Posts by Tom Beard
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I'm not sure that "had have" is itself correct english. There are some suggestions that that "I would have" has influenced the invention of the incorrect & redundant "I had have", since the former is often contracted to "I'd have" and the "'d" could be a contraction for either would or had, so some people started re-expanding it to "I had have".
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would be "had have continued" or, even better, the simpler "had continued".
I agree that the latter is best, but it's interesting to see the evolution. It's not quite an Eggcorn, but I don't think it's a simple mistake either, since a mishearing is being pushed in the direction of a new meaning or construction.
First "had have" gets contracted to "had've", then someone mishears that as "had of" and writes it that way, and finally people start distinctly pronouncing the "of" rather than just eliding the vowel. It's not just that the spoken rules, but that the spoken and the written influence one another.
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But what will you do when teh ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE comes? You'll wish you'd scrubbed some potatoes then, let me tell you.
I believe I shall dine rather finely on BRAAAAAIIINNS! Crumbed and lightly panfried with celeriac remoulade, of course.
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Nonono. You clean them in the sink. You grow them in buckets. Or decent bags.
I neither grow nor clean potatoes. I order them as a side dish in the form of rosemary roast potatoes at Floriditas or pommes puree at Duke Carvell's No. 6 Swan Lane Emporium.
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I kinda wish that someone would spill the beans on you by saying that you grew up in Levin or something. Heh. :)
I didn't grow up, I sprung fully-formed from an attic above Lock & Co Hatters in St James', the result of an occult experiment involving a fez, a first edition of Les Fleurs du Mal and a quart of Tanqueray.
suburbanism (I think I just invented a word)
I prefer "suburbanality" myself.
I think it's reductive to assume that there's some kind of oppositional groupthink involved. There are plenty of suburbanites who get people to do things for them.
Oh of course, and I said as much in my last comment. My point is that for suburbanites the cult of DIY is an option, and one strongly encourage by New Zild culture (and other new world cultures), whereas for urbanites it is much more limited and much less expected. If you don't have a car or an outdoors, if a property manager looks after your apartment, and if you don't feel the need to rush off to the country and kill things every weekend, then virtually everything on PopMech's list is irrelevant to being "a man".
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Because none of that happens in the suburbs where all we rubes live?
I'm tempted to agree, but ... what I'm saying is that the emphasis of the suburban/rural Poular Mechanics model of handymanliness is on self-reliance and hands-on interaction with the physical world, rather than on interdependence and navigating the socioeconomic world: filleting a fish and painting the walls rather than knowing which restaurant has the freshest fish and choosing an artwork to decorate your home.
In fact, much of suburban life is (I am told) just as enmeshed in the globalised economy of specialised products and services as is urban life, and yet it often persists with a myth of rugged independence. Many people will happily call a tradesperson or order Pizza Hut, while occasionally proving their "real kiwi" credentials by having a barbecue or building a deck. The PopMech idealists perhaps share something with the "Good Life" strand of green lifestylers, tut-tutting over the modern softies who have to (gasp!) rely on other people for certain tasks rather than bleeding their own brakes or raising chooks.
Urban life doesn't give you the option: I'm hardly going to start growing potatoes in my sink, and if I tried to knock a wall through I'd get a stern letter from the body corporate. But I don't feel any less of a "man" for that, and I don't feel any pressure from ads for Supercheap Auto or Mitre 10 to confirm to some DIY mythology.
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Something I'm detecting about this thread. Might we be getting confused about what it is to be a towny? rather than urban manly.
Well, exactly. The whole Popular Mechanics assumption is based upon a rural/suburban lifestyle, which Hadyn has countered by suggesting that urban survival is based upon negotiating a landscape of social interactions, cultural symbolism and economic interdependence rather than a world of nuts and bolts. But somehow, the thread went quickly back to power tools.
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Try it like this: Placemakers and Miter10 are gentleman-shop for Ladies.
I'm not entirely sure where your analogy is going. There's still the underlying assumption that if you're a man, you're interested in carpentry and suchlike, and that is an assumption that I reject. Quite apart from the fact that such barns of blokiness are normally situated in godawful suburbs, the only real reason that a gentleman need visit such a place is for picture hooks.
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I find a lot of the actual items on the Popular Mechanics list annoying - the baseline assumption that to be a man, you must be a driver, for instance.
Hear hear!
But let's not quibble about the individual points: what they're basically getting at is the idea that you should be able to do stuff for yourself if you have to - that you shouldn't necessarily be dependent on someone else to get stuff done for you.
And why should that not apply equally to women?
But I think what they're stabbing at is that, in your own environment, you should be able to do stuff for yourself if you need to. And even for the most dedicated urban dandy, there are going to be times that you need to jury-rig something until you can get the professionals in.
Oh, of course. I've been known to improvise a cocktail shaker from old Maraschino cherry jars, add a fur collar to my dressing gown or translate the occasional passage of Rimbaud, just to make do in the absence of a professional bartender, tailor or Francophone.
Of course, three things are always manly:
1) Beards
2) Scars
3) TattoosThe third usually counts, unless it's of flowers and Art Nouveau ladies in flowing dresses. Ahem.
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Rake?? RAKE????
Sir, I demand satisfaction!
The I suggest you see Mr Savidge about your G-spot.