Author Topic: Looking for a word  (Read 7780 times)

Offline Paynesgrey

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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #15 on: September 11, 2007, 01:23:37 AM »
"Vanilla"?

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #16 on: September 11, 2007, 06:30:44 PM »
I'm using "laity" in the one of my projects where it's relevant.  Because I've grumped quite a bit about the distinction between "layman" (not a scientist) and "lay person" (not clergy) in contemporary English, so the temptation to make the confusion even worse in that fictional universe is not resistable.
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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #17 on: September 11, 2007, 06:32:36 PM »
"Vanilla"?

Ready salted.

(I come from family that refers to icecream as ready-salted and crisps/chips as vanilla).
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

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Offline Shecky

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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2007, 06:39:02 PM »
Ready salted.

(I come from family that refers to icecream as ready-salted and crisps/chips as vanilla).

Er... what?
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #19 on: September 12, 2007, 03:27:58 PM »
Er... what?

OK, maybe this is a Hyperborea*-specific thing.  Where I grew up, vanilla was your basic standard ice-cream flavour, what you got if you asked for ice-cream and did not specify; likewise, if you asked for crisps - the things USAns call chips, but what we call chips USAns call fries - without specifying what flavour, the default is ready-salted.  Hence a mildly silly family like mine would swap the two around.

There is an unhelpful failure mode here where someone is asked what sort of sugar they want and says "vanilla", meaning normal plain sugar (as opposed to, say, icing sugar) and goes to the cupboard and finds the jar of sugar with the vanilla pods in which is actively vanilla-flavoured sugar and not necessarily the same thing.

The bit about "chocolate and strawberry and vanilla" in Good Omens is an accurate represetation of Hyperborean life as of a couple of decades ago.

*Yes, if you want a name covering both Britain and Ireland with no political subtext whatsoever, you have to go back as far as Strabo.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2007, 03:37:08 PM by neurovore »
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

kittensgame, Sandcastle Builder, Homestuck, Welcome to Night Vale, Civ III, lots of print genre SF, and old-school SATT gaming if I had the time.  Also Pandemic Legacy is the best game ever.

Offline Shecky

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Re: Looking for a word
« Reply #20 on: September 12, 2007, 03:31:07 PM »
(Apropos of nothing, I thought Hyperborea, shorn of the quasi-mythical ancient-Roman context, referred to Scotland...)

I see what you mean - a meta-inside joke. ;D

And I am a long-time fan of Good Omens; Adam and his gang trying to figure out all the flavors of ice cream was hysterical!
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Well, if you couldn't do that with your bulls***, Leonard, I suspect the lad's impervious.