Archive for August, 2000

Shibboleth

Published
by
Robyn
on August 26, 2000
in Observatory
. 0 Comments

“I got told…”

I’d noticed the phrase “I got told…” being used often and frequently. “I got told that the movie started at 8.30.” It didn’t sound right to me. I’d be more likely to say, “I was told that the movie started at 8.30.”

I searched for logic in the use of what we shall call IGT. How could ‘told’ be a thing that a person can get? You can get herpes, a fright, some milk, but told? Didn’t get mean the same as received? How could one receive told?

“So, what did you get last night?”
“A free ticket to the circus!”

“So, what did you get last night?”
“Told.”

No! It wasn’t right! It just wasn’t right! But more and more people kept using it. Shihad even used IGT it in the lyrics to their song “Pacifier,” spoiling, for me, what would otherwise be a very choice song.

I heard it in conversation. I read it on web pages. Was it right? Or was it an abomination of the English language?

I decided to seek the advice of an expert. I was doing a short course at Auckland Uni on English grammar so I decided to ask the guy taking that. He has a pHD in linguistics from MIT. (Whilst MIT is known more for science than linguistics, it has been the home of two very well-known linguists, Noam Chomsky, who writes lots of really boring stuff about linguistics, but who we must respect because he did all the hard work, and Steven Pinker, a linguistic rock star - read his books.)

Anyway, I asked my friendly Dr Linguist about IGT and I learned the following.

  • It’s not “incorrect” (i.e. there’s not an inner ring of Hell reserved for IGT users)
  • The meaning is clear - it’s not like I have to ask people to explain what they mean.
  • We say things like “I got up” and no one bats an eyelid.
  • IGT is more common in American English, and more common in spoken or less formal English.
  • IGT is my shibboleth.

Ah, Shibboleth! A very cool word, and an even cooler concept.

It comes from an event in the bible, (Judges 12:6). In the story, the Gileadites needed a way to figure out who were Ephraimites. The Ephraimites could not pronounce the “sh” in the word shibboleth, so when the Gileadites asked them to say it, they’d pronounce it “sibboleth” revealing that they were Ephramites, and would then be killed by the Gildeadites.

So shibboleth has come to mean, among other things, when a word or a particular use of language is used to distinguish one group of people from another. For example, if someone pronounces the name of the metal that’s 13 on the periodic table as “a-LOO-min-um”, I know that person is a foreigner with ways different to my own and should be viewed with suspicion. If they pronounce it as “al-yoo-MIN-ee-um”, I know that person is a friend and is to be trusted.

But back to “I got told”. Using those words is my shibboleth. If someone uses that around me, it sounds strange and I’m going to think less of them.

Hearing people saying that they “got told” doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, but I still think that people who say it just don’t sound as classy as they could.

Two Dollars

Published
by
Robyn
on August 11, 2000
in Biography
. 0 Comments

This is about why it’s important to keep customers happy.

I parked my car at the Sky City car park. That’s pretty normal. I went and did some stuff, then headed back to my car. On the way back I stopped off at a machine to pay what was due on my ticket. It said I had $3.00 owing. I didn’t have enough coins, so I attempted to feed a $5.00 note into the note-taking part of the machine. It didn’t seem to be working, so I took my card back, went back to my car and drove off to the pay booth.

Righto, so far it’s a pretty normal situation. It would have taken me less than five minutes to get from the pay machine to the booth. I handed the attendant my ticket, and had the $5.00 note ready to pay for my fee. He said “That’ll be five dollars” and took the note. I looked at the digital screen. It also showed $5.00 owing.

Trying to get the guy’s attention, I yelled out “hey”, but processing the transaction inside the booth he did not hear me. Then he came to the window and I pointed out that the ticket machine had given me a price that was $2.00 cheaper. He explained that from the short time it had taken me to go from the machine to the booth, a time period had ticked over, meaning an extra charge had occurred.

But hold on, if I’d been able to pay for my ticket at the machine, I would have only had to have paid $3.00, not $5.00. He said that I should have told him that before I paid him.

Well ok, but I wasn’t expecting to be charged a higher amount. I had held out the $5.00 note to him with the expectation that it would be paying for a $3.00 parking fee. I explained this to him, but he kept saying that I should have told him first.

I asked if it was possible for him to just give me the $2.00 back in the interests of customer goodwill, you know, keeping me happy. He said no. I asked if he had a supervisor that he could check with. He said he was his own supervisor, but could not permit himself to give me a refund.

But this stage he was getting visibly annoyed with me. He kept interrupting me when I was trying to explain my situation and was quite rude and condescending towards me. He said if he gave me the $2.00 back that the till would be out. So it seemed that he was more concerned with the till balancing than with keeping a customer happy. Oh, mighty two dollars.

I offered to write a note of explanation so if anyone questioned him on a $2.00 difference, it could be explained, but he refused this offer. He seemed firmly set in his mind that he was Right and I was Wrong and that there could be no negotiation.

By this stage I was getting fairly annoyed, so I turned off my car’s engine and said I wasn’t prepared to leave until I had received my $2.00 back. He said he’d call a tow truck in and get me towed away. He continued to explain that if I’d told him before I’d paid he would have been able to have to put the transaction through at $3.00, but as I hadn’t told him until after, there was absolutely no way at all that he could refund me.

About three cars were then waiting behind my stationary vehicle. The driver of one, obviously impatient, tooted the car’s horn. Then all of a sudden the booth attendant decided to give me that $2.00 back! Hallelujah!

But the refund was not without a stern lecture. He said he was only giving it back because there were other cars waiting to go through, and that if the same situation happened again I wouldn’t be getting a refund. He seemed to think that he had been far more inconvenienced than I had. He grudgingly handed over a golden $2.00 coin.

I drove off satisfied that a pleasing resolution had been reached, but disappointed that it had taken such drawn out dramatics from the attendant to reach it. I’m sure I’ll park my car there again, but next time I will be wary and cautious.

Erotica

Published
by
Robyn
on August 8, 2000
in Events
. 0 Comments

I’m really asking for it by naming this page “Erotica”. Well, it’s either that or “Masturbation Aids Expo”. I have this horrible fear I’m going to end up with lots of people coming through here by searching for you-know-what on search engines. I can only hope they stay away.

Hot on the heels of the glorious hummusfest known as the Food Expo, the expo centre was host of Erotica the “adult concepts and lifestyle expo”.

I had first heard of Erotica a few months earlier when a newsgroup had been spammed with an ad for the expo. I was curious, and visited the official website. There it was claimed that Erotica was based on the Australian Sexpos. The site also mentioned that “an exit pole revealed that visitors came from all walks of life and included a diverse range of adults, young and old.” Whilst a regular expo would have an exit poll, it does make sense that a sex expo would have an exit pole, probably with a young lady in a bikini wrapped around it.

And then there was the whole “adult concepts” thing. No, this wasn’t going to be an expo dealing with such subjects as how you can afford this week’s groceries when the car needs urgent repairs, whether you should vaccinate your kids, and should you refinance the mortgage and other such adult concepts. No, these adult concept are more of the latex and silicone kind.

I came to the conclusion that going to Erotica would be in the “good for a laugh in an ironic, alanisy kind of way” but that I wouldn’t actually pay to go in. The magical fairy of free stuff must have been listening, because suddenly I found myself with two free passes to Erotica. So I dragged along a fellow by the name of Selwyn, and off we went to Erotica.

The first moment of excitement came at the door. A security guard searched my bag and found my digital camera and would not let me in with it. Curses! But having taken care of that, I entered the expo and came face to face with a plaster impressions of various nether regions. Not really the most attractive thing to see in plaster of Paris.

The word erotica can mean literary or artistic works having an erotic theme or quality. There was none of that at Erotica. If they were going to be completely honest it should have been named “Masturbation Aids Expo” because, really, that’s what it was all about.

There were various sex shops with the standard selection of rubber and plastic goods. But what really stood out were the vegetable slicer guys. You know how at all expo things there always seem to be a large number of people demonstrating magical vegetable slicing devices? There were several at Erotica. There was also a guy demonstrating a pasta maker and another man selling caramel popcorn.

As I walked along the rows, I spied a stand selling sex toys and Hustler magazine. It was staffed by three guys all wearing Cat In The Hat hats, all looking really old and hoary. The kind of guys who if they had higher morals, would be touting themselves as Internet solution providers. Actually, make that lower morals.

The Internet fellows were there too. There were a few sites that consisted solely of a banner with a URL. Hidden around a corner were the serious stands, the Auckland Hospital’s sexual health people, Family Planning and the New Zealand Prostitute’s Collective. They all gave out condoms for free, while the other stands were more interested in selling them.

Opposite the popcorn stand was a mini lap-dancing booth. There was a large crowd of people standing outside it. They weren’t queuing up for a lap-dance. They were waiting to see who was coming out of the little booth. I saw a few of the guys who emerged and they looked like the sort of people who one would expect to engage in lap-dancing.

A sex shop had a pair of wobbly fake tits things that are put in a bra to beef up cleavage (the same stuff Julia Roberts used playing Erin Brockovich). A lot of people who walked past stopped and had a feel. Everytime that happened the guy running the stand went over and straightened up the wobbly tits.

There weren’t a lot of women there. The females that were there seemed to be mostly their with their boyfriends. It was mostly groups of young men and old men. Yes, there were plenty of pervy old men.

There were a stage where various acts got up on stage and shook their erotic arses. I had missed the Showboys, but I was in time for the foam wrestling. Setting up for the wrestling, a guy sprayed foam into a plastic pool while a montage of clips from various porno films played on the screen behind him. I found it more interesting looking at him than at the many kum fac’e on the screen. When the pool was filled up, the two wresters Tyler and Cindy (probably spelt Thailah and Sinndee) were introduced. Then the got in the pool and wriggled about in the foam. My view of the action itself was obscured by the spikey haired youth two rows in front, but I was able to get a slightly out-of-focus look at the video images on the screen.

The object of the game, Selwyn told me, was to get the clothes of your opponent off. But according to Erotica’s organiser as quoted in the Herald, there wasn’t going to be any full nudity. The group of men in their forties sitting nearby didn’t seem to release this as they kept yelling “get your pants off!”. But really, they were expecting that for $10 admission?

After walking around looking at everything there was to see I was getting pretty bored. Sure, it was funny seeing the knee-jerk reaction of some of the guys there whenever they spied something that even remotely looked like a nude woman, but even that had its limits.

It was when I saw a guy whose was demonstrating how he can photoshop a picture of a person to make it look like they were standing with some naked women, that I realised that my time at Erotica had come to an end.

As I made my way to the exit I noticed a large crowd of people watching one of the vegetable slicer guys demonstrating how easy it was to slice potatoes into shoe string fries shapes. And I realised that really and truly, watching a guy slicing a potato was way more interesting than looking at rubber tits.