Content” is an objective concept that consists of the words actually written, and either their plain meaning or the meanings that could reasonably be inferred. Whereas “tone” is a subjective interpretation that derives from prior beliefs and perhaps prejudices. When you complain about “tone” with no substantive evidence from content, your complaint is worthless.
I will respond to this.
I am constantly (and sometimes irrationally) irritated by this poster, which is why I have them on Ignore. I don’t know why I looked at that post, but when I did it struck me as just so over the top and out of place, and yes pious if you prefer to sanctimonious, as a response to the brief side mention of Oklahoma in my post, which incidentally was about another person’s opinion, not mine. It seemed to me to be an attempt to make an argument where there was none. I encourage folks to scroll back up and read it again, they might (or might not) discover some sympathy for this point of view.
No doubt I would have done better to continue to ignore the poster, which I will try better to do in the future. My anecdote was perhaps over-elaborated, as @DSeid later complained, and perhaps I have old man’s disease of telling more details in a story than are necessary. It was an anecdote, and that sometimes happens with anecdotes. There was no point to it except to provide a little background to what was otherwise a bald and boring little fact.
Gimme five bees for a quarter!
Okay. I am now picturing you as Grandpa Simpson 
and not meaning it how I (and Beck) read it.
And we can leave both the racist history of Oregon and Portland and the plus sides of Oklahoma for another day! 
And, in acknowledgment of a PM, the horrific racist history of Oklahoma and Chicagoland too! To be fair Oregon’s Exclusion laws were on the books, sent a message, but were not enforced, and the violence used in Chicago and Oklahoma was of a different thing.
and if you revisit their mid-19th century policies, you can see something like this:
1844 Lash Law: The provisional government passed a law banning slavery but also prohibiting Black people from living in Oregon; those who stayed were subject to lashes (whipping) every six months until they left
Oregon also had active KKK, even electing them
on second thought, never mind.
um, sorry.
Have you ever participated in one of those things where you sit on a flagpole run backwards swim blindfolded against multiple others?
And for bonus points, were you a child?
I never have, and as far as I know that was never a thing that ever happened in Springfield, Illinois between 1982 and 2014.
Summary
Ok, not really a “What were you THINKING?” post. More gently poking fun at an OP in the Game Room that struck me as really random.
I lost a wonderful, wonderful dog 25 years ago. She saved my life as she was my only companion when I moved/new job.
A new co-worker said “Just get one of the same breed and give it the same name. That’s what I do”
I was in mourning. I am not a violent person, but that fucker is lucky to be alive.
Same SOB bought a Philoppine bride, commented to pre-teen girls that they may be ready for a taining bra soon (that was his bosses young daughter). Asked a co-worker if she was still breast feeding her baby.
If you met him at the coffee machine, he would shake your hand (I just saw you 15 minutes ago).
He was finaly fired, in a disappeared in the night sort of way. He was truely a weirdo.
Wow. Nice one. 
Dude… it’s ok. It happens all the time. Someone told you something, you believed them, you repeated it here uncritically, and now enough of us just aren’t buying it.
No one has accused you of lying. I, and I think all of us, are happy to believe that it’s true you were told this story about the origin of the term “ring knocker.” I for one just do not believe it is a true story (that is, I believe someone told it to you, is just don’t accept that what they told you was true).
But you know, that’s not why I decided to bring this to the pit. No. We’re here now because you keep bringing up self-deprecating slights about not being a “gentleman” or an “enlisted puke” and thus not having a valid opinion, and it just reeks of bad faith.
You might as well show up to an academic conference and the moment someone disagrees with you about something loudly announce you have the smallest dick in the room, and therefore your opinion isn‘t valid because apparently it’s all just a dick measuring contest. It’s a massive self-own that isn’t even *relevant to the issue and you come away looking like a total jack ass.
*ETA: Actually, it’s a little worse than that, because in this case whether you have ever actually been around or served in a wardroom is relevant to the issue. So it’s almost like you’re loudly proclaiming your lack of qualifications, and then acting like we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not accepting your unqualified assertions as true. As if that’s elitist or something.
You couldn’t just have a conversation on its own merits with restrictions on conduct. Who’s the fucking gentleman now?
You HAD to take it to the Pit AND bring DICK size into it. Well, enjoy it asshole. I have no interest in participating in your dick measuring contest and I won’t be baited, so go ahead and scream at the clouds at will, at your loudest volume.
Quod.
Erat.
Demonstrandum.
The irony is delicious.
And FWIW, I couldn’t keep it in that thread because we were going way off the reservation in FQ, and your bad-faith self-flagellation was only drawing it further off base. I suppose I could have just reported you for trolling or hijacking the thread, but I don’t really believe you’re a troll (yet).
Anyway, at this risk of junior modding (which I hope is also allowed in the pit, just a little?), I was worried that if I continued to explain to you how much of a jackass you sounded like, I’d have drawn a warning for both of us.
But, hey, thanks for letting me know you’re going to let me have the last word. Real gentlemanly of you!