I am not a Merry Man! @retrofires - Tumblr Blog

it’s sooo funny when rude customers encounter employees who can deny them service for the first time.

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

And he was so astonished he didn’t even argue he just turned around and left 💀🙏🏻 it was like he suddenly became self aware

carolinalaurel

One summer I was running ferry rides across a lake so people could see the waterfalls without walking 6 miles when a guy snapped my bra strap as he was boarding the boat. So i immediately threw him off, he started yelling for my manager, my boss cheerfully informed him that, yeah, she’s the captain of the boat and she can kick off anyone she wants. He goes to storm off, looks expectantly at his girlfriend, and she just goes, “Well, I’M not walking six miles, Michael! I’ll meet you back at the car!” and sits right back down!!!!

The expression on his face when he was told that he couldn’t get on the boat, then immediately told that his girlfriend was ditching him? PRICELESS. he just blinked at her and then stormed off like a child. I gave her a free hat and was like maybe rethink this relationship…….

hickeywiththegoodhair

i once had this fucker come up to order a beer. while i pour it he shows me the wanky fucking chemical structure tattoo on his arm and he’s like “hey. you know what this is” i was like “nah sorry” (never cared abt chemistry in school, plus having to look at a some rando’s pretentious tattoo gives me the douche chills). he decides to respond with “heh. you must not read many books”

i immediately stop pouring his beer. i reply: “heh. you must not want this beer.” thirsty boy immediately starts groveling like a worm “please please no i do want the beer im sorry im sorry” believe me when i say it was one of the most pathetic things ive ever witnessed

lezbadeez

gotta love people immediately backpedaling when they realise that there are Consequences To Being Mean

lastvalyrian

I genuinely believe that part of why it has become so normalized to be openly callous and evil in politics is that customer service culture has trained affluent people that they can treat everyone they consider beneath them however they want and still be treated kindly.

spankerella

@ perfectunion

massachusetts-official

Official Post of Massachusetts

specialagentartemis

Aro and ace activism is housing reform, is well-funded public housing, is an expansion of affordable housing, is allowing single people to get affordable and public housing, is rent controls to make it possible for single people to be able to afford to live alone on a single salary.

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

Aro and ace activism means a better world for people without “normative” desires or “normative” social support, which means a better world for everybody

specialagentartemis

#isn't this just aro activism? like op is right but this is like. about relationships

Quick question do you think ace people don’t have a complicated relationship to relationships. Do you think ace people don’t have a significant incentive to not tie basic quality of life things to having a partner and children. Do you think ace people are respected by doctors or society.

hope-for-the-planet

The energy-efficient desalination system produces fresh water without chemical additives and transforms leftover salts into useful materials

Desalination is the process of generating freshwater from brackish or saltwater, usually through the process of reverse osmosis. While this can be a very useful tool in water shortages, it also has some pretty huge drawbacks--reverse osmosis requires a lot of energy, requires chemical treatment of the water, and produces concentrated brine as a waste product which can be harmful to aquatic ecosystems.

Researchers have recently discovered a new way to perform desalination using solar energy, which doesn't require chemical inputs and collects waste salt instead of producing brine. Concentrating the waste salt in a solid form instead of brine means that it can later be processed to extract valuable minerals like lithium.

covid-safer-hotties

ANALYSIS: As a community, we talk a good talk about keeping each other safe, so why aren’t we doing it now?

sometiktoksarevalid

purlturtle

ansixilus

You're right and you should say it.

heaveninawildflower

June page taken from ‘Through the Year with Birds and Poets.’

Poetry compilation by Sarah Williams.

Published 1900 by Boston, Lee and Shepard.

The Library of Congress Wikimedia.

teaboot

My mom likes to tell me about how when I was a little kid riding public transport with her I'd always smile and giggle and chat with weird old ladies who smelled like cat pee and homeless folks and strangers dressed in bizarre outfits but any time a tidy and respectable businessman in a suit and tie waved at me I'd immediately clam up, and she takes a great deal of pride in my supposed inherentability to clock personalities but the truth is I do vaguely remember those bus rides, and it was never about the clothes or the hair or the smell, but more because everyone "strange" asked interesting questions and listened to what I had to say and seemed to think about what I said while the neat and tidy and rigid folks only ever acted like they were going through the motions, which was boring as hell and also pretty annoying

teaboot

Well-to-do finance manager with tidy shoes: "Why hello, sweetheart. Can you say 'hi'? Aren't you cute. Are you on a trip with your mom?"

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"

4 year old me, suddenly paying attention: Finally, A Person Of Intellect

svdcvnt

Everything I’ve Ever Let Go Of Has Claw Marks On It

Artist: David Altmejd

optical-trapping

thatlavendergremlin

A reminder that this tumblr is not a safe place for any kind of bigotry.

You'll never be "too gay",

And be unapologetically queer 🏳️‍🌈

chxrry-bombs

5 Tiny Writing Tips That Aren’t Talked About Enough (but work for me)

These are some lowkey underrated tips I’ve seen floating around writing communities — the kind that don’t get flashy attention but seriously changed how I write.

1. Put “he/she/they” at the start of the sentence less often.

Try switching up your sentence rhythm. Instead of

“She walked to the window,”

try

“The window creaked open under her touch.”

Keeps it fresh and stops the paragraph from sounding like a checklist.

2. Don’t describe everything — describe what matters.

Instead of listing every detail in a room, pick 2–3 objects that say something.

“A half-drunk mug of tea and a knife on the table”

sets a way stronger tone than

“There was a wooden table, two chairs, and a shelf.”

3. Use beats instead of dialogue tags sometimes.

Instead of:

"I'm fine," she said.

Try:

"I'm fine." She wiped her hands on her skirt.

It helps shows emotion, and movement.

4. Write your first draft like no one will ever read it.

No pressure. No perfection. Just vibes. The point of draft one is to exist. Let it be messy and weird — future you will thank you for at least something to edit.

5. When stuck, ask: “What’s the most fun thing that could happen next?”

Not logical. Not realistic. FUN. It doesn’t have to stay — but chasing excitement can blast through writer’s block and give you ideas you actually want to write.

What’s a tip that unexpectedly helped with your writing? Let me know!! 🍒

luckykittycolor

neon-radish

Guys I think I know how a plasma gun works now

idislikethissite

Shinzo abe kind of mechanism

millionsknives

can you curry anything else or is it just favor

millionsknives

tim

sufficientlylargen

So "currying" a furry animal means grooming or brushing it with a currycomb, which in turn comes from the Old French correier meaning "to prepare [something]", because you prepare a horse for riding by brushing it; it's most commonly applied to horses but you can get e.g. currycombs for dogs.

If I understand correctly, medieval French folk tales considered chestnut-colored horses to be deceitful and tricky; the Old French word for a chestnut or dun horse was fauvel, and so the Old French expression correier fauvel, literally "to brush the chestnut horse", meant lying or being hypocritical for personal gain. This turned into "curry favel" in 15th-century English, and then mutated into "curry favor" over the next few centuries as people forgot about the horse.

So "currying favor" is really "brushing the Horse of Lies", and the reason you can't curry goodwill, or love, or hatred, or even disfavor is that we didn't have Horses for those.

And it follows that we can gain the ability to curry other things by assigning them to Horses.

sufficientlylargen

#google is backing you up on this (via @oldguardians)

I realize, looking back on this post, that regular readers of my blog may have thought I made this up. Making up a ridiculous etymology is certainly the sort of thing I might do; in fact I've been meaning to start a sideblog dedicated solely to sufficiently accurate etymologies, and have a notebook with dozens of them jotted down, I just haven't had the time to do anything with them.

But I want to stress that this is not one of those cases. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the very real etymology of the phrase "curry favor".

The Old French fauve or falve referred to the light-brown color that's sometimes called "fallow" in modern English, but since it also sounded similar to faux, meaning "false", it was also associated with deceit and trickery ; the idiom estriller Fauvel literally meant "to groom the fallow one" but idiomatically meant "to lie or trick people".

Then in the 1300s we get the French poem Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem about a fauve horse, whose name is derived both from the color and from the fact that FAVVEL is an acronym of Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varieté, Envie, Lascheté (Flattery, Greed, Vileness, Fickleness, Envy, and Cowardice) - all the different vices that this horse embodies.

Fauvel (purportedly modeled after Enguerrand de Marigny [source], an advisor to King Philip IV) is a sinful, conniving, and very rich horse who has various religious and secular leaders fawning over him and brushing him; it was well-known enough that "grooming Fauvel" came to mean "sucking up to someone powerful" more than just "being evil", and when it was translated into English the grooming was translated as currying, which specifically is grooming a horse with a curry comb [wiktionary]. From this we got the Middle English expression "currying Fauvel", which then mutated via folk etymology (in the "reinterpretation of unfamiliar words as more familiar ones" sense, not the "people are wrong about etymology" sense) into "currying favor".

Curry favor in:

Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry_favor

Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curry%20favor

Etymonline: https://www.etymonline.com/word/curry

luminarygardens

@elodieunderglass

elodieunderglass

Absolutely in line with my interests. I hope you appreciate @sufficientlylargen as much as we all should ❤️

counting-horses

These posts contain 195 horses (43.2% of the post)

🐎 @millionsknives

can you curry anything else or is it just favor

🐎 @millionsknives

tim

🥕 @sufficientlylargen

So "currying" a furry animal means grooming or brushing it with a currycomb, which in turn comes from the Old French correier meaning "to prepare [something]", because you prepare a horse for riding by brushing it; it's most commonly applied to horses but you can get e.g. currycombs for dogs.

If I understand correctly, medieval French folk tales considered chestnut-colored horses to be deceitful and tricky; the Old French word for a chestnut or dun horse was fauvel, and so the Old French expression correier fauvel, literally "to brush the chestnut horse", meant lying or being hypocritical for personal gain. This turned into "curry favel" in 15th-century English, and then mutated into "curry favor" over the next few centuries as people forgot about the horse.

So "currying favor" is really "brushing the Horse of Lies", and the reason you can't curry goodwill, or love, or hatred, or even disfavor is that we didn't have Horses for those.

And it follows that we can gain the ability to curry other things by assigning them to Horses.

🥕 @sufficientlylargen

#google is backing you up on this (via @oldguardians)

I realize, looking back on this post, that regular readers of my blog may have thought I made this up. Making up a ridiculous etymology is certainly the sort of thing I might do; in fact I've been meaning to start a sideblog dedicated solely to sufficiently accurate etymologies, and have a notebook with dozens of them jotted down, I just haven't had the time to do anything with them.

But I want to stress that this is not one of those cases. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the very real etymology of the phrase "curry favor".

The Old French fauve or falve referred to the light-brown color that's sometimes called "fallow" in modern English, but since it also sounded similar to faux, meaning "false", it was also associated with deceit and trickery ; the idiom estriller Fauvel literally meant "to groom the fallow one" but idiomatically meant "to lie or trick people".

Then in the 1300s we get the French poem Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem about a fauve horse, whose name is derived both from the color and from the fact that FAVVEL is an acronym of Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varieté, Envie, Lascheté (Flattery, Greed, Vileness, Fickleness, Envy, and Cowardice) - all the different vices that this horse embodies.

Fauvel (purportedly modeled after Enguerrand de Marigny [source], an advisor to King Philip IV) is a sinful, conniving, and very rich horse who has various religious and secular leaders fawning over him and brushing him; it was well-known enough that "grooming Fauvel" came to mean "sucking up to someone powerful" more than just "being evil", and when it was translated into English the grooming was translated as currying, which specifically is grooming a horse with a curry comb [wiktionary]. From this we got the Middle English expression "currying Fauvel", which then mutated via folk etymology (in the "reinterpretation of unfamiliar words as more familiar ones" sense, not the "people are wrong about etymology" sense) into "currying favor".

Curry favor in:

Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry_favor

Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curry%20favor

Etymonline: https://www.etymonline.com/word/curry

♞ @luminarygardens

@elodieunderglass

🥕 @elodieunderglass

Absolutely in line with my interests. I hope you appreciate @sufficientlylargen as much as we all should ❤️

Posts are selected by humans, processed automatically and queued to post. Click the link for more information about each horse. You can send a link or text to be counted to my ask box.

moghedien

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

moghedien

Here he is, the Aldi Cowboy

jv

I hope the cowboy also mentions burgers at some point.

(also, you don't have to put coins in your shopping carts in other supermarkets??)

paperairplanemob

No, we expect people to return the carts to their place out of the goodness of their hearts.

It works about as well as you expect.

There are cart returns throughout the parking lot, and I’d say about 80% of people return them there or back to the store. This still requires an employee to go and fetch the carts every so often (sometimes with a motorized cart pusher so that they can get the whole group), and that last 20% is also just scattered around the lot waiting for someone to fetch it and taking up parking spaces in the meantime.

(Side note: Lidl has also shown up in my town. They do the American-style cart returns, but (at least at first) I saw the part on the cart where they clearly decided not to do the quarter deposit.)

Aldi and Lidl also charge for bags. That was weird at first, but it’s becoming more common.

jv

Well, let me tell the coin gimmick doesn't really help much. Actually I know people that have small gizmos to be able to get their coin back without having to take the cart back to the cart parking area.

So with a heavy heart I must say: USians, you win on this one.

(I'm sure in germany and in the less-fun parts of europe the coin thing works great and everyone put the carts neatly ordered in their proper place, though)

d0n-d13g0

USA NUMERO UNO CAMPEON MUNDIAL EN CARRITOS DE COMPRAS 😤

ralfmaximus

There is also a phenomenon where people without cars who buy a week's worth of groceries will just push the shopping cart all the way home.

Resulting in small herds of shopping carts outside of apartment complexes.

Sure, it's theft. But can you blame them? It sucks not to have a car in the US. We should fix that problem, instead of what grocery stores are now implementing: geo-locking carts to their parking lot via 'smart' wheel hubs.