In your circle of friends, child-raising experts, and ethicists, what generally is the next step in thinking from that kind of statement?
Special section on Policing
And this Whamond was picked up from Arnold Zwicky’s blog, which also discusses the “grammar police” construction for our convenience.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Yes, sadly you can often hear declarations like “She’s just acting out to get attention. Don’t give positive reinforcement to that behavior! Just ignore her.” Or even “No positive reinforcement — just punish them for the attention-seeking behavior.”
Sometimes the real response ought to be “They’re acting that way because they /need/ some attention — so show them some loving!”
The dogs get attention whenever they ask for it. Their lives are too short to not do so.
Andrea, I certainly agree with you about our companion animals!
My comment was meant however to broaden from the cute guy in the cartoon to what people sometimes do say about kids or other people.
In this work from home life the dogs can now ask for attention 10 hours a day – making it difficult to give them all the attention they deserve as well as afford dog food for them…
I’m beginning to wonder about people who find Reply All not just comprehensible but a LOL… I mean… huh… Is the joke supposed to be if you don’t start right away on breathing you can be alive? Or what…
I guess I get the good cocktail/bad cocktail one and I like its quirkiness but it doesn’t really resonate. Maybe if people actually talked about “good cocktails”. Maybe if it were at a party and one of them said “I’ll have a good time; you have a bad time”… or is “CO…cktail” supposed to sound like “CO…p”?
In the next scene, when they are interviewing a suspect, which one will be the Good Cop and which the Bad Cop? Viewers who caught the scene in the cartoon will know ahead of time, based on their cocktail choices. (And yes, as a secondary matter it uses the sound similarity.)
The joke in the Reply All is just that phrasing according to a very normal pattern has accidentally resulted in an unintended absurd instruction. If it were “stretching” there would be nothing off about it, because you were not supposed to start the stretching until instructed. In the situation shown, what you are not supposed to start is “special breathing” but that didn’t get said clearly.
I’m not so sure I get the ‘Employees must cleanse souls’ one. Is it just an absurdist/extremist take on the typical ‘…wash hands’ sign? That’s what I figure, but is there more to it that I’m missing?
Loved Herman. I actually did LOL. Well, SOL…snickered out loud.
Stan, I almost would answer Yes to your Q: “Is it just an absurdist/extremist take on the typical ‘…wash hands’ sign?” . But there is a level of implication that working there, or maybe just being there, does damage to the soul, so that it needs cleansing.
Ahhh, interesting take! That makes it more amusing, for sure.
However, thinking about it now, wouldn’t it be the other way around? The employees souls are dirty, and need cleansing before going back to work. Perhaps this is a sign in the professors’ john at Liberty University. Or Dollywood.
(yes, this just popped into my inbox)
Hmm, maybe I’m in the minority, but I thought the attention seeking dog was hilarious. And by the way, I have a dog, who loves attention, and I try to give it to him as much as possible. But there are times when it’s just not possible, so I can relate.
Reality Check gets an LOL on this site?? I can feel Bill’s exasperation from Beyond!
Oh yeah, Mark M, the parading dog was hilarious! But that is quite compatible with those of us wanting to use it as a talking point about paying attention when attention is due.
In Andréa’s Whamond comment, you have to wonder where those puppets were some 30 seconds ago.
I guess I should’ve submitted it as an EW.
I guess I should’ve submitted it as an EW.Probably best to go on inserting as comments where they fit a thread. We still haven’t figured out a general approach to mailed-in Ewwws, except insofar as they work as something else, say LOLs.
I recognized the Kliban comic as an old favorite, a classic.