Category Archives: Etiquette

Ask the philosophers: the 11 greatest philosophical quotations

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Hobbes. Bet you didn't expect that, eh?

But they left out my favorite, from Camus: “It is the obligation of the intelligent to oppress the stupid, otherwise they will take over the world.”

Too late. That’s what three decades of Relativism gets you.

Here, from Mental Floss via Neatorama, are the 11 greatest philosophical quotations, with arguably enlightening commentary. Bonus pronounciation guide, for those of you who prefer to pronounce things as if you were still living in Bavaria…here’s a tip: I was born near Paris, but I pronounce it “Pare-iss” not “Pay-ree” because I do not live in France. I do not pronounce Indonesia with five syllables either, although you do once you’re there. That goes double for idiomatic English names (eg “It’s spelt ‘SMITH’  but has been pronounced “Williams” since the Battle of Hastings…”) If you do not live in France or Germany or Worcestershire or Bandaniera either, making a point of pronouncing things like the natives do simply makes people write you off (correctly) as one of those beret-wearing pretentiati. And when raincoaster here tells you you’re being pretentious, you know you’re out of bounds.

Ahem.

3. “The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” – Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)
Referring to the original state of nature, a hypothetical past before civilization, Hobbes saw no reason to be nostalgic.

Whereas Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains,” Hobbes believed we find ourselves living a savage, impossible life without education and the protection of the state. Human nature is bad: we’ll prey on one another in the most vicious ways. No doubt the state imposes on our liberty in an overwhelming way. Yet Hobbes’ claim was that these very chains were absolutely crucial in protecting us from one another.

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the truth about the job hunt

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I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but with competition like this it’s no wonder we can’t get a foot in the door. Not even if we send it Xpresspost.

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Japanese poop: a phrasebook

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ungo, yo!How many times have you been caught, tongue-tied and groping blindly in the darkest corners of your vocabulary for exactly the right word, only to have it scuttle away out of reach, leaving you with only the vaguest sense of its outline and the lingering shame of having failed?

We here at the ol’ raincoaster blog feel your pain. As a public service, from time to time we provide a roundup of obscure-yet-universally-applicable terms for our readers to file in their heads, ready to flash dazzlingly on just the right occasion.

This should be handy for those of you whose friends have recently given birth. Lord knows, they don’t talk about anything else. As the Inuit are said to have fifty words for snow, so the Japanese have coined a surprisingly robust number of terms for what we would simply call “poop”. #2. Doo-doo. Crap. Shit. Turds. Shizzola.

Here, from Japanprobe, is an in-depth dictionary of dung.

  1. unpi 「うんぴ」 : Diarrheal stool. Could be connected to overeating, having a cold, or stress. It is usually a yellowish-color and it has a very strong smell.
  2. unnyo 「うんにょ」 : Soft and tender poop, but not diarrehea. It comes out when you are feel some indigestion. Yellow-ish or light brown in color.
  3. unchi 「うんち」 : Nice poop. It comes out when you’ve been eating healthy balanced meals. It has a clean brown color and doesn’t smell very much.
  4. ungo 「うんご」 : Comes out when you’ve not been eating enough vegetables, and you’re probably constipated when you squeeze out an ungo. Ungo is dark black and really stinky.

So the next time your new-parent friends are yammering on about how your creamed corn looks adorably like Junior‘s last bowel movement, you can bring that conversation to a screeching, juddering halt while simultaneously flashing a glimpse of your own, more cosmopolitan worldview: Just leap to your feet and yell UNKO!

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international boundaries

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two solitudes 

Us Canuckistanis like to think of ourselves as unprejudiced people. This is, after all, the country to which 27,000 Americans fled before slavery was finally outlawed (1898 in New Jersey, fun fact!) in the United States. This is a country born of many cultures, a country in which the Aboriginal Peoples constitute probably the third most powerful political force (fourth if you count graft). A country with two official languages, a country where the Multiculturalism portfolio is one of the most powerful and most coveted on Parliament Hill.

So when we heard of a racist assault on a burqa-clad pedestrian, we were, naturally and as one, outraged. The loathesome bigot and all his descendants for ten generations were cursed by a for-once-united British Columbia.

Of course I put my own two cents adjusted for inflation in:

“Got to be an American!” I said.

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speaking of Fundamentalist Christianity

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Yeah, so SURPRISE! You get to be Satan's butt boy!

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