Chamblee54

During a recent facebook deterioration, on social issues, someone posted a 410 word statement. PG noted the promiscuous use of first person singular. A study ensued.
1 – I, or verb contractions using I, occurs 27 times in this statement.
2 – I was used in the first seven sentences. The eighth sentence did not have I, but did contain me.
3 – The tenth sentence does not have I, but does contain my.
4 – The last sentence has I five times. The first two have I three times. Six sentences use I twice.
5 – There are 410 words in this statement. There are 15 sentences. Six percent of these words are I.
6 – I is the shortest word in the English language. It is also possibly the least important.
Many people use the word I too often. The use of this word implies that the listener is interested in what the speaker thinks or does. When someone says I, the lips are usually moving. I is the central letter in both lie and believe. (As another FBF noted, I statements can be useful.)
This does not take away the controversy over what word, in the language, is the shortest. A British facility, the Daily Mail, ran a story,The shortest word in English? Depends on how you measure it
Q. We all know that the longest word in the English language is Floccinaucinihili-pilification, (Spell check suggestion:Oversimplification) meaning inconsiderable or trifling. But what is the shortest word in the English language?
A. This is a controversy that has divided the English-speaking community for more than a century. One faction, headed by Dr Robert Beauchamp from the Oxford English Dictionary, believes that the shortest word in the English language is ‘a’, while another faction, headed by Professor Melanie Kurtz from Chicago University, contends that it is ‘I’.
In his most recent book on the subject, Further Arguments In Favour Of A (OUP, £19.99), Dr Beauchamp claims that, though ‘I’ is arguably the thinnest word in the English language, ‘a’ is the shortest, in the sense that it is not as high.
Professor Kurtz, on the other hand, has argued in a number of pamphlets that, if one unravels the various loops and curls that form a single ‘a’, and stretch it into a single horizontal or perpendicular line, then the letter in question is undoubtedly longer than ‘I’.
Meanwhile, dissident scholars continue to argue the case for ‘o’ and for small ‘i’, though in broader academic circles the first is generally dismissed as not really a word and the second is felt to be questionable: they maintain that the gap between the little dot and the main body of the word/letter is a constituent part of the whole and cannot be discounted when it comes to the full measurement.
One of the comments is highly repeatable. “is it true…..the shortest sentence is ..I am. and the longest sentence…I do.?” – Tommy Atkins Blighty, 02/10/2009 18:45
In the digital age, capital letters are used less and less. If the lower case i is used as a first person singular, then it is both the shortest and the skinniest. The dot on the lower case i is known as the tittle. It is not known what the tittle thinks of the jot, or whether they believe each other.
For those not suffering platitude fatigue, here are the 21 Most Important Words in the English Language. The most important word: We ~ The two most important words: Thank You ~ The three most important words: All is forgiven ~ The four most important words: What is your opinion ~ The Five most important words: You did a good job ~ The six most important words: I want to understand you better ~ The least important word: I.”
A site called vocabula has a feature on the worst words in english. There are two phrases using I.
I mean Meaningless formula (a verbal tic, if you will) used habitually by many to begin nearly every sentence, especially those that are not intended to clarify anything preceding them. I need you to … A completely unacceptable replacement for “please.”
Since we cannot say, for certain, that I is the shortest word in the language, the uncertainty about the longest word should not be surprising. The longest word in German would be a short story by itself. According to Los Angeles Trade-Technical College “The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.” (Spell check suggestion:ultramontane-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses)
Part two of this feature is about a popular contender for the longest word. It is known here as The S Word. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This repost is written like H.P. Lovecraft.

There is a feature today on NPR discussing ” “What’s The Longest Word In The English Language?”. The old crowd pleaser antidisestablishmentarianism was dismissed as “Just a bundle of suffixes and prefixes piled up into a little attention-grabbing hummock.” It also has 28 letters, which won’t even get it into the playoffs.
When it comes to big words, there is nothing like science. In 1964, a book called “Chemical Abstracts” published a 1,185 letter word, referring to a protein found in the tobacco mosaic virus. It starts with glu and ends with sine. This word is 8.44 tweets long.
Words like glu…sine are not used often, which brings us to the obvious winner, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It is the theme song for a dance routine in a movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke , and a few dozen animated characters.
According to the urban dictionary, Miss Andrews was not fond of Rob Petrie. “It’s reported that Ms. Andrews replied, “Fuck you! I hate you!! You’re a ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidouchebag’!!!! And get away from my door!! Why don’t you go eat “A Spoonful of Feces “!!!” (This problem might have been caused by SupercalifragilisticexpiHalitosis )
At 34 letters, the s word is the longest english word that most of us have heard of. While it probably was made up by over-imaginative songwriters, it is defined by a reputed dictionary. It translates as superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch (German), supercalifragilistichespiralidoso(Italian) and supercalifragilisticoespialidoso (Spanish). The French are too cool to use it.
A website called Straightdope has a highly entertaining feature called Is “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” a real word referring to Irish hookers? . “Our research first took us to a lawsuit that was filed after the movie came out by Life Music, Inc., against Wonderland Music, the publisher of the Mary Poppins song. It was a copyright infringement suit brought by Barney Young and Gloria Parker, who had written a song in 1949 entitled “Supercalafajaistickespeealadojus” and shown it to Disney in 1951. They asked for twelve million dollars in damages. The suit was decided in the Shermans’ favor because, among other reasons, affidavits were produced from two New Yorkers, Stanley Eichenbaum and Clara Colclaster, who claimed that “variants of the word were known to and used by them many years prior to 1949.”
The decision makes for fairly humorous reading. Apparently the judge got tired of writing out the whole word, so every time it had to be mentioned it was replaced by the phrase “the word” as if it were some loathsome artifact that had to be held at arm’s length. “
There is another story that has the s word appearing in a humor magazine at Syracuse University. An archivist named Mary O’Brien says that rumor surfaces every ten years or so, and is not true. Another old husbands tale has children in summer camps taught a song super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus. This cannot be confirmed or denied.
As for the tale about Irish entrepreneurs , there is a story in Maxim magazine. It says “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the word supposedly coined by Mary Poppins to make kids sound “precocious,” was actually invented by turn-of-the-century Scottish coal miners. It was used to request “the works” from prostitutes by men too shy to recite specific acts.” The link supplied by StraightDope does not work.

“We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. … So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don’t personally have a kid in school; it’s because I don’t like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.” John Green
This turned up on Facebook the other day, beside a picture of John Green. I am a major fan of The Anthropocene Reviewed, a podcast created by Mr. Green. On AR, Mr. Green “rates different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale.” Mr. Green also talks a lot about his wife and children. This made the comment about “I don’t personally have a kid in school” seem a bit odd. I made a comment about the meme.
“Let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don’t personally have a kid in school…” “Green lives in Indianapolis IN, with his wife, Sarah Urist Green, whom he married on May 20, 2006, and two children.” “I am a John Green fan, mostly because of The Anthropocene Reviewed podcast. In it, he rates the human experience on a scale of one to five stars. I give this meme one star.”
”meme or no meme I still support people becoming educated. I know some folks that are very low on the educational scale (related to some actually) those folks can vote and still repeat the lies about the 2020 election being stolen and other conspiracy theory BS. The common factor, lack of intelligent education. There are many people out there getting their education and News from Facebook and other social media. It’s alarming.”
“I am not opposed to education. I am also a John Green fan, and I suspect he would not like having a sixteen year old meme used to promote education. Part of education is critical thinking. Lack of ct is why people believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. My critical thinking hobby told me that this meme was not a good way to promote education. I give the meme one star.”
I went to google to get the text at the start of this post. While I was there, I found a couple of tasteful comments. “I love posts like these because it really allows for logical exercise since there are so many fallacies contained. It’s like an Easter egg hunt for the illogical!” “I’ve never seen someone complain about the idea of public education. If anything, people are upset about public schools receiving too little. I like John Green, but it seems like he is just setting up dominoes to knock them down.”
There was one other item about John’s children, in or out of public school. On February 14, 2013, Mr. and Mrs. Green appeared on Obama’s 2013 Google+ Fireside Hangout. Mrs. Green asked President Obama for advice on what to name the daughter they were expecting. Mr. Green has a talent for promotion, and probably had connections that got him on the hangout. President Barry even said to tell their daughter “not to forget to be awesome.” This is one of Mr. Green’s sayings.
Anyone who goes on facebook has seen memes. You see rude things about politicians, examples of hypocrisy, and quotes from famous dead people. It doesn’t matter that the famous dead person never said it … the mememonger agrees with the idea. Memes are a substitute for thinking. You just see something that you agree with, and share it on your timeline. Sharing a flaky meme is not a sign of effective education. I give facebook memes one star. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

Part Three of the 2022 chamblee54 report on The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is here. (BALL wear LIT uhn) Parts one and two are there. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Jimothy walked into the joint like he owned the place, which he did, but not like a typical owner of a place like this; more like a classy, silver spoon owner, except not classy like wearing tuxedos to horse dancing and equine NASCAR event classy, but an eating a gas station hotdog with a knife and fork, napkin on his lap kind of classy. Elliott Cox, Clover, SC
Doris learned two things working at the Post Office—the first was that when Jake came in and asked her if she wanted to see a really big johnson, he didn’t mean he wanted her to go through The Special Limited Presidents stamp collection, and the second was that she didn’t need to head outside at the end of each shift with a bag of envelops and a trowel because it turned out the dead letters were not, in fact, actually dead. Susanne Antonetta, Bellingham, WA
While scrolling through the online catalog of the Acme website trying to decide if he should order rocket roller skates, TNT, and an anvil, or—Fool-Me-Twice fake tunnel paint, the Coyote suddenly realized, ‘Hey, I could just order food.’ Rusty Hamilton, Candby, OR
I’d just lost my third game of solitaire in a row, and was eyeing my last two Chesterfields, when she walked in, wearing an outfit that said “hospital orderly” but whispered “French maid” (a couple of the buttons were straining, but I didn’t feel sorry for them) . . . there was a package on her hip and a question on her lips—she had the legs of a supermodel, long and shapely: “Shall I leave them here on the slab, Dr. Frankenstein?”—and when a dame’s got gams like that, it’s hard to say no, especially when they’re so fresh. Benson Smith, Somerville, MA
As Bridgett the Discount Dominatrix flicked the length of clothesline she used as a whip, he licked the ball gag, which was really a tennis ball held in place by a length of duct tape, and thought, *Dad was right, you really do get what you pay for.” Andrew Nance, St. Augustine, FL
Pfandrilys was a classic beauty of her star-faring race, and Brian’s love was immediate, their kisses were magical, if scaly, and the alien sex was mind-blowing, and if only Brian had read more exobiology, perhaps he wouldn’t have been surprised that, when all was done, and they lay spent in each other’s arms, she bit his head off. Thomas Hill, Mountain View, CA
Whoever figured out that combining basic cyber-bullying techniques with third-generation sex robot AI technology would tap a gigantic market among submissives was a freaking genius, mused Mistress Tiffany 3.1 as she toweled off and plugged herself in to recharge.
G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles, CA
Whenever Elvis graced the bar stools at the steakhouse, he never failed to order a rare steak, bordering raw, and oozing greasily at the edges; and during the interviews after the musician’s untimely death, none of the waiters could deny that he loved meat tender.
Leah Dagenbach, Loveland, OH
“Not again!” exclaimed Dusty the absent-minded trail boss, as he suddenly realized that he’d led the cattle drive to the wrong tumbleweed-infested prairie town, although a good time was soon had by all at The Saddle Sore Saloon, especially when the nattily dressed piano player started taking musical requests, including the lively square dance tune “Don’t Cry On My Shoulders ‘Cause You’re Rustin’ My Spurs.” Joanne Morcom, Calgary, Alberta,

This is a repost from 2021. … I had never heard of Ivermectin (IVM) before June 22, 2021. That was the day of the “emergency episode” of the Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Bret Weinstein & Dr. Pierre Kory. The story they told was jaw dropping. An established drug, Ivermectin, was showing great promise against Covid 19. IVM worked both as a treatment, and as a prophylactic against infection. There were stories about use in Mexico and India, with positive results. Unfortunately, the patent on IVM had expired. There was no promise of windfall profits to encourage lab testing. I saw about 45 minutes of the show, and felt confused by all the conflicting information.
@BretWeinstein “YouTube just demonetized both DarkHorse channels, wiping out more than half our family income. Their message: Drop the science and stick to the narrative—or else. No, YouTube. Review *this* video. #CensorshipKills, belts tighten, incomes can be replaced.” Dr. Weinstein was promptly punished for his good deed. Apparently, someone in the government/pharmaceutical/google collaborative does not want to have a discussion of IVM.
Fifty years ago, the target of FDA ire was marijuana. Stories of potential medical uses had been circulating for years. However, there was little research. “In 1970, the federal government classified marijuana as an illegal, highly addictive drug with no medical value, making research harder to do.” Any medical benefits could be obtained through the use of synthetic, industrial chemical medicine.
In the eight weeks after the Rogan emergency, Covid has gotten worse. The vaccine euphoria has been replaced by a delta depression. People are looking for solutions, and not believing what big brother says. They heard about IVM, and are not accepting the official story. Unfortunately, many people are taking matters into their own hands, and buying IVM from livestock suppliers. A festive alert from Mississippi State Department of Health notes “Animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans.”
I began to ask questions after the memes started popping up. I went to google, with the question is ivermectin approved for humans? With one exception, the first page of google was devoted to tabloid nonsense. While there are scientific documents the message can be reduced to this tweet: @US_FDA “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
Google is not the only search engine, so far. When you go elsewhere, or ask different questions, a different story emerges. “Hailed as a wonder drug for tropical diseases, ivermectin is used to treat parasitic infections in humans, pets, and livestock. This drug has alleviated the burden of river blindness and strongyloidiasis for millions of people.” Yes, IVM “has been established as safe for human use.” Humans require a different dosage than livestock.
The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro is the one pro-IVM result on the google first page. As the title indicates, this is a scientific paper. The bullet points are enlightening: “Ivermectin is an inhibitor of the COVID-19 causative virus (SARS-CoV-2) in vitro. ~ A single treatment able to effect ~5000-fold reduction in virus at 48 h in cell culture. ~ Ivermectin is FDA-approved for parasitic infections, and therefore has a potential for repurposing. ~ Ivermectin is widely available, due to its inclusion on the WHO model list of essential medicines.”
“Ivermectin is an FDA-approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent with demonstrated antiviral activity against a number of DNA and RNA viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Despite this promise, the antiviral activity of ivermectin has not been consistently proven in vivo. While ivermectin’s activity against SARS-CoV-2 is currently under investigation in patients, insufficient emphasis has been placed on formulation challenges. Here, we discuss challenges surrounding the use of ivermectin in the context of COVID-19. and how novel formulations employing micro- and nanotechnologies may address these concerns.”
River blindness is an IVM success story mentioned on the Rogan emergency. “River blindness (onchocerciasis) is caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus …causes severe itching, disfiguring skin conditions and visual impairment, including blindness. More than 99% of infected people live in 31 African countries. Ivermectin, the only drug currently in use, distributed annually to entire communities living in endemic areas, has significantly reduced river blindness … ”
Weinstein & Kory discussed using IVM as a Covid treatment in several foreign countries. Since this post is getting TL/DR, there will be no quotes from these stories. (one two three four five) Online Prescription Ivermectin is available. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestions for Ivermectin: Invective, Interactive.

“I am no longer watching the news or reading anything political. Life is so much better this way. Oddly, that’s exactly what Germans said as they grew tired of watching Jewish peoples businesses being burned and Jewish families being carted off by train.”
This bit of commodity wisdom appeared on facebook the other day. Half baked knowledge is part of the”anything political” we encounter everyday. The best thing to do is unfollow the perp, and go on with your life. Unfortunately, PG chose to reply.
Luther Mckinnon “Do you have any documentation for this claim?” Mike Bray “i don’t know you other than i think you are perhaps a contrarian. please be careful with how you present your questions. you are setting off my alarms as a possible Holocaust denier.”
“I am no longer watching” (IANLW) takes an American 2019 perspective, and applies it to Germany Nazi Germany. It is tough to determine exactly Mr. Good German would have said this. Kristallnacht was November 1938. The Holocaust started in stages. Lots of people, including many Jews, were killed before a secret meeting December 12, 1941, where the decision was made to start mass murder. There is little doubt as to what happened next.
In today’s America, we have the internet, cable television, and other ways to spread “anything political.” Some of it is serious news, some is commentary by comedians, some is facebook foolishness. Many people see politics as a source of entertainment. People enjoy rabble rousing, and getting their neighbor fired up. Not everything political is worth watching. Much of it is overwrought opinions, masquerading as informed commentary.
In 1941 Germany, there was radio, films, and newspapers. All were under the control of the government. Who knows what the average citizen thought? There were probably some who believed what they were told. There were some who played along to stay alive. In any event, it is highly unlikely that many people said “I am no longer watching the news or reading anything political.” What else were they going to watch?
Comparisons to Nazi Germany are a popular tactic in today’s discussions. What if the IANLW meme had used a different bit of history? “Oddly, that’s exactly what Russians said as they grew tired of watching farmers being starved and soldiers being purged by Stalin?” That was a very real horror, with millions of people killed. Of course, the state was assumed to control the press. It was a police state. What difference would the opinion of one person make? 1941 Germany was probably very similar. Except today, bashing commies is obsolete.
Maybe the best thing to do is to unfollow the perp, and move on. You should stay informed. You should also know that a great deal of what you are told is lies. It is tough to tell the difference. Lots of people want to get you upset about something. They do not always have your best interests in mind. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.