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Post by Verbivore on Dec 10, 2020 19:13:53 GMT
[…] Incidentally, I use the term “given name” that in our multicultural society is more appropriate than the “Christian name” which was customary for most of my life. LJH: I was pleased when the term given name was introduced as a PC alternative to christian name; it saved my having to amend forms and such like. As an avowed atheist (though former trainee clergyman) I would never agree to christian name/s on forms and always changed the field name to either personal name or, if in a certain mood, even atheist name. That of course caused a stir now and then and even major problems with government forms ("You can't alter the form! Complete another one and don't deface it.") As for emojis: I rarely use them. Reason #1: they can be ambiguous; #2: I have difficulty "reading" many of them – even on my large 4K and 5K monitors. The occasional emoticon (forerunner to emoji) is as far as I go, and then mostly in SMS texts. If I remain, or am seen as, a trog(lodyte) I'm okay with that.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 10, 2020 19:57:19 GMT
Until today I'd only known IED as an initialism for Improvised Explosive Device (a homemade bomb). Now I have learned a new meaning for it: Intermittent Explosive Disorder. To me that sounds like psychiatrist-speak for “fit of bad temper” – but these days it seems everything has a fancy label to soften the reality. The term Intermittent Explosive Disorder appeared in a news article about a particularly grisly murder: a crazy woman (I know, not PC!) – in “old-speak” a moron, meaning someone with an IQ in the 51–70 range – had killed and decapitated her mother during an episode of Intermittent Explosive Disorder. (Tests had previously measured the perpetrator's IQ as between 55 and 64, so the moron label was applicable.) I shan't give a link to the news article – it's just a tad too grisly – but if you really want to read about it I'm sure you can find it on any number of news sites.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 10, 2020 21:53:19 GMT
Regarding the terms Christian name or given name, I do not regard myself as a Christian but my parents, who chose my name, were Christian so I think my name must be a Christian name irrespective of my beliefs. Discuss.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 10, 2020 23:28:19 GMT
LJH: My original birth certificate, issued to my adoptive parents and dated 1949, headed the column identifying me as merely Name. Mater and Pater were certainly christians, Pater being a Methodist lay preacher. Over the years I've had three re-issues of my birth certificate, * which used the headings Surname / Other Names (1989), Family Name / Christian or Given Name(s) (2004), and Family Name / Given Name(s) (2018) – so I feel no obligation to stick with the antiquated Christian Name label.
Although Mater and Pater were christians, I felt no obligation to retain christian name as a title, especially once I'd firmed my non-belief and my disdain for all religion. I want(ed) nothing to tie me to that belief system. I even reject the notion of Australia's being a "christian nation", a notion reinforced by the most recent AU census (2016), which recorded a mere 52.2 per cent of Australians as being christian. In 2016, monthly attendance at church was 16 per cent of professed adherents. That works out at a mere 8.35% of the nation being practising christians, definitely not a figure that supports the notion of our being a christian nation. We also have no established religion, as per section 116 of our constitution, which precludes the Commonwealth of Australia from making laws for establishing any religion or imposing any religious observance, so as far as I'm concerned Oz is most definitely a secular and non-christian nation (despite our head of state Betty Windsor's status as head of the C of E). It's very rare now in Oz to be asked "What's your christian name", and I hope the term dies out completely within another generation. PS re the inconsistencies in the foregoing Christian / christian (non-)capitalisation: I've used an initial capital C where quoting documents, but a lowercase c in other instances. I have difficulty assigning significance or respect to that belief system by using the C. * Did I have a problem with my (1) identity, or was I (2) simply careless with certificates? (1) Yes. Once my adoptives had died and I'd found and connected with my birth family, I changed my names (deleted my given middle name, which I'd always loathed, and took my birth mother's surname). (2) No; floods and fires destroyed them, both being lifestyle / location hazards in my neck of the woods.
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 11, 2020 6:43:29 GMT
What does ”christian” mean?
I was, one day, giving evidence for the prosecution in a magistrates court. As it happened, I’d recently read an article on what it meant to be jewish, including the concept that you would still be jewish, if you’d had a jewish upbringing, even if you didn’t yourself believe in god. As was my usual practice, I made the affirmation, rather than taking the oath, that I would give true, etc, evidence.
The magistrate (a new one on me) took sharp interest in (perhaps even exception to) that, and asked “are you a christian?” I replied that I was brought up as one, and followed some of the tenets (that being the answer to his question). Almost explosively, he asked why, then, was I not taking the oath? “Because I don’t believe in god.” I lost that case ... and still wonder!
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 11, 2020 10:32:17 GMT
[…] I’d recently read an article on what it meant to be jewish, including the concept that you would still be jewish, if you’d had a jewish upbringing, even if you didn’t yourself believe in god. […] My grandson is technically jewish courtesy of his mother's lineage. However, his mother is a non-practising, non-believing, non-kosher jew(ess) who married a goy. My daughter-in-law, along with my son, decided against ritual circumcision should they have a boy child. When that son was born, the ruckus caused by those grandparents was OTT. Bloody hell! They threatened to cut my D-i-L out of the family, but D-i-L stood firm. On day eight after his birth, my grandson was left for safe keeping with his maternal grandmother while his parents went shopping for the first time since the birth. Bad move! When the parents returned home and opened the front door they were greeted by a large bris party – and as soon as the mohel noticed they were home, SNIP! – the cruellest cut of all. Grandma had clandestinely organised the butchery, and apparently all that was required (in jewish "law") was that the child's parents be present for the snip – their refusal notwithstanding. For some years afterward the grandparents bribed and cajoled, offering to pay fees for an exclusive jewish school, but had no luck with that. Then on one visit, grandma gifted grandson a kippa / yarmulke (I don't know the difference) and placed it on his head. Grandson angrily tore it off and threw it into the fire. Sacrilege! As he did so, the 6-year-old declared clearly and plainly: "I'm not a jew boy!" So, in answer to Dave's "What does 'christian' mean?": christian, or jew, or muslim, or hindu, or kalathumpian ... means nothing more than what an individual wants it to mean. In my grandson's case, jew means nothing (or nothing positive), and he certainly doesn't identify with the tag. Likewise, christian means nothing (good) to me, and I don't identify with it. The terms are meaningless unless one adopts them with sincerity and practises their precepts and rules. To me, all religion is mere humbuggery, and by default I generally distrust folk who loudly declare their religion as though it gave them some greater moral value, some higher rank or greater credibility.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 11, 2020 11:20:14 GMT
I use "forename(s)" instead of "christian name", and it seems that most official forms in the UK use that term nowadays. It's not strictly accurate, of course, because Asians tend to do things the other way around so their forenames are their last names, if you see what I mean.
I've sometimes wondered whether it would be possible for a Jewish adult who'd fallen out with his parents to sue or prosecute them for the gross assault and butchery of circumcism that they'd perpetrated on him when he was an infant.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 11, 2020 15:37:00 GMT
>> It's not strictly accurate, of course <<
It’s not even roughly accurate because, as you say, Twoddle, Asian people “tend to do things the other way round”. But Asian people comprise hundreds of millions of people, maybe billions of people. I think we should probably stick with “given name” which so far as I know is correct for all cultures and traditions.
What should we do about the name I prefer to call “surname”? We often replace this with “family name” but that doesn’t work for some cultures which may use other naming systems, for example, Icelandic. In Iceland all members of a single nuclear family may have different surnames and there is typically no family name. It seems highly complicated to me so please forgive me if I don’t get this right.
The father, say Leif, may be known by his father’s given name’s genitive form plus “son” or, less usually, by his mother’s given name’s genitive form plus “son”. If his father and mother were Harald and Kristín, he could be Leif Haraldsson or Leif Kristínsson (I don’t know Icelandic genitives so make do with English).
The mother might use her father or her mother’s genitive given name so wouldn’t share her partner’s surname, whether married or not.
Leif’s son, Erik, might be Erik Leifsson or, if his mother was Anna, Erik Annasson.
Likewise, a daughter, say Guðrún, might use her father or her mother’s given name’s genitive form plus dottir (daughter). So she might be Guðrún Leifsdottir or Guðrún Annasdottir.
This is why people in Icelandic directories are listed alphabetically by given names and why, even formally, and to “leading” people, given names are customarily used.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 11, 2020 20:23:34 GMT
[…] I've sometimes wondered whether it would be possible for a Jewish adult who'd fallen out with his parents to sue or prosecute them for the gross assault and butchery of circumcism that they'd perpetrated on him when he was an infant. Twod: It certainly is legally possible – at least in Oz and the US. I'm aware of such cases in the States, but don't know if it's been tried in Oz. My son thought about suing his in-laws but decided against worsening the already poor familial relationships. He needn't have worried, because the ongoing troubles stemming from the butchery still led to a divorce; he is now a single parent of both sprog. On the bris occasion he insisted that his in-laws leave his house and never again darken his doorstep. Two years later when the girl was born, the in-laws again stuck their noses in and hoped she'd be raised jewish. Both my son and his wife made it clear that the daughter would not be raised in the "faith" or culture – but sarcastically suggested that she might be genitally mutilated in the interests of equal treatment. The olds were horrified at the suggestion, claiming: "Only those uncivilised muslims do that to their women". Ahem. My part, rather late in the affair, was to establish a trust fund for my grandson so that, should he choose to, he could have restorative surgery once he's stopped growing (at least where it mattered). The fund is keeping up with the rising costs of such surgery. Should my grandson choose not to use the trust funds for the proposed purpose by the time he turns 30, then it goes toward the maintenance / expansion of an existing anti-circumcision group. Once he reaches legal adulthood (18), my grandson could sue his grandparents – as well as have them charged criminally. At the time of his butchery, the performance of medically unwarranted circumcision of infants was already illegal in any Oz hospital that received government funding – which meant almost every hospital in the nation, public and private (the state of Queensland being the only exception, and that could change soon). If parents wish to mutilate their sons, it may only be done in a private setting by a medically qualified mohel child molester (or islamic equivalent). Anyway, I've hijacked this thread longer than warranted. It's just that I get quite wound up about the topic once the fuse is lit.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 11, 2020 21:57:25 GMT
On a lighter note: In an ABC news item on the Geminids meteor shower 2020: How to watch it and what to expect, people were advised that "Catching a meteor is a bit like catching a bus, you may need to wait for a while, then several may come at once". That certainly is true of bus services in capital cities I've lived in. Where I've lived these past 32 years one could wait forever: there are no bus services other than those for schoolchildren.
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 11, 2020 22:21:45 GMT
I would have thought trying to catch a meteor would burn a hole through your hand ...
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 11, 2020 22:56:45 GMT
I would have thought trying to catch a meteor would burn a hole through your hand ... I tease the Contessa occasionally by pretending to take song lyrics literally and explaining their errors to her. "Catch a Falling Star and Put it in Your Pocket" was quite entertaining recently.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 11, 2020 23:18:03 GMT
>> I would have thought trying to catch a meteor would burn a hole through your hand <<
Probably not. This from a NASA webpage:
Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold and they remain so even as they blaze a hot-looking trail toward the ground. "The outer layers are warmed by atmospheric friction, and little bits flake away as they descend," explains Yeomans. This is called ablation and it's a wonderful way to remove heat. (Some commercial heat shields use ablation to keep spacecraft cool when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.) "Rocky asteroids are poor conductors of heat," Yeomans continued. "Their central regions remain cool even as the hot outer layers are ablated away."
science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast27jul_1
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 12, 2020 8:39:45 GMT
LJH - the cold ones would be meteorites? A meteor is by definition incandescent.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 12, 2020 12:53:00 GMT
LJH - the cold ones would be meteorites? A meteor is by definition incandescent.
Are they? Only the surface of a meteor is incandescent, I think. In any case, surely meteors are aerial phenomena and become meteorites when they reach the surface and could potentially burn one’s hand. Also, to satisfy the pedants among us, I think meteors are not by definition incandescent any more than ice is by definition cold. But my astronomy class was cut short because of the pandemic so I will accept it if you tell me I am wrong, Dave.
At least this is almost a discussion unlike most exchanges here recently.
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