Huh. Never knew it was gendered. Always figured the one with “e” at the end was a British spelling. They’re always adding extra letters to words, like “colour” & “aluminium”.
See, I assumed it was also a British/American thing, but the other way around. I only ever see Blonde in most stuff here in the States, so I figured Blond was for across the pond.
RoyanRannedos
That’s a fascinating observation on gender roles over here: having a light hair color is mostly remarked on when referring to the blonde status of women, to the point that people don’t even see the masculine spelling.
Sorry what? The British are NOT adding letters to words thank you very much, Americans are removing them. And if you pronounce aluminium correctly you need all those letters in there.
flake
i mean the brits originally had those letters because of french, seems like fair game not to include them as language evolves. i just like the way it looks, which i believe is why the french added all those letters in the first place.
As for aluminium, alumium was apparently the original spelling; the same guy published both versions, adding the extra letters later because it sounded better. Which I tend to agree with, but correct seems like a strong word for “prettier”
Taffy
I’ll say “aluminium” when the container has the second “i” on it.
They’ve got a loom in ’em.
Whichever you used, it’s the other. It’s the linguistic equivalent of plugging in a USB drive.
Casi
but USB drives 3 orientations, the first and second tries are never right, and it’s only the third one that works. That’s why USBs are actually 4 dimensional objects. in this essay i will..
Andy
There is an air gap on one side of a USB connector, it faces the top of the motherboard.
That doesn’t seem like Becky’s style. By the time she’s done she might wish Becky had though. Either that or it’s accidentally going to be a hit best seller. One that says a whole bunch of stuff Robin doesn’t agree with.
Now that she’s out of Congress, I don’t think she cares about what the book says as long as it sells. She’s more likely to agree with Becky than anything.
anonymsly
Heck, if the book does well enough and she can remember what it says, maybe she’ll have a career renaissance on the opposite side. I don’t think Robin actually ever cared what she said.
Gendered language survives in all of the Romance Languages so I’d be careful on saying it’s stupid. Like, yeah I’d love if Spanish adopted back broadly the “e” that signals neutral pronouns, present in its origins. But, uh…….
Even leaving aside that all language interact and drink from each other, that’s always a little grating to hear from native English speakers.
It’s also just a really boring way to think about languages.
“This language is annoying and irrational” discussions never fail to produce zero compelling points for an unprejudiced listener while actual curiosity in linguistic history is an open door onto a boundless ecosystem of interwoven insights about history, semantics, cultures, art, sciences, myths and you name it.
Dante
Etymology is so fucking fascinating! I admittedly don’t get people who’ve never wondered “hey but why do these two words look alike? Where does this one come from?”, and I swear it’s not the ’tism flexing. It’s about being curious about the world! And even if someone can’t because idk, it’s not in them, or their interests 1000% lie elsewhere…
It wouldn’t kill anyone to be more respectful of other people’s cultures.
It’s even worse: brunette is gendered the same way technically. A brown-haired male is technically brunet, women are brunette. Weirdly I realized thus when I noticed only women are referred to as brunette, while men are brown-haired.
Has it ever been explained why black-haired people are also called brunette?
anonymsly
Not to me! Especially since it makes no sense. Sorry!
eh, whatever
They’re not.
Taffy
They’re called that because the person calling them that is a dope.
Dante
Hewwo :3 According to etymology, y’all got that one from the way of Normans influencing Old English. “Brun” means “Brown” in French, which makes sense because:
1- Black hair isn’t totally pitch black, and other peoples in the past perceived colors differently than us.
2- It also means “olive”, and it comes from the same Mediterranean idea of human features as “olive skin”.
Same as with “blond”/”blonde”; us who learn English as a second language (and are subjected to perform it to way harder standards that native speakers in practice lest we’re thought savage Latinos, have you ever seen us being all “forgive my dismal English, I beg you, for it’s embarrassing and badly constructed”?), we’re also taught to write it as “brunet”/”brunette”.
thejeff
It’s interesting that black hair doesn’t get a word to describe it – like blond or brunette. Or ginger, maybe? Not sure if that’s the same class of word or if it developed as a slur.
Ironically, while “stupid” comes to English by way of French, “fucking” is Germanic. I think that means that only a German/French hybrid language like ours can have such fucking stupidity in it.
Actually as a french speaker i will occasionally borrow “fucking” in colloquial french for emphasis and quirkiness, and thus may also call something (or someone) “fucking stupide”. Or perhaps this adverb may spill out to lend an unexpected twist to a pile-up of expletives, such as, “mais c’est tellement putain de bordel de fucking stupide de ses morts”. Cathartic and classy!
does it even sound diff out loud compared to text? i had one teacher that was uptight about being called Miss versus Ms. even tho most ppl speaking, it sounded more or less the same even tho there’s tech a slight distinct way of saying it sometimes but you could barely hear it (tho i’m surprised more ppl didn’t just say ‘ma’am’ since we were in the south but she was fine with us saying just her last name versus Ms. Name)
This still is about the level of ridiculousness to be expected of Robin when she’s having fun at his expense, or to see if he’ll stop being a doormat. Let’s check back during the next chapter to see how cross she actually is when he hasn’t written a whole fucking textbook in 24 hours. Maybe she has had a psychotic break and isn’t just a goofball, messing with him.
Daibhid C
Maybe the entire class is a gag nobody’s getting, and as soon as someone says “Is this just a bit you’re doing?” she’ll say “Yes, well, spotted, lets have an actual Pol Sci class now.”
Man, it’s a shame nobody said that during her actual political career, so she could drop the whole bit there.
155 thoughts on “Filler”
NGPZ
Daffy Duck, eat your heart out -_-
Ana Chronistic
“no they do NOT get a complimentary author’s copy”
…
“unless they want an ebook, which will not be valid for class”
IntangibleMatter
(later) “…why does our textbook have so much lesbian romance?”
Thag Simmons
Jason you might have better off at the bar.
Thag Simmons
this was not meant as a reply
Decidedly Orthogonal
But depending on the bar, it works very well as one! ?
jeffepp
Surprisingly, most of that was written by Dottie. OK, not that surprising.
Thag Simmons
It wouldn’t be surprising coming from Robin either
Needfuldoer
Dorothy writes a book about how the government is supposed to work in theory.
Becky re-writes Dorothy’s book to make it sound more like Robin.
If Robin bothers to read any of Dorothy and Becky’s book, she’ll laugh her head off and tell them how it works in practice.
anon
Every textbook should have more lesbian romance, just ’cause 8D;
ian livs
As a writer, I’ve made the decision to ignore the gendered nature of “blond/e” because I got too annoyed having to think about it (half-joking)
Thag Simmons
They aren’t even pronounced differently.
Rowen Morland
That’s why we have a third spelling for pronouncing the E.
eh, whatever
They are in the original French: the last letter of each is silent…
keithcurtis
Unless you are singing, in which case French often voices a silent vowel: “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques…”
Cholma
Huh. Never knew it was gendered. Always figured the one with “e” at the end was a British spelling. They’re always adding extra letters to words, like “colour” & “aluminium”.
Dara
As with so many things, it’s Because French.
Azhrei Vep
See, I assumed it was also a British/American thing, but the other way around. I only ever see Blonde in most stuff here in the States, so I figured Blond was for across the pond.
RoyanRannedos
That’s a fascinating observation on gender roles over here: having a light hair color is mostly remarked on when referring to the blonde status of women, to the point that people don’t even see the masculine spelling.
ktbear
Sorry what? The British are NOT adding letters to words thank you very much, Americans are removing them. And if you pronounce aluminium correctly you need all those letters in there.
flake
i mean the brits originally had those letters because of french, seems like fair game not to include them as language evolves. i just like the way it looks, which i believe is why the french added all those letters in the first place.
As for aluminium, alumium was apparently the original spelling; the same guy published both versions, adding the extra letters later because it sounded better. Which I tend to agree with, but correct seems like a strong word for “prettier”
Taffy
I’ll say “aluminium” when the container has the second “i” on it.
They’ve got a loom in ’em.
HueSatLight
which one is for ale and which one is for wood finish?
TJ
Whichever you used, it’s the other. It’s the linguistic equivalent of plugging in a USB drive.
Casi
but USB drives 3 orientations, the first and second tries are never right, and it’s only the third one that works. That’s why USBs are actually 4 dimensional objects. in this essay i will..
Andy
There is an air gap on one side of a USB connector, it faces the top of the motherboard.
LiamKav
I didn’t realise blond/e was a thing until literally this strip. The things you learn.
I do know the difference between whisky/whiskey though.
Ana Chronistic
now do macaron/macaroon
Azhrei Vep
Wait … Blond/Blonde is a gendered thing? I always assumed that was an American/British English thing or something. Huh.
nicoleandmaggie
I was really impressed by its use here!
Sirksome
I feel like maybe profiting off your students unpaid labor breaks some sort of rule or law but I’m not sure on that.
Jamie
It’s okay. I’m sure they’ll pass whatever bill is necessary to make school more similar to prison.
clif
If you’re not profiting off of your students, then how do you know you’re teaching them enough to be useful.
Who’s going to learn more, the student that writes your textbook or the one that doesn’t?
Smallmoon
Tell that to the pre-2021 NCAA.
Oh wait. I have to make that distinction because someone did. 😛
M!a
It’s no different from corporations profiting from the unpaid labor of their slaves…
…oh. Interns, apparently. Sorry.
Schpoonman
Thank you.
Icalasari
Robin. Stop. Please.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
You should take a stress pill and think things over.
Derek
I hope Becky tells Robin to fuck off
Proxiehunter
That doesn’t seem like Becky’s style. By the time she’s done she might wish Becky had though. Either that or it’s accidentally going to be a hit best seller. One that says a whole bunch of stuff Robin doesn’t agree with.
Jed!
Now that she’s out of Congress, I don’t think she cares about what the book says as long as it sells. She’s more likely to agree with Becky than anything.
anonymsly
Heck, if the book does well enough and she can remember what it says, maybe she’ll have a career renaissance on the opposite side. I don’t think Robin actually ever cared what she said.
anon
i’d expect her to do puppy dog eyes again and be like ‘give us all free A’s?’
or jason can talk to sarah and she can semi-threaten to sue that she’s abusing her power or whatever lol
Amós Batista
Shit, Robin should ask only Dorothy. Becky? She’s poor.
Armadillo
Never heard about blonde being gendered before today. Gonna ignore it forever now because that’s fucking stupid.
IntangibleMatter
We took it from Fr*nch. And like most things we took from Fr*nch, yes it is extremely fucking stupid
Dara
Remember, “At Least It’s Not From Latin,” because at least the French brought eight declension classes down to two.
Spacie
That be yhe French, Latin based, inventors of mayonnaise.
Eric
At least the Normans passed along the French ‘s’ for plurals – mouse/mice, tooth/teeth, child/children, etc. . . are all from Old English
Dante
Gendered language survives in all of the Romance Languages so I’d be careful on saying it’s stupid. Like, yeah I’d love if Spanish adopted back broadly the “e” that signals neutral pronouns, present in its origins. But, uh…….
Even leaving aside that all language interact and drink from each other, that’s always a little grating to hear from native English speakers.
milu
It’s also just a really boring way to think about languages.
“This language is annoying and irrational” discussions never fail to produce zero compelling points for an unprejudiced listener while actual curiosity in linguistic history is an open door onto a boundless ecosystem of interwoven insights about history, semantics, cultures, art, sciences, myths and you name it.
Dante
Etymology is so fucking fascinating! I admittedly don’t get people who’ve never wondered “hey but why do these two words look alike? Where does this one come from?”, and I swear it’s not the ’tism flexing. It’s about being curious about the world! And even if someone can’t because idk, it’s not in them, or their interests 1000% lie elsewhere…
It wouldn’t kill anyone to be more respectful of other people’s cultures.
Jo_cubstar
I hadn’t heard that before, either. I always assumed one was the Canadian spelling and the other the American
Imogen
The gendered thing is on its way out. “Blonde” is more often used as a noun, though.
anonymsly
It’s even worse: brunette is gendered the same way technically. A brown-haired male is technically brunet, women are brunette. Weirdly I realized thus when I noticed only women are referred to as brunette, while men are brown-haired.
Nono
Has it ever been explained why black-haired people are also called brunette?
anonymsly
Not to me! Especially since it makes no sense. Sorry!
eh, whatever
They’re not.
Taffy
They’re called that because the person calling them that is a dope.
Dante
Hewwo :3 According to etymology, y’all got that one from the way of Normans influencing Old English. “Brun” means “Brown” in French, which makes sense because:
1- Black hair isn’t totally pitch black, and other peoples in the past perceived colors differently than us.
2- It also means “olive”, and it comes from the same Mediterranean idea of human features as “olive skin”.
Same as with “blond”/”blonde”; us who learn English as a second language
(and are subjected to perform it to way harder standards that native speakers in practice lest we’re thought savage Latinos, have you ever seen us being all “forgive my dismal English, I beg you, for it’s embarrassing and badly constructed”?),we’re also taught to write it as “brunet”/”brunette”.thejeff
It’s interesting that black hair doesn’t get a word to describe it – like blond or brunette. Or ginger, maybe? Not sure if that’s the same class of word or if it developed as a slur.
Reltzik
Ironically, while “stupid” comes to English by way of French, “fucking” is Germanic. I think that means that only a German/French hybrid language like ours can have such fucking stupidity in it.
milu
Actually as a french speaker i will occasionally borrow “fucking” in colloquial french for emphasis and quirkiness, and thus may also call something (or someone) “fucking stupide”. Or perhaps this adverb may spill out to lend an unexpected twist to a pile-up of expletives, such as, “mais c’est tellement putain de bordel de fucking stupide de ses morts”. Cathartic and classy!
anon
does it even sound diff out loud compared to text? i had one teacher that was uptight about being called Miss versus Ms. even tho most ppl speaking, it sounded more or less the same even tho there’s tech a slight distinct way of saying it sometimes but you could barely hear it (tho i’m surprised more ppl didn’t just say ‘ma’am’ since we were in the south but she was fine with us saying just her last name versus Ms. Name)
RassilonTDavros
Becky and Dorothy Perform an Unpaid Ghostwrite: a Dumbing of Age Pat-Leeque
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Ghostwrite is the name of my next supervillain identity. Kinda like the Spellbinder from The Electric Company.
HueSatLight
still feels like she’s committing to a bit when it went over Jason’s head.
Jeremiah
Nah, this is about the level of ridiculousness to be expected of Robin for it to be serious. At least until she gets distracted and forget about it.
HueSatLight
This still is about the level of ridiculousness to be expected of Robin when she’s having fun at his expense, or to see if he’ll stop being a doormat. Let’s check back during the next chapter to see how cross she actually is when he hasn’t written a whole fucking textbook in 24 hours. Maybe she has had a psychotic break and isn’t just a goofball, messing with him.
Daibhid C
Maybe the entire class is a gag nobody’s getting, and as soon as someone says “Is this just a bit you’re doing?” she’ll say “Yes, well, spotted, lets have an actual Pol Sci class now.”
Man, it’s a shame nobody said that during her actual political career, so she could drop the whole bit there.