Philosophy Now Forum

Dalek Prime wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:I just told you. Plurals are unfiltered, and so is singular shit. Cunts. Pricks. Shit, or shits.

Oy, no one ever bothers reading here. Are my sentences overly long or something?

It ought not to have escaped your notice, but I was not responding to you yet.

No. You weren't responding to me. But you carried on in the same vein, after I explained it. Rather pointless.

There is no law that I have to respond to, or even read all the posts in a thread? I can show you examples of where you have failed.

Whatever.

I'm probably retentive or something, but I'm still bothered less (well, not at all, really) by cunts, and (only a little) by the hypothetical comedic exploitation of a test that's usually marked as multiple choice, where I'm pretty sure those answers would have come way lower in the alphabet than is usually represented in IQ tests, than by the phrase "a lump of wood." Wood doesn't come in lumps, ffs! Coal, or clay, or rotting flesh, okay... not wood.

The lump of wood might simply be a linguistic quirk of culture, skip, but it is a term widely used in my country. It's not a technical term that a carpenter might use but it's certainly commonly used in the vernacular to describe any indeterminate wooden object. A lump of wood could be used to prop a door open, for instance, and a lump of wood is invariably the weapon of choice with which to belt some arsehole over the head.

It hurts my ear. It hurts my mind's eye, too, trying to picture a tuberous, misshapen thing, instead of a log or plank or stick or kindling or branch or board or 2x4. We hit people with 2x4's - even when they're actually 1.5" by 3". The guys just below us hit one another with baseball bats. Either will do the job, but the latter is easier to grip and doesn't leave slivers in your palm. Chalk one up for bob evenson's jingoism.

Skip wrote:I'm probably retentive or something, but I'm still bothered less (well, not at all, really) by cunts, and (only a little) by the hypothetical comedic exploitation of a test that's usually marked as multiple choice, where I'm pretty sure those answers would have come way lower in the alphabet than is usually represented in IQ tests, than by the phrase "a lump of wood." Wood doesn't come in lumps, ffs! Coal, or clay, or rotting flesh, okay... not wood.

Wood can be describes as lumps. Blocks is too formal. We always put lumps of wood in the fire before the coal when I were a lad.

Skip wrote:It hurts my ear. It hurts my mind's eye, too, trying to picture a tuberous, misshapen thing, instead of a log or plank or stick or kindling or branch or board or 2x4. We hit people with 2x4's - even when they're actually 1.5" by 3". The guys just below us hit one another with baseball bats. Either will do the job, but the latter is easier to grip and doesn't leave slivers in your palm. Chalk one up for bob evenson's jingoism.

You've obviously never had to rely on wood for heating. Sawn or planed wood tends to be blocks used for carpentry. Lumps you put in the fire-place.

We use slabs of maple from a lumber-mill. It's sawn into lengths of approximately 18", more or less - some considerably longer and will need to be cut to fit into the stove. The thickness varies from a sliver to a honking great half-log (They're good for the foundation of a stack but will also need cutting up) and the bark side is convex, while the other side or sides are flat where it's been split along the grain. (You should see the splitter they use! Grand machine.) For starters, we use a squared-off slab either side of a pile of balled up paper and a teepee of the small shards I pick up and bag after the main pile is gone, or split the narrow planks into kindling with a hand axe on a hunk of up-ended log. (My mother lost the tip of her index finger doing that - it's the first sight of blood I ever recall.) The odd piece may have large knots or protuberances where a canker has been cut out: these may be loosely described as lumpy and are the most likely candidates for woodworking projects. I rescued half a dozen such pieces from the two truckloads of firewood we almost finished wheelbarrowing into the woodshed and stacking, in the three dry days before it started to rain again last night. My back is aching like hell, and I hate the buggers, but I still don't see them as lumpy.

Skip wrote:We use slabs of maple from a lumber-mill. It's sawn into lengths of approximately 18", more or less - some considerably longer and will need to be cut to fit into the stove. The thickness varies from a sliver to a honking great half-log (They're good for the foundation of a stack but will also need cutting up) and the bark side is convex, while the other side or sides are flat where it's been split along the grain. (You should see the splitter they use! Grand machine.) For starters, we use a squared-off slab either side of a pile of balled up paper and a teepee of the small shards I pick up and bag after the main pile is gone, or split the narrow planks into kindling with a hand axe on a hunk of up-ended log. (My mother lost the tip of her index finger doing that - it's the first sight of blood I ever recall.) The odd piece may have large knots or protuberances where a canker has been cut out: these may be loosely described as lumpy and are the most likely candidates for woodworking projects. I rescued half a dozen such pieces from the two truckloads of firewood we almost finished wheelbarrowing into the woodshed and stacking, in the three dry days before it started to rain again last night. My back is aching like hell, and I hate the buggers, but I still don't see them as lumpy.

I see. Enjoy the lumps in your back as you hump about the lumps of wood.

We not always are able to guess whether a man or a woman is posting anonymously.
We express ourselves mentally on a forum.
This indicates that there are hardly any mental differences between the sexes.

Mr Arising had assumed for a long time that I was of the other sex and not of this that I am.

I prefer to keep it secret though.

In written communication, differences in modes of thinking, education, interests, political stance and emotional temperature far outweigh differences in gender assignment or even gender identity.
In measuring IQ or aptitude (not the same test), some of those differences between the test-designer and the subject will also influence the outcome - but none so much as their cultural milieux. As the above exchange about wood illustrates, differences in classification, definition and nomenclature can result in inaccurate assessment.

Obviously, the unconscious assumptions and attitudes of the academics who design tests are reflected in the statistical results. So are the attitudes and assumptions of the society in which they are made and taken.
Now, I wonder how much the separation of boys and girls of school age contributed to the measurable differences in kinds of intelligence. I wonder whether the scores on the same test would show a convergence of mental abilities as the integration of schools, institutions and employment opportunities progress. That is: Did men and women of my grandparents' generation show as more different than of my parents' generation, and did they show as more different than my generation? Perhaps the aptitude scores of my grandchildren will be indistinguishable.