Posts by GrreatTeacher

51

Rivalry among the sisters

by Esmeralda001 in

when i was first introduced to the "truth", i was so distracted by the love and affection that the members were showing me that i was ready to convert into the religion without thinking twice.

i was conviced that jws were god's people (i still think some of them are).

i made it my goal to get baptized as i wanted to be part of the "only" religion that produce such good people.

Despite their claims of being nothing like the World, their various congregations seem to mirror the local demographics of socioeconomic status. My parents are in a wealthy hall and there is designer purse one-upmanship and vacation home envy. If you can't keep up with the Joneses, well, you'll probably be left out of the social scene.

In other poorer areas, if you advertize your wealth by material means, well, they'll put you in your place by making catty comments and shutting you out of the social scene.

It's because of their strong tendency towards conformity (which they mistakenly thing of as unity). They are like herd animals, anything different is not safe to them. It sends up danger signals in their brains when anyone is different. They must have "unity" to be God's people.

48

American accents, Bette Midler, Clinton, Rick Fearon, Strathclyde, Morningside

by slimboyfat in

i used to enjoy being able to distinguish different local accents, but for some reason i've got worse at it.

i was thinking about this today when i was listening to bette midler on the scottish radio.

i thought to myself i quite liked her accent and also that it reminded me of someone else.

GrreatTeacher

Yes, also dishwarsher. :)

I guess I should also talk about the second person plural : you, as in multiple people.

In the Northeast you hear a lot of "you guys" or "youse guys" or just " youse." Pittsburgh and surrounding areas say "yinz" which is short for you ones. Sometimes these folks are called Yinzers.

As you move further down south, you hear more of "you all." In Maryland, you do hear this some (mostly you guys or sometimes just you), but the stress is on the first word- "YOU all."

Then, farther south, the second word is stressed- "you ALL," then the you gets sloppy and it blends into "y'all" and then in some places it becomes "all y'all."

I'd like to hear more of you guys ;) talk about the second person plural (you) where you live.

48

American accents, Bette Midler, Clinton, Rick Fearon, Strathclyde, Morningside

by slimboyfat in

i used to enjoy being able to distinguish different local accents, but for some reason i've got worse at it.

i was thinking about this today when i was listening to bette midler on the scottish radio.

i thought to myself i quite liked her accent and also that it reminded me of someone else.

GrreatTeacher

I am in Maryland which is smack in the middle of the Northeast and the American South. It's a mixed bag.

So, some words you think might rhyme do not.

Sad and had do not rhyme with mad and bad. The two former words might sound like you'd expect the short a sound to be.

However, mad and bad have almost two vowel sounds, more like mayud and bayud, ( see also dayumn! when you're really angry )

And, the Baltimore long o sound is almost a long oo sound, as in food. And, everybody calls everybody hon, short for honey, but the pronunciation is weird. Think the short oo sound as in hook and then add in on the end. Something like hooin. This is a dying accent and only some of the town spoke it and it was mainly a working class accent.

You might hear something like this when asking about the Orioles baseball team :

"Didja hear bout them Oo's?"

"No, hooin! Jew?" (No, hon. Did you?)

Also, "Jeet yet?" means Did you eat yet?

Baltimoreans also warsh their cloothes in the zink with wooder sometimes when the warshing machine is dee-oin.

(Wash their clothes in the sink with water when the washing machine is down.)

Down in another weird one pronounced with two vowel sounds like dee and then oin, but blended together quickly.

And in the summer, they'll go "Downy oocean, hoo-in." for vacation. (Down to the ocean, hon.)

17

Merry Christmas! Or merry Christmas on the sly! Ho! Ho! Ho!

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

just to say merry christmas and a happy new year!

i hope wherever you are that you have a lovely holiday, even if like me your celebrating on the sly hehe in which case happy christmas on the sly.

xxxxxxxxxx.

GrreatTeacher

Only an hour and a half til midnight here in Maryland.

Just drove by the NSA. Only a skeleton crew running it looks like.

The Chesapeake Bay is very foggy. You can hear the fog horns from my house. Lovely sound.

I can't get my 14 year old kid to go to bed. He's watching The Simpsons. And texting someone. This makes Santa's job hard.

The tree stays lit tonight. Wouldn't want Santa to trip in the dark.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

43

Favourite Movie quotes...

by Tornintwo in

jw
friends

inspiring, funny...you choose.... i'll start with inspiring: .

frodo: i wish the ring had never come to me.

i wish none of this had happened.gandalf: so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.

GrreatTeacher

"This town needs an enema!" Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman

25

Thanks GOD JW's don't have Beauty Pageants

by James Mixon in

i can see it now, we are the most beautiful and smartest people in the world.. steve harvey will never be the host of another beauty pageant.

lol.

i was thinking, don't you think it's time for our society to move on from beauty pageants?.

GrreatTeacher

Tom boys rock! Had I not grown up a JW, I probably would've never worn dresses just like I don't now.

Though I certainly did enjoy the feeling of power that dressing up had on certain other demographics during my teenage years.

25

JW's have he lowest tolerance for LGBT

by EdenOne in

according to a pew research survey ... and it has evolved little since 2007.. eden.

GrreatTeacher

I observed an amusing anecdote of cognitive dissonance in my mother the other night. I had been staying with her for a few days while she was convalescing from some car accident injuries.

As you might know, Apple products are currently being worshipped by JWs.

The other evening, a program came on TV about the success of Apple as a company. She was loving it and telling me tidbits about how the organization uses Apple technology for this or that and how all JWs use iphones, etc.

In a later segment, they started interviewing the CEO Tim Cook about coming out as gay! Well, she was disgusted by that and then she kind of got a little perturbed. You could see she was thinking, "Is Apple good or bad now?" Very black or white thinking.

I wonder if any other JWs were watching the same program and also having the same thoughts.

Is gay okay if you head up the wonderful kingdom supporting company Apple?

31

Wish me good luck...

by FadeToBlack in

jw
friends

omg.

i have the entire service group coming over for dinner on sunday.

i don't mind when my wife has a couple over that are cool, but with more than 2 or 3 extra people in my house i get nervous.

GrreatTeacher

Glad it went okay. How wonderful you spent the afternoon with weaponry teaching them the art of warfare. ;)

30

About my avatar

by slimboyfat in

jw
friends

questions from readers .

say, who is that in your avatar slimboyfat?

from brother i. m. curious, usa.. that's archibald belaney aka grey owl.

GrreatTeacher

In the American south, some of those claims of Native American ancestry are borne of racism.

There is a lot of African American ancestry in the white American genome of the South. Lots of black folks have a white great granddaddy, and lots of white folks have a black great granny who could "pass."

This was absolutely unacceptable to the whites involved and so it became a common thing to instead claim a Native ancestor to explain the darker skin.

So, some folks who think they have a Cherokee grandmother actually have an African American one.

The more you know...

32

The Noble Fir

by Oubliette in

the noble fir.

the fir tree stands silently in the corner of our living room: proud, erect, strong.

even unadorned, it is beautiful.

GrreatTeacher

Since you brought up my mom and dad, I won't feel like a threadjacker if I mention them.

My dad has had his hip surgically repaired and will be in a rehab hospital until the end of the month. My mother is home with 24 hour supervision. My brother,sister and I as well as some of her friends from the KH are staying with her in shifts. It's obvious she has some after effects from the concussion. She can't multitask anymore, and when she tries and can't she cries. She's emotional and is still in a good amount of pain with the broken ribs. They say the concussion effects can last several months. And my dad will be using a walker for several months as well. It's still going to be a long road.

Thanks for thinking of me.