spatz | (no subject)

The Colloquialism Meme

Age: 16

Where did you grow up?: Austin, Texas

What do you call ...

1. a body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks?

A creek.

2. the thing you push around the grocery store?

Shopping cart.

3. a metal container to carry a meal in?

Lunchbox.

4. the thing that you cook bacon and eggs in?

Frying pan.

5. the piece of furniture that seats three people?

Sofa

6. the device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof?

Gutters.

7. the covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening?

Screened-in porch, to differentiate it to the back porch, which is really a deck...

8. carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?

Coke. It's all called Coke down here.

9. a flat, round breakfast food served with syrup?

Pancakes

10. a long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself?

A sub.

11. the piece of clothing worn by men at the beach?

Speedos for the spandex atrocities, swim suits for the baggy kind.

12. shoes worn for sports?

Tennis shoes (or "tennies") regardless of the sport, unless they're specifically cleats.

13. putting a room in order?

Cleaning.

14. a flying insect that glows in the dark?

Firefly.

15. the little insect that curls up into a ball?

Roly-poly. Doodlebug is also fun, but not as instinctual.

16. the children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down?

See-saw.

17. how do you eat your pizza?

From the pointy end to the crust, then the crust is eaten from the short end across.

18. the act of private citizens putting up signs and selling their used stuff?

Garage sale.

19. the evening meal?

Dinner, though my granny still calls it supper.

20. the thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?

Basement, though no one here has them, really, because the soil is crappy for that.

*****

The other day in my creative writing class, we were working on poetry, so we did that exercise that all teachers surely have done at one time or another: screw up a classic bit of poetry as simply as possible. Points for only punctuation changes, and for as few words as possible. My favorites (try reading out loud; it sounds more appalling that way):

The Iliad, from one of those long introductory lists that Homer loved to do:
"then Achilles, who we knew"
became
"then Achilles. Who knew?"

and one of mine, from Poe's Annabelle Lee:
"But we loved with a love that was more than love"
became
"But we loved with a love that was more than like"

*****

I finally figured out a good reason to dislike Max in Dark Angel S2 so much (not that you need much of an excuse, with all the whining she does): Rogue, from X-Men, couldn't touch anyone for the rest of her life, and here Max is, letting her relationship, which was based on love of more than Logan's physicality, get ruined and angsty by a temporary little virus. Pffft.

I don't think I'll be buying the S2 DVD after all. Unless Alec is persuasive enough...

*****
ETA: Yet another meme. All memes ~~blamed on~~ courtesy of

bexless.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME
1 – Death by falling a long way, and knowing all the way down
2 – Something damaging my brain. Hence the no-drugs rule.
3 – Bush

THREE THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND
1 – Physics. Blech.
2 – Bathroom humor. Why is that stuff funny?
3 – The Pixar people, those crazy guys

THREE THINGS I'D LIKE TO LEARN
1 – Shorthand
2 – Lock-picking
3 – Fire-twirling

THREE THINGS I AM WEARING RIGHT NOW
1 – A black shirt
2 – The vintage skirt I wore to school, which has strips of pattern on black: yellow diamonds, then little doodly things that look like stylized cornstalks, then vertical stripes in red, orange, yellow, brown, and khaki. It looks cool, anyway.
3 – My forest-green robe that is ancient and too small, but beloved.

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK
1 – My agenda book
2 – My bookshelf
3 – A white stone coaster

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE
1 – Travel around the world
2 – Fall in love
3 – Write a book

THREE WAYS TO DESCRIBE MY PERSONALITY
1 – Wry
2 – Mercurial
3 – Meticulous

THREE BAD THINGS ABOUT MY PERSONALITY
1 – Horrible, cruel temper
2 – Impatience
3 – Procrastination

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE
1 – Ireland
2 – Scotland
3 – Supposedly I'm part Cherokee, but that may be a myth

THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
1 – My mouth
2 – My wrists
3 – My eyes

THREE THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
1 – My chin
2 – My inner thighs
3 – My knees

THREE THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU
1 – I have had three ear surgeries
2 – I hate the Foundation books, and it irritates me so much that everyone fawns over them as SF's greatest series
3 – I have a mole in the same place (just above my ear, under the hair) as my twin sister

THREE THINGS I SAY THE MOST
1 – Oh my god!
2 – Y'know?
3 – Ya'll

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO
1 – New Zealand
2 – Yellowstone National Park
3 – Hawaii

THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY
1 – Kate (only Dad calls me this instead of Katie)
2 – Vali, from ValiantAngel; my first online name
3 – Twin, by my soccer team when they can't tell ;)