Thames swan counters hope numbers recover after avian flu
It got me thinking of how we read things. We know (probably subconsciously) that English is mainly Subject-Verb-Object so unless there's a word that suggests otherwise, the first thing we're looking for is a noun to be the subject. That's fine, we have "Thames". So the next token is a verb, right? Nope, "swan" doesn't fit because if it were a verb it would be "swans", so we conclude that's actually a noun phrase talking about a "Thames swan", a swan on the Thames. Fine.
Now can we have a verb? "counters". Yeah, ok, that's good. Next, an object noun? "hope". That'll do as well. What do we do with "numbers"? Because this is headline-ese we expect to miss out words like "the" and "that" so this is a subordinate clause about the hope. The hope is that numbers recover after avian flu.
But why is the Thames swan countering this hope? Wait. Counters can be a noun too, people who count. Let's back track. The Thames swan counters are our subject -- p
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The other day I came across this headline:
Thames swan counters hope numbers recover after avian flu
It got me thinking of how we read things. We know (probably subconsciously) that English is mainly Subject-Verb-Object so unless there's a word that suggests otherwise, the first thing we're looking for is a noun to be the subject. That's fine, we have "Thames". So the next token is a verb, right? Nope, "swan" doesn't fit because if it were a verb it would be "swans", so we conclude that's actually a noun phrase talking about a "Thames swan", a swan on the Thames. Fine.
Now can we have a verb? "counters". Yeah, ok, that's good. Next, an object noun? "hope". That'll do as well. What do we do with "numbers"? Because this is headline-ese we expect to miss out words like "the" and "that" so this is a subordinate clause about the hope. The hope is that numbers recover after avian flu.
But why is the Thames swan countering this hope? Wait. Counters can be a noun too, people who count. Let's back track. The Thames swan counters are our subject -- people who count swans -- and they hope numbers (of swans, presumably) recover after avian flu. That's actually the right reading.
But do we actually read left-to-right like that? I think I actually approach it a bit more holistically. I see a bag of things that could be nouns and could be verbs, and perhaps wonder alongh the way to the correct meaning whether hope is numbering anything, or whether hope numbers are the thing that is recovering.
Have psycholinguists done studies of what people's brains do when they read sentences like this?
Yeah, I read it first as "Thames swan counters hope; numbers recover…" (which is not supported by the provided orthography but people sometimes type sloppily) and then wondered what hope numbers were, then got the right parse.
Just seen the best bit of commentary on transmisogyny I’ve seen in ages: if you want to know how a man treats cis women in private, look at how he treats trans women in public.
@JustinMac84 ... The way a trans-man treats "otherness" in respect to this whole cluster of aversions correlates how they treat otherness in other circumstances in this bundle. Trans-people at present can be attacked under the cover of "concern" which doesn't look overtly misogynistic, society is (infuriatingly) making this a "free hit" in this game under cover of concern and is powered by the uncanny feeling that comes from a threat to the deep sense of the inherent naturalness and defaultness of not being "other" in any of these categories. Which carries across to other categories in the cluster.
If someone feels a deep need to police bathrooms for genitalia, that likely carries over to policing jobs for genitalia too, or strength, coming from the same deep tangle. It's all the same gig.
@JustinMac84 No, I'm reading your replies. But I'm not going to reply substantively, as these debates are tedious to me, as they are old and unoriginal. If I had a Patreon you could pay to continue if you are motivated to do so, but I don't and I have to make a dairylea toasted sandwich and go see the ducks on the reservoir.
@JustinMac84 a misogynist is someone who mistreats some or all women on the basis of their gender identity. That is not a “generalization” that is simply the definition of the word. A generalization would be correlating misogyny with a random unrelated trait like eye color or astrological sign.
@JustinMac84 i think bioessentialism is the core presupposition of both transphobia and misogyny. I think that if a man holds these essentialist views, he will hold them across the board for trans and cis people but keep them better hidden when applying them to cis women since we hold relatively more political power in society compared to trans women.
@JustinMac84 yes it is a fact. In order to believe men are inherently superior to women (misogyny), you must first believe that there is some fixed essence of femaleness that is fundamentally important to who one is as a person. And if this essence is fixed, then trans people aren’t valid (transphobia). That is the link and you still haven’t been able to disentangle that link.
@JustinMac84 yes terfs are always misogynistic because they attack trans women and reduce cis women to reproductive functions. I said misogyny and transphobia have a root cause in common. Not that they are exactly the same. Batting southpaw is not the same thing as using left handed scissors but the two behaviors are closely related due to sharing a common root cause.
@JustinMac84 how come transphobes always accuse trans women of being perverts in women’s locker rooms oogling cis women but they never accuse trans men of sneaking into men’s locker room to oogle cis men? If they view the genders as equal why not criticize all trans people the same way accross the board?
@JustinMac84 yes exactly. Transphobes are sexist just like you said. Some prejudices are not separable from one another because they rest on the same assumptions.
also I'm happy to see that this post appears to actually have been screenshat from Tumblr. I was afraid it actually had been screenshotted onto reddit, and THEN made it to mastodon, and it's too early in the morning (nearly 3pm) to see how reddit reacts to this.
At least it's not my post about the butch-top in the church. That one is going to make it to reddit one day and I'm going to die
May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature. May all beings be free.
@andrewducker I knew someone who claims that the brain should be considered as an organ like the stomach, secreting ideas and worries because it's a brain (sometimes getting ill, or having a bad day, or whatever), it's what it does, like the stomach secrete's acid and gurgles. And that it's that we worry about worrying, more than we worry about our stomach stomaching that's the real problem.
@chiffchaff @andrewducker it's an intriguing model. I'm not sure how far it supports the conclusions though. If I have recurring stomach aches then it seems reasonable to ask if I'm throwing the wrong stuff at my stomach.
Chilling out on a shady bench passing time before I have to get a taxi to the airport. Absolutely loving the pictures of shocked and disappointed French right wingers that I keep seeing in my masto feed 🐂👍🦌😆
@gilesgoat nah not going yet, I will probably go get tapas and a beer at some point. Flight doesn't board until 17:50. Leaves 18:30, it's a couple of hours I think.
Gave the beasties their usual biscuits, they are all flumping in the stables, the weather starts nice today, it should stay like this for some days so the shearer guy could come. Almost got spit by Maya again ( tried to pet her ).
@marksemczyszyn @Mafalda Eu preciso de ir a Portugal para praticar meu portugues. Nos podemos pedir cervejas todo o dia e comer batatas firtas com peixe ou bife enquanto caminhemos para as cidades em frente do mar.
So delighted at the news from France. Definitely needed that. The French two-round system may be bonkers but it does give the public the chance to say “non” to an inadvisable outcome from the first round.
It’s not bonkers. It’s not as good as ranked choice. It’s FPTP but “Vote! No, vote properly!” which could be better but is certainly not as bad as the UK system (apart from the (Northern) Irish system which youse should all adopt).
Anyone trying to downplay or put to the negative what happened to France this evening probably doesn’t like democracy. This is an absolute win against populism and fascism, with a record number of people casting their votes. I’m more than happy with the result
Alongside the Tory Party getting pulped, the "Party of Women" received such a sad-trombone-fart-noise response at the ballot box that I couldn't help but allow myself a little moment to wallow in their humiliation.
There's also bad news though, in the form of alarming transphobia coming from our new Labour government...
It's very funny to laugh at Tories right now. But let's save some of our laughs for the transphobes at the Party of Women, who also did spectacularly badly!
@Starcross ugh he's such a pathetic spineless prick. He used to be a fucking human rights lawyer and my rage is most fierce when it comes to him for this exact reason. Well done on writing to him, let's keep up the pressure.
@Girl on the Net Thank you for this! I think I always knew you were an ally but it’s lovely to see it so definitely and unambiguously confirmed. One of my first lessons coming out was to have no heroes and expect no support… so yeah 💜
@ajlanes absolutely - I'm ashamed of myself that was ever in any doubt, clearly I need to let my anger out a bit more often, but yeah. I cannot fathom how swiftly the UK has taken such a dark turn - trans people will always be welcome in my spaces and as safe as I can possibly make those spaces (and ofc transphobia will always be an instant block/ban - never a debate or discussion).
@VModifiedMind yeah fair play - I'm very lucky to live in an area where I could vote with my heart. Tories never stood a chance in my constituency and I'm v grateful for that.
Just wanted to say that reading this was lovely and deeply meaningful. (The fact you wrote about this, I mean – I'm not describing the UK's rampant transphobia as 'lovely'.) 🧡
thank you so much for your support 🧡 I’ve always loved your writing, and it’s just so *nice* to see yet another person sticking up for us with moral clarity when it would be just as easy to simply not. you didn’t ask for a cookie, but you get one anyway
@sparksjoy my biscuit will be seeing trans friends happy and safe ❤ Thank you so much for your kind words, may things get better and better and better until none of us ever has to fight any more for what should be automatically given xx
Have nothing in your home that you do not • know to be useful • believe to be beautiful • feel unaccountable vague fondness for • can imagine a hypothetical situation in which you'd *really* need it • firmly intend to get round to doing something with one of these days • can't remove because of all the other junk piled on top of it • feel guilty about not dealing with something more important first • fear throwing away in case you remember tomorrow why you bought it • miscellaneous
Oh hell's yeah to the 'firmly intend to doing something with...' I'm drawn to objects that will eventually end up in some assemblage - at least, that's the idea, but you can't rush/predict what they'll go with. Hence my partner's slightly despairing question recently 'What /are/ you going to do with that mannequin and those stirrups?'
@pinkdrunkenelephants huh. It's been interesting, reading the replies to this toot, that some people thought it was pro-hoarding ("thank you for validating") and some anti ("I feel called out"). But you're the first one who's been sure enough of your interpretation to be actually rude about it.
You needed to hear it from someone and maybe, instead of projecting your own rudeness onto others, you ought to start listening when other people reply to you.
Or you can put your ego first and get snippy and defensive like you always do. 🤷 Either way, doesn't matter to me. You're the only one who's gonna suffer thinking that way.
In fact, I intended this post as a more or less value-neutral description of how people in practice think about objects in their home that the likes of Marie Kondo or William Morris would insist they throw away. I hadn't really meant it to be pro _or_ anti; just NPOV, "these are some of the reasons people in fact keep things".
But if you say "bullshit" to me, I also think it's NPOV to say you were rude.
@gilesgoat to be fair it’s not just Starmer saying that. Lots of “experts” have repeatedly said that, even with the will to rejoin the EU, it would take at least twenty years to happen 😔
With Meloni and the like and how is going on now, trust me, it's NOT "such a nice place to be" even trying to ignore all that is around. Italy is full of "many weird things" that make the day to day life there .. complicated .. I dare to say "if you want to move let's move to Parintins/Brasil" .. Italy has many nice things .. except the politics, the laws, the bureaucracy, the "too many everyday things that don't go as they should" it's tough even for who is born there like me.
@cyberspice Which is as someone said "because the process it's going to take so many N years to rejoin that I'll be dead by that time ?" .. so why considering UK already been a member has to take so many years ?
So following the US Supreme Court's logic... if he could assert some kind of national security reason for doing it as an official act, Biden could assassinate Trump and not be prosecuted? #uspol
Something's just occurred to me that's quite telling. I can name favourite (or at least some) Doctor Who stories from every Doctor between 1963 and 1989. From the 2005- series I can only remember one good story off the top of my head and that's Blink.
Wonder if that's a reflection on the length of story as much as anything? 4 x 30min episodes is a lot more to settle into your memory than 2(max) x 45min
@Sion [main] Possibly, yes, and even if a story is rubbish having to tell it over that period means you're more likely to see its redeeming features or appreciate what the author was _trying_ to do.
@Octorine Was that the one that went along with the Empty Child, kids with gasmasks thing? I remember the imagery being scary but the resolution being magic pixie dust or somesuch?
We should have our own East Coast Liberal Elite, you know in England.
Conceptual art critics? Walton-on-the-Naze. Experimental film making hub? Filey. World Postmodernism Conference? Cleethorpes. Secret World Government? Gibraltar Point; third bird hide on the left.
Europe is full of centre right and centre left parties who, rather than oppose far right scapegoating of minorities, have adopted a position of, “those guys are right, don’t vote for them”.
@InkySchwartz The people, united, will never be defeated. Hence why such an incredible amount of resources is used to ensure that this unity is as far away as possible. @argv_minus_one @drbjork @goatsarah
@pettter @argv_minus_one @drbjork For instance, I'm no fan of Spain's Podemos but you read their story and the dirty war waged on them (basicly through a far right judiciary and sell out mass media), man, you'll see it all. The party onced rocked the scene, so the establishment for a brief period worried, pulled the strings and dealt with them. Now they're on their way to irrelevance. They did their part with lots of mistakes but no way they'd've lost so much base just on their own.
Similar story with Syriza in Greece, but then with the EU central bank and various EU big state governments. They deliberately crashed the greek economy into the ground to 'teach them a lesson', presumably the lesson was 'don't you fucking dare elect a leftist government'. @argv_minus_one @drbjork @goatsarah
@kikebenlloch Wait a few years and you have honest-to-god Nazis doing marches and getting the third highest vote share in the parliament. @argv_minus_one @drbjork @goatsarah
@pettter @argv_minus_one @drbjork Exactly, I didn't bring up the example of Greece (now on their way to 6 work-day weeks) on purpose because my knwoledge of it is limited, but your description fits my recollections from the time, how the chessboard was properly shaken by the powers that be. You cannot beat them at their game, the amount of resources at their disposal is huge.
@pettter @argv_minus_one @drbjork I think so. It's a process with its steps. You don't get full nazi massacres on day one. But are we slowly having the post-WW2 welfare societies eroded towards rampant fascism? Well...
@kikebenlloch No this is describing the literal situation in Greece, though they've since lost political relevance, since the state took belated, but firm, action. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_D…
Quick Assange frequent misconceptions thread: 1) "Assange was merely wanted for questioning" - no, Swedish judicial process required that he be interrogated before charges could be made. Sweden arrested him in his absence (he'd already left the country) and filed a European Arrest Warrant. English judges concluded that he had been formally accused of the crimes, even if not indicted. See section 142 of wired.com/images_blogs/threatl….
@PariaSansPortefeuille So why not just go to Sweden in the first place and avoid all of that? They couldn't extradite him to the US without the UK agreeing, which was strictly a better situation for him than only requiring that the UK agree
*He* understood that time was on *their* side, which is why all his actions both in 🇸🇪 & 🇬🇧 focused on expediting the investigation of the 🇸🇪 affair so as to put it behind him.
He's the one who made *all* the overtures to the authorities to move the case ahead, in *both* countries, and the authorities were the ones doing *all* the stonewalling. Because advancing their case was exactly what they didn't want. That's why Assange went to 🇸🇪 's highest court to make them fish or cut bait.
It wouldn't have "avoided" anything. They would have plodded and stonewalled the case in Sweden just as they'd been doing in the UK, where they could have pursued the investigation also, and while denying him freedom and movement, viz. a holding charge.
And they were *already* plodding and stonewalling before he left Sweden.
Your claim they didn't charge him there because he "hadn't been questioned yet" is false.
@PariaSansPortefeuille He couldn't be charged until the preliminary investigation was complete. That's how Swedish law works. The absolute worst scenario of him going to Sweden was that exactly the same happened as ended up happening in the UK, except people wouldn't be able to criticise him for avoiding trial in Sweden.
@HN414 The argument was that he conspired to gain access to classified material. To the extent that any plea deal sets precedent (which it doesn't really), this one sets no precedent around people who merely receive classified material from sources rather than encouraging sources to break the law to acquire that material in the first place
This Instituto Camões application form has a drop down field where you can list your occupation. The choices are somewhat eccentric:
Astrólogos. / Astrologers. Parapsicólogos. / Parapsychologists. Toureiros. / Bullfighters. Outros artistas tauromáquicos. / Other bullfighting artists.
The neighbours in Spain might explain the last two but I am at a loss as to why astrologers and parapsychologists make the cut for what is quite a short list.
I am reminded of my dealings with the Job Centre, telling them that I was looking for a job as a lexicographer, which was not in their system. IT is rather a worse omission though!
(the job centre had IT but it didn't have specific subdomains that I was actually looking for like "natural language processing" so it was all a bit of a pointless exercise)
@petealexharris I’m not a fan of debate so I agree with you. But if someone is coming at you with rhetoric built on falsehood and the trickery of political debate then an effective response is needed, not caving and running away
I think you've put your finger right on it - TERFs are indeed just conservatives of that extreme kind.
I don't really think their views have anything to do with gametes or safe spaces or any of the things they say they're about, because they make no sense in relation to those things.
What I think does explain their views is that conservatives fear any change to a status quo they're invested in - and a certain kind of (generally older) feminist is also invested - I mean intellectually and emotionally - in a neat division of the sexes. They've made that division part of their 'feminist' identity, so they mistake the emergence of cracks in that neat binary as an attack on their own way of being in the world. For them, it's personal.
@christineburns Yes. You stick to a clear statement of your position and don't allow yourself to get derailed.
If your position was highly dubious this wouldn't fly of course. But for example "people have the right to live as their true selves and it isn't within the legitimate authority of the state to say whether they are allowed to" is a good starting point.
Being trans is not a sexual preference, but I can see how this is confusing for you because OMG, you are so obviously a chaser.
Ok, I've just thrown in a new vocabulary word and I'm going to explain it and how it relates to sexuality.
Only 1% of people are trans, but a much larger number of cis people are sometimes attracted to trans people. Looking at pictures of Elliot Page, it's not hard to see why a large number of people would feel a little flutter if he flirted with them.
Other people are specifically into the transness of the people they fancy. Buck Angel's fan base like him because he's a muscle mary, but also because he's trans. And this is part of the beautiful diversity of human sexuality. Fancying trans people is a completely normal for a straight person, for a bi person or for a lesbian or a gay man or for anybody else.
Some people, however, get weird about it. Maybe it's because they feel bad about themselves. Maybe it's because they want to dehumanise people they fancy. They get fucking creepy and weird. Those people, who fetishise random trans people and who see all trans people as inherently sexual and sexualised, we call chasers.
And some of what they do is like to find random married trans women on the internet and "just ask questions" about their sexuality.
We see you, Paul.
However, hope is not lost for you. Go find a dating app and treat trans women like they're people (or at least as much as you treat any women like they're people) and you'll get a lot further.
Anglophone feminism in general has an ideology problem. I learned this while living in France during a formative part of my life. (My twenties.) Having grown up in the 70s, battered by the angry, often hypocritical feminism that was prominent in the States during that era, I had a visceral aversion to the word "feminism".
So when I found myself in a nation of ideologically introspective feminists I had no idea such a thing could exist, and was astonished to find they actually shared some of my resentment of the American movement. I spent much of my time there listening to women and seeking conversations with overt feminists; hell, just finding myself in a place where a man _can_ talk about these things with women was exhilarating. I was completely converted. Frankly, they saved my life. I shudder to think what I might have become in the Internet Age.
So yeah. As French feminists say: "American feminists are more American than they are feminist."
He quit replying when you quit replying because the attention stopped.
He also did not reply to me either because he was offended or because I kept bringing up trans men, which are not interesting for him. That particular genre of being annoying is almost never used against trans men.
Alas, we do also have chasers who are annoying in a completely different way.
I see that the press is once again trying to present terfism as nuanced: “we don’t want to stop trans women wearing skirts, we just don’t want them in our (SIC) spaces”.
Stop press, Joanne. They’re our fucking spaces too, because as we’ve been explaining for fucking years: trans women are women.
Trans women get breast cancer, therefore we need breast cancer screening.
Trans women get gynaecological problems, therefore we need gynaecologists.
Trans women get raped, therefore we need rape crisis counselling.
Trans women suffer disproportionate levels of domestic violence, therefore we need DV shelters.
It ends up naked, with zero personal hygiene, surrounded by empty pot noodles, hunched in front of a monitor yelling on social media about how you lost custody of the kids because of the trans.
The tensest, most uncertain, most goddamn exciting political debate I have witnessed in the whole of last year concerned – you may want to sit down for this – the Liberal Democrats’ housing policies.
@Jonn Elledge "The party may make policy democratically, but even if anyone cared what Lib Dem policy was, which they don’t, history suggests the leadership won’t feel bound by its manifesto anyway." Harsh but fair.
I have the luxury of not needing to vote Labour to keep anyone out, but I had let myself believe there was some sort of political hope. I guess it's just as well Labour let us all know it's not them.
Honestly what with Tony Blair, Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting all sharing their _aperçus_ on the subject of trans rights – short version, trans people don’t exist, should be shunted into “side rooms” in hospitals – I’m swinging very firmly back towards voting Green. They have their own terf wing, sure, but they seem to have largely locked them away for the duration of the campaign – rather than free-associating the abolition of trans rights on LBC, say
@considermycat I am utterly unconvinced by those of my friends who are honestly claiming that the larger his majority is, the more Starmer will feel emboldened to be more radical in Government.
I believe that he has already shown us exactly who he is, and that the larger his majority is, the more he'll be encouraged to behave exactly as he has done in opposition.
IMO, it is *Labour* that need to be tactically voted against, not the Tories (who are toast). 1/
@considermycat A bloody nose, a few winnable seats lost to a split progressive vote will, IMO, do far more to buck his ideas up.
Given the sort of political animal Starmer has shown himself to be, I feel the goal is to make him realize that if he wants a second term, he cannot treat us with the contempt that he has done thus far.
Far from a "ming vase", he's implemented a "Ming the Merciless" strategy, and I'll have none of it. /2
@considermycat Ours is a Tory safe seat and Labour are the only realistic possibility of getting rid of the Tories. I still can't bring myself to vote for them considering the latest from their leadership. Their candidate was also the only one I emailed who didn't email back a nice supportive email (emailed Greens/Libdems).
Unlike Ben(*), I do think that a larger majority will make the government more radical. I agree that I don't think that Starmer will want it, but I think the natural Peoples Front of Judea tendencies in the party will make it happen. Maybe I'm just overused to the Labour/TUC conferences of the eighties, but there's gonna be factions, right?
I don't see much point voting elsewhere, tbh. The tories are worse, the Lib Dems are untrustworthy (given bastards will always exist, look which party enabled the 2010 government which set this whole disaster going, and achieved none of their major policy goals) and the others don't have enough of the population agreeing with their policies, to make it just an ethical-vanity vote.
(*) The wider ActivityPub world is still a bit of a mystery to me. I can't comment, but I don't know if I'm not allowed or can't find the button.
Sion [main]
in reply to Alexandra Lanes • • •Alexandra Lanes likes this.
Adam
in reply to Alexandra Lanes • • •Yeah, I read it first as "Thames swan counters hope; numbers recover…" (which is not supported by the provided orthography but people sometimes type sloppily) and then wondered what hope numbers were, then got the right parse.
PTC collects these things, ISTR.
Alexandra Lanes likes this.