Sorry if this isn’t really the right forum. I try. But in a lot of posts, people get halfway through a list and just add “Hi, Opal!” So who is this woman? Is she a friend of Dorothy? Or are all our base belong to her now?
Dang I hate pop culture! You go to the bathroom and everyone’s talking gibberish when you get back!
It’s actually OpalCat, and apparently she has voiced unhappiness with the use of a numbered list for a mere two items (two items can be included easily in a sentence; the numbered list is reserved for three or more items). So, when people have two points to make, they make the third one be Hi, Opal!
I would suggest trying harder. And searching. This has been asked about a billion times already.
Yes, that is unfortunate. Especially since in the words of “The Opal” herself, most people are using it wrong. This silly practice is meant to flesh out a list of 2 points into 3, not interrupt a list of 3 or greater.
Opal? Pop culture? BWWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, that’s rich.
BTW - is your sig a Young One’s quote?
btw yes, my sig’s a young ones quote. How I love people laughing in my face. Even electronically. Alright, Unpop culture then.
However I genuinely apologise for getting the wrong forum. That was in fact the intention of my original apology.
Could someone please link to the original thread in which this all got started? If anyone by now remembers what thread it was. Some of us missed it. I’d like to see OpalCat’s legendary words as she actually wrote them herself.
Hey, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Anyone who has a Young Ones sig can’t be all bad. 
Someone provided this link a couple of weeks ago when the question was asked. (Apologies for forgetting who to credit.)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=51051
I came THIS close to posting the same question myself! There but for the grace of Cecil go I. But no-one’s going to say anything, right?
D18
but as long as new people check out the SDMB, questions like “Who’s Opal?” will be asked. “Who’s Opal?” will probably be asked again … and again. Having covered this topic even a week ago does no good to the person who joins us today. Heck, I wondered who Opal was myself lately, but I figured it would eventually be revealed … and indeed it was.
Similarly, on a lot of message boards I frequent, there are posts constantly asking what LOL, ROTFL, FWIW, YMMV, IIRC, IMHO, and other acronyms stand for. So what? No harm in explaining it again … and again. Believe it or not, these are NOT yet common knowledge nationwide. No - they really aren’t.
A lot of times, the people that most recently learned the acronyms are the ones that gladly step up to the plate and explain it to the newbies. So grumpy “oldtimers” who’ve been on the Web since 1976 (or whenever) don’t have to even bother themselves with explaining.
As for using message-board search functions - this is not always a good solution for a question like “Who’s Opal?”. If you type in “Opal”, for example, I’m sure you get many, many threads that do nothing to explain who Opal is, but merely mention her. Why wade through all that when you can post a quickie note on GQ, get a quick answer, and move on? Heck, little bandwidth is even wasted, really. What’s the harm? I don’t see any, personally. YMMV.
Because this board has been going slow enough lately without people asking the same crap over and over again. Also, we have a place for people to ask about ROTFL, FWIW etc. And when people ask such questions in ATMB, where they belong, then decent intelectual questions in GQ will not be bumped down to the next page. You have to understand that there are a lot of people posting here, and there are a lot of people who are asking new questions. When people add questions like this one, a good question gets knocked off the page. So, there IS harm in having to explain these things again.
And as far as the search feature goes… All you have to do is know how to use one. Anyone on the net nowdays should learn.
I put “Opal” in the ‘Search for’ box, set it for ANY DATE, set it to search only GENERAL QUESTIONS and then set it to search in the SUBJECT ONLY. I got back only three threads, one of which is this one. The other two would have answered the OP. I dont think two threads is too much to look through. And, I got the answer a lot faster than starting a new thread and waiting for an answer.
All we ask is that people do a little work themselves… geeesh!
Sorry Anthracite. I was having a funny morning. I’d hope I’ll respond with something better approaching good humour in the future.
To be honest I have to acknowledge that it IS wrong to post dumbass questions - mainly because it forces other questions down and off the board, giving people, especially newbies, less chance to read them. So they get posted again. And again. Anyone who has been anywhere near rebelact’s Severance boards in the past few weeks will be well aware of the delicious war brewing up between chatters and people who show up to post spoilers in the wrong forum. Must be damned annoying if you’ve put in enough effort to belong here, although I must admit I’ve been unable to resist stirring up the Severance spoilers war just a little.
Ah well. I’m learning.
That thread I started in ATMB with this same question has now become the thread to link to when someone asks this question.
It’s also probably the thread where I had the most F-ups in a 24 hour time span. I mentioned in my last post in the thread, after I requested that it be locked “Let it sink, and let us never speak of it again.”
Now it gets linked to once every other day.
Awesome. :mad: 
Asked and answered.