It now exists, but I’m still trying to link to it from the sidebar. I swear, WordPress is making it more and more difficult to do anything not in their suggested template.
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Comics I Don't Understand 
The link to larK’s Comment Harvester is here:
http://scrape.nowis.com/CIDU/index.cfm
I couldn’t find a way to leave a comment on the new Random Comments page.
But when there is one, Kilby’s comment above should probably be the first one.
@ Arthur – But only because larK is far too modest to place it there himself. Either that, or he’s worried that too much advertising will have a negative effect on his bandwidth limits.
Okay, that’s interesting: while regular posts accept comments by default, pages such as the Random Comments Page BAR comments by default.
That’s been corrected.
I’m learning this as I go along, guys.
And the reason larK’s harvester isn’t in the sidebar is that — as previously noted — adding items to the sidebar is stupidly difficult.
WordPress’s definition of user-friendly is “we’ll make running your site very simple and intuitive and neat-looking: with the trade-off that if you want to do anything not on the menu, we’re going to make it as difficult as possible.”
“I’m learning this as I go along, guys.”
What, women don’t get recognition – all three of us, from what I can tell . . . ?
“Guys” is, of course gender-inclusive.
So is ‘gals’ . . .
Alas, Andréa, in common English usage, it is not.
Maybe we could start a trend.
I find it fascinating how “guys” is sometimes specifically gender-inclusive, and sometimes specifically not, without a lot of overt signalling either way. It (and all the other similarly multivalent words) must be horribly confusing for non-native speakers.
Dude, all y’all have choices on the gender inclusive plural thingy. Just depends on your region i suppose, mates.
As long as we’re wishing for improvements to the template, we could really use a slightly more distinctive color for links (instead of mouse grey). It took me an embarrasingly long time to realize that this thread “about” the “New Random Comments Page” was not actually the same one as the easily overlooked link in Bill’s introduction.
THIS is how it should be used . . .
“It must be horribly confusing for non-native speakers”
Nah, not really. We have similar words and constructs in my language (Norwegian), and I guess in most other languages. Turns out context is important.
@ Soup Dragon – Maybe if she finds out that there’s another Norwegian about, we can get Keera to chip in again.
Remarkably enough, Kilby, they don’t let me choose the link color.
I swear, if they could figure out a way to limit me to four-panel comics, I think they would.
Geezer reference?
(I really hope we’ve seen the end of this storyline)
Heyyy youu guyyyys!!!
Grawlix, I didn’t mean “random” THAT literally…
Bill, I think Grawlix put that link in as follow-up to the discussion above about “guys”. It’s also what I first thought of.
Yes I had Rita Moreno ringing in my ear as I was reading the “guys” discussion.
Ah. I should have skimmed upward more carefully.
Not that I’m a hardcore SJW or anything, but I’d say there is still a vestigial masculinity associated with “guys”. If I made a post that said “Hey gals, I have a question about this comic”, I’m sure the men would feel at least a little odd, even though the use was intended to be inclusive. “Guys” has been used so much as a generic that is is like the old days, when we always used “he” in every sentence and just said that it included females too. Maybe that was our intent, but I think it would take many more decades, more likely centuries of use before “guys” loses that connotation.
“Hey all” or “Hey everyone” or “What’s up, y’all?” etc offer fully functional and unambiguously inclusive ways to say the same things. Not a big thing, I guess, but the little things matter when it comes to making people feel included in a group.
Not that we’re not a welcoming bunch, of course. Just an issue I’ve had to think about due to other groups I’m involved with.*
*Obviously not the “Preservation of Archaic Preposition Rules Society”, obviously.**
**Nor the “Society for the Elimination and Eradication of Redundancy Society” either.
Sunshine makes every day better
A pet peeve of mine: Girlfriends and I are in a restaurant; the server asks, ‘Are you guys ready to order?’ or any other iteration of this . . . I don’t mind if it’s used in a diner, but in a nice $$$ restaurant, it’s just downright tacky. I always protest this use, but don’t know if my commenting on its tackiness changes anything.
*Obviously not the “Preservation of Archaic Preposition Rules Society”, obviously
Child to babysitter: “What did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to out of down for?”
@Mitch4: You forget that the book in question is about Australia, and the kid is on an upper floor, and thus that the child actually says:
“What did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?”
@ Shrug – I’m very impressed: what English can do with prepositions, is par for the course for German verbs, although the usual limit for those verbs is four or five (excluding contrived parenthetical monstrosities, of course).
@Shrug — super!
“Sunshine makes every day better”
Not in a drought.
I have a six-year-old niece. She uses “you guys” to refer to all of her friends… all of whom are girls. AFAIK, none of them objects to this.
“Sunshine makes every day better”
Because a day without sunshine is like, you know, night….
-Steve Martin
@ Grawlix – I’m not afraid of the dark: it’s the orange juice propaganda that makes my skin crawl.
All these random comments on a string ABOUT the random comments string. Maybe this is where I should plug my self-published … (Sounds of another scuffle and a door slamming)
I’ve got something self-published too, but nobody’s buying it. Lesson learned: don’t give free copies to your friends and relatives as Christmas presents. They are the only people who would buy it, and now they don’t have to.
Mine’s an eBook priced at $2.99. It’s a light romcom-ish novel running 223,000 words. I’m suspecting price point isn’t the problem.
I’ve wondered about this ‘guys’ expression to refer to everyone, too. Males seem to have an easier time accepting it’s gender non-specific at times (go figure), but as SB said, a group of men would likely object to “OK ladies, time to go!” as ‘woke’ as they may be. In fact, these same people would probably find it insulting.
Over the last few years, I’ve converted to ‘folks’ to avoid this very issue.
Stan, “folk” is plural. “Folks”, properly, refers to one’s parents. /pedant
I’m not sure ‘properly’ is appropriate. According to Cambridge, Oxford and Dictionary.com, the first definition of ‘folks’ given is plural, and refers generally to a group of people. Here’s Cambridge’s take on it for verification: “folks [ plural ] [ as form of address ] INFORMAL used when speaking informally to a group of people: All right, folks, dinner’s ready!”
Your definition is there as well, so it is indeed “a” proper usage, but it’s not the only proper definition, as you seem to imply. Additionally, it seems to be a less common form of the use of the word as it comes after the definition listed above, as is the case with the other sites. In fact, on Dictionary.com’s website, it’s listed 4th.
Who’s the pendant now, eh? Take that, folks!
Not pendant. Pedant. I stumbled on the dismount. Oops.
On book sales figures – – if I admit to following it, one of the Funkyverse serials just had an episode about holding a reading / signing event, which made the point there won’t be high sales if everyone has already gotten a gift copy.
Many Warner Bros. cartoons ended with “That’s all Folks!”
“Stan, ‘folk’ is plural”
Not always. It’s not even always a noun.
Example: One category of music more popular in the past is folk. Explicitly singular in that usage. And, of course, “folk” can be used as an adjective to describe music and the performers of that style.
“I’ve wondered about this ‘guys’ expression to refer to everyone, too.”
Yeah, well… A while back, when my daughter still lived at home, I learned that “dudes” ALSO can refer either to a group of men, a group of women, or a mixed group, or can refer specifically to just boys, depending on, as best as I can tell, the phases of the moons of Jupiter. Language changes over time… people adopt new meanings for words, and adopt new words, and deprecate some old usages. The fun part is when an old meaning gets preserved in a language fossil. The meaning of “proves” has changed since the saying “the exception proves the rule” became a thing.
Another thing that has changed over time is the meaning of the word “Samaritans”. When Jesus used the word, it meant the most vile, awful people his audience could imagine. That’s why it was such a big deal to say that even a Samaritan might be a worthy person in Jesus’ religion. Over the intervening millennia, as we stopped having dealings with any actual Samaritans, the only ones we ever hear about are the “Good” ones This robs the parable of much of its meaning… of COURSE the Samaritan helped the man who was set upon by thieves, he was a SAMARITAN, and helping people is what Samaritans DO. You say “Samaritan”, and “Good” is implied.
If “folk” is plural, how about “people”? As in, “The Chinese people, the Jewish people, and all the other peoples of the earth were represented at the Great Congress of Peoples.”
“People” is a mass noun and takes a plural verb.
Just for fun, many times when addressing a mixed group, I’ll call them “boys and girls”. It sounds a bit Bozo-The-Clown-ish, but no one ever seems resentful, including older adults, with whom I work frequently.
@ Robert – The informal custom in Germany for addressing a passing stranger is to call him “Junger Mann!” (young man), irrespective of either of the ages of the people involved. A typical example would be when someone drops something on the sidewalk, or forgets a receipt at a supermarket. Seeing a 40-year-old cashier addressing a 60-year-old customer as “young man” may seem a little odd, but it works. The “official” forms of address (like “Mein Herr“) are so ridiculously archaic that nobody would even think of trying them.
And from that same book, “prodigal son”: it’s most often used today to mean “somebody who returns after a long time,” rather than “extravagant and reckless.”
I always wanted to have a character open a speech with “Persons … and personettes …” Maybe the moment has passed for that joke.
@ M.A, – Unfortunately, your “joke” is still very current reality in Germany. When addressing a large group, it has become customary to replace the basic form (“My colleagues…“) with gender specific versions (“My male colleagues and female colleagues…”). This affect is particulary virulent in political and academic circles, and some idiots in the latter group have even proposed adding a “gender asterisk” to German typography: effectively like a wildcard, so that “colleague*s” would stand for both forms.
P.S. Years ago I invested in a copy of Dr. Spock’s “Baby and Child Care” as a reference. Unfortunately, some politically correct maniacs had edited the 8th edition, replacing every single reference to “…your doctor…” to read “…your doctor or nurse practitioner…“. The phrase appears multiple times on every page, and is excruciatingly tedious. Even worse, these idiots decided to use both male and female pronouns when discussing the baby (or child). This might have been tolerable if they had written “he or she” at every instance, but no, the editors decided to alternate gender, sometimes within the same paragraph, so that (effectively) the male baby from whom a diaper had been removed suddenly became female when it was time to put the new diaper on.
“Even worse, these idiots decided to use both male and female pronouns when discussing the baby (or child).”
I can imagine how annoying that would be, especially as there is an acceptable way to refer to a baby without mentioning its gender: ‘it’.
I think a lot of people would object to this when they hear that, but it’s used all the time, perhaps unconsciously.
“The baby is crying. I think it needs to be changed.”
“What a beautiful baby! What’s its name?”
“She had a baby girl last night. It weighed 7lbs.”
Dr. Spock never asked me for my opinion, but I would have suggested he alternate genders by chapter. And not over-explain it, just do it.
“I can imagine how annoying that would be, especially as there is an acceptable way to refer to a baby without mentioning its gender: ‘it’.”
Many, if not most, people get at least a little bit huffy when you refer to their baby as “it”. Most won’t even let you refer to the dog as “it” That disemobodied hand that wanders around the mansion can be called “it”, because it doesn’t have a mouth to complain with.
@Kilby: “(effectively) the male baby from whom a diaper had been removed suddenly became female when it was time to put the new diaper on.”
Sounds like a really, really nasty and painful safety pin accident.
Hey, you guys! Here’s an article from today’s Washington Post.
Nice to know I’m not the ONLY person in the world offended . . . thanks for the article!
I have a problem with guys for the two of us from strangers – such as waitresses. I used to say things such as – I have been a gal for some time now (but since sex change operations have come into being – I no longer say that). For some reason though when friends say something like “Hey you guys” that does not bother me.
What is upsetting is when a waitress says to the two of us – “What will you ladies have.” Now he has long hair in a “que: (ponytail), but this is often said by someone who has only seen him from the front.
Doctor or nurse practitioner is not gender correcting as either could be male or female. It seems to me that it is more that it is taking into account that not all pregnancies are treated by/babies delivered by doctors any longer.
Lastly – as Robert keeps looking at the clock to go up to bed as it 3:20 am –
If this random comments, I am taking leave to post that our reenactment unit is doing an event this weekend June 1 & 2 at Old Bethpage Village Restoration of life on Long Island under the occupation of same by the British Army during the American Revolution. LI was the longest continuously occupied area of the colonies with the British army moving in shortly after the Battle of Brooklyn in September 1776 and the last boatload of soldiers that left in 1783 was from the area. Other units are joining us – interpreting both sides as armies and also occupied civilians. It is our second year of the event and it went very well last year – after this year it will be done biannually.
website for unit will appear if my name clicked on.
Bill – feel free to pull this if I overstepped and my apologies.
suggestion – since “old random comments” is still the easiest of the Randoms to get to, maybe the head post text there is a good place for a link to New Random (or Meta New Random).
Mitch, that’s the problem: the template isn’t allowing me to change where that leads to. Or if it does, the method for doing so has changed.
@ Meryl A – You do make an excellent point (that both doctors and nurses can be of either gender), but the way that poor (R.I.P.) Dr. Spock’s editors inserted the phrase made it seem much more likely that they were simply propagating the traditional (pervasive) gender segregation of the roles. If they had just used “health care professional”, it would have been more inclusive, and would have avoided (some of) the awkwardness of the either/or phrase.
Yes, I understand. What I’m suggesting changing is in the post that goes
“Please note that this is intended for public comic comments only: if you want to send me a CIDU, or a comic for some specific folder (Ewww, Oy, etc), or you want to inform me of a typo, please e-mail me at CiduBill@gmx.com”
Since that is where the sidebar link goes, in there would be a good place to put a link to the actual Random Comments 2019 —
” https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com/random-comments-2019/comment-page-1/ ”
https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com/random-comments-2019/comment-page-1/
Yes, that means giving in to WP oddity, and requiring people to use two steps. But that might be better than having no easy way to get to Random Comments 2019, and people still adding to Old Random Comments.
Note 2020-11-08. Thanks to @Kilby for pointing out this page, though superseded(by new separate pair Random Comments and Site Comments threads — see left sidebar menu), was still accepting comments. So now closing it.