I followed his gaze, and found myself wondering too at what seems to be an unusual quantity of varicose veins in an unusual location, and running rather unusually at right angles to normal ones.
Is that “farm-labourer’s forearm”? Having done nary a lick of manual work for years, my own forearms would not disfigure the Lady of Shalott.
Hah! I thought I remembered having seen that on someone. But how strange that I remember anything at all, much less the connection with hard work. I think of myself as not noticing much of what is around me, in the ordinary course of things.
I like to think I have quite delicate sensors for moods, facial expressions etc. of other people, but not for things like hair color and other “identifying features”, as they’re called in passports and the statements of witnesses to police.
If I dangle my arms downwards the veins are very prominent. I haven’t found that this is in any way to my advantage, though it can occasionally shock or impress people at parties.
That’s not at all the same thing. JJ’s picture shows cartilaginous (or variceal) ridges running transversally from a raised axial sinew, like ribs. Very cool!
As a kid, my sister had a wonderful party trick which I envied no end. She could make her saliva viscous and let a string of it elongate down from her lips, almost to her solar plexus. Just when you thought the string was going to break off, she would aspirate it back up suddenly.
You’re really on about that lens. Mine wasn’t in focus either, but I wouldn’t know how to get an external lens on that little telescoping thing on the front of my little digital Cannon.
Just when you think the thought of Grumbly in a miniskirt and wig is waaaayyy TMI, you find out he has a sister.
Sloterdijk, in an interview once, made a neat riposte against the vague imputation of “TMI”:
Il est effrayant de voir avec quelle facilité la sentimentalité, le ressentiment et le bellicisme peuvent envahir la Maison-Blanche. L’invraisemblance de la forme de vie démocratique est beaucoup plus palpable quand on vit aux Etats-Unis, parce que l’hétérogénéité de la société y est telle que, sans un délire partageable, la société se dissoudrait d’un instant à l’autre. Et il faut renouer le prétendu contrat social à chaque instant. C’est parce qu’ils ont appris à publier toute leur personnalité qu’il est si plaisant de parler avec des Américains, alors que nous, à l’image des aristocrates d’autrefois, nous celons nos secrets de famille. L’arrière-pensée est une spécificité européenne. Ici, on fait la conversation, mais on garde toujours le plus intéressant pour soi.
I have heard this stunt described before, and I think it’s just as well that Stuart never mastered it.
I swear I’m not making this up. When I was in college I knew a guy who said that as children he and his sister had both been able to do this. Their name for the desired degree of viscosity was “the good consistency”. Here’s the kicker: they used to dangle their saliva strings into each other’s mouths. I think that the one on the receiving end would lie flat on his/her back on the floor.
I later met the sister when she came to visit the brother. To the best of my recollection, those of us who had heard this tale did not press them to perform for us; I can’t think why not.
tgg, do you by any chance know Walter Neumann? He was my advisor in Bonn in the 70’s, when I was still pretending to be doing a Diplomarbeit. He and Anne were in Bonn this year.
It’s a question of how certain words like “imputation” or “accusation” are commonly, and reasonably, used. When you charge someone with having done something, but can’t clearly describe what this something consists in, then it’s not clear wherein your charge consists. The charge is vague. Example: Suppose it’s not clear what “woblifying” is. When I accuse you of woblifying, it’s not clear what I am accusing you of. My accusation is vague: what I am accusing you of is not clear.
It’s possible to vaguely accuse someone of having performed a clearly defined act – that’s called beating around the bush. It’s possible to clearly accuse someone of having performed a clearly defined act. But if what the act is supposed to consist in is not clear, then an accusation of having performed it is (necessarily, I claim) not a clear accusation. Of course you can take an accusatory stance against someone for having done something that you don’t clearly specify – like saying that someone has “sinful ways”. But that’s just bad-mouthing, and an attempt to cloak your personal value judgements as “objective” ones.
My implicit claim was that “TMI” is a vague concept, since “too much” is vague. An imputation of having proffered “TMI” is thus a vague imputation. If you want to challenge this, it is open to you to describe clearly what “TMI” is supposed to consist in. One way to begin might be to say: “It was just more than I, Nijma, wanted to know, even though I wrote Just when you think … you find out … as if everyone shared my opinion. I don’t want to know the following specific kinds of information about Grumbly: 1) …, 2) …”. Only the task would remain of clarifying whether the fact that I have a sister exacerbates or mitigates the “TMI”.
There’s nothing unreasonable about a vague imputation. What is unreasonable is to claim that the vague imputation is clear, without making it clear.
Vagueness is a curious phenomenon, with its own set of rules, apparently. I suppose that your writing “playing with snot”, although it seems precise at first glance, has to count as vague after all. The reason for this is, that the subject was not snot, but saliva. Perhaps the issue here is really Too Much Insinuation, and only intermittent attention to details.
I hear from Walter, and more rarely write to him, about journal business, but that’s about the extent of our contact. I confess that the main effect of your noting this connection is to remind that various bits of G&T business are somwhere on the long list of things I ought to be doing instead of messing around in the blogosphere.
In that case, I shall leave you two to your discussion of viscosity. Which reminds me, would you like to hear about mlouheeya? The bedouins make soup out of it. It’s a lovely green color.
In “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” two Cambridge dons torment a man from the BBC over High Table by arguing that it is impossible to assign any useful meaning to the expression “too much Mozart”.
Sounds like a vividly onomatopoetic word for a camel secretion. But do you regard that as personal information? Are you not in the habit of distinguishing between camels and people? Has a camel ever told you more about itself than you wanted to know?
A Bad Guide 
I followed his gaze, and found myself wondering too at what seems to be an unusual quantity of varicose veins in an unusual location, and running rather unusually at right angles to normal ones.
Is that “farm-labourer’s forearm”? Having done nary a lick of manual work for years, my own forearms would not disfigure the Lady of Shalott.
It’s a hereditary vein thing that’s exacerbated by hard work, so it isn’t usually visible.
Hah! I thought I remembered having seen that on someone. But how strange that I remember anything at all, much less the connection with hard work. I think of myself as not noticing much of what is around me, in the ordinary course of things.
I like to think I have quite delicate sensors for moods, facial expressions etc. of other people, but not for things like hair color and other “identifying features”, as they’re called in passports and the statements of witnesses to police.
If I dangle my arms downwards the veins are very prominent. I haven’t found that this is in any way to my advantage, though it can occasionally shock or impress people at parties.
Not unusual at all:
AJP is trying to pass as Norwegian.
Sorry, Nij, but that’s nothing. Maybe I’ll have to do a post on my arm veins. A macro lens would help.
That’s not at all the same thing. JJ’s picture shows cartilaginous (or variceal) ridges running transversally from a raised axial sinew, like ribs. Very cool!
As a kid, my sister had a wonderful party trick which I envied no end. She could make her saliva viscous and let a string of it elongate down from her lips, almost to her solar plexus. Just when you thought the string was going to break off, she would aspirate it back up suddenly.
You’re really on about that lens. Mine wasn’t in focus either, but I wouldn’t know how to get an external lens on that little telescoping thing on the front of my little digital Cannon.
Just when you think the thought of Grumbly in a miniskirt and wig is waaaayyy TMI, you find out he has a sister.
“Had”? She won’t do it any more?
I’m glad to know he has a sister. I’m sure they’re both great fun at parties.
Sloterdijk, in an interview once, made a neat riposte against the vague imputation of “TMI”:
I have heard this stunt described before, and I think it’s just as well that Stuart never mastered it.
I swear I’m not making this up. When I was in college I knew a guy who said that as children he and his sister had both been able to do this. Their name for the desired degree of viscosity was “the good consistency”. Here’s the kicker: they used to dangle their saliva strings into each other’s mouths. I think that the one on the receiving end would lie flat on his/her back on the floor.
I later met the sister when she came to visit the brother. To the best of my recollection, those of us who had heard this tale did not press them to perform for us; I can’t think why not.
tgg, do you by any chance know Walter Neumann? He was my advisor in Bonn in the 70’s, when I was still pretending to be doing a Diplomarbeit. He and Anne were in Bonn this year.
Ah, but of course you do, being on the editorial board of G&T !
There was nothing vague about it.
It’s a question of how certain words like “imputation” or “accusation” are commonly, and reasonably, used. When you charge someone with having done something, but can’t clearly describe what this something consists in, then it’s not clear wherein your charge consists. The charge is vague. Example: Suppose it’s not clear what “woblifying” is. When I accuse you of woblifying, it’s not clear what I am accusing you of. My accusation is vague: what I am accusing you of is not clear.
It’s possible to vaguely accuse someone of having performed a clearly defined act – that’s called beating around the bush. It’s possible to clearly accuse someone of having performed a clearly defined act. But if what the act is supposed to consist in is not clear, then an accusation of having performed it is (necessarily, I claim) not a clear accusation. Of course you can take an accusatory stance against someone for having done something that you don’t clearly specify – like saying that someone has “sinful ways”. But that’s just bad-mouthing, and an attempt to cloak your personal value judgements as “objective” ones.
My implicit claim was that “TMI” is a vague concept, since “too much” is vague. An imputation of having proffered “TMI” is thus a vague imputation. If you want to challenge this, it is open to you to describe clearly what “TMI” is supposed to consist in. One way to begin might be to say: “It was just more than I, Nijma, wanted to know, even though I wrote Just when you think … you find out … as if everyone shared my opinion. I don’t want to know the following specific kinds of information about Grumbly: 1) …, 2) …”. Only the task would remain of clarifying whether the fact that I have a sister exacerbates or mitigates the “TMI”.
There’s nothing unreasonable about a vague imputation. What is unreasonable is to claim that the vague imputation is clear, without making it clear.
When the subject is playing with snot, vagueness is a virtue.
Vagueness is a curious phenomenon, with its own set of rules, apparently. I suppose that your writing “playing with snot”, although it seems precise at first glance, has to count as vague after all. The reason for this is, that the subject was not snot, but saliva. Perhaps the issue here is really Too Much Insinuation, and only intermittent attention to details.
What’s TMI?
TMI = Too Much Information.
For me, hearing too much personal information can be a bad thing if it’s narrated in a boring way — but Grumbly’s never is.
I don’t exactly know him, see below.
Yes, I saw from an old post on your blog that you had “dabbled” or some such verb in algebraic topology. I wonder(ed) what the story was.
I hear from Walter, and more rarely write to him, about journal business, but that’s about the extent of our contact. I confess that the main effect of your noting this connection is to remind that various bits of G&T business are somwhere on the long list of things I ought to be doing instead of messing around in the blogosphere.
In that case, I shall leave you two to your discussion of viscosity. Which reminds me, would you like to hear about mlouheeya? The bedouins make soup out of it. It’s a lovely green color.
In “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” two Cambridge dons torment a man from the BBC over High Table by arguing that it is impossible to assign any useful meaning to the expression “too much Mozart”.
Sounds like a vividly onomatopoetic word for a camel secretion. But do you regard that as personal information? Are you not in the habit of distinguishing between camels and people? Has a camel ever told you more about itself than you wanted to know?
But you could say ‘a little Mozart is a dangerous thing’.