Happy 4th of July to All !!

@yakkoTDI Unintended parsing of a period and a lack of a space to start of the next sentence. It’s been edited.

@narfcake @yakkoTDI You’ve heard the phrase “waste of space”? I’ve noticed that @detailer conserves on the use of the space bar at the end of sentences generating links which I’ve learned to not try to follow. (My old h s English teacher would have had him/her/it/they? up at the blackboard diagramming paragraphs until they reformed.)

@narfcake @phendrick @yakkoTDI First off,it didn’t post the way I formatted it.“can” was on the first line of the post and fit perfectly.The posted version put it on a second line. So excuse me all to hell for not taking the time to edit the post.Any links generated from my conservation were unintentional,and you should realize that as you pointed out how they were created.If I were to post a link,it would be the full address,beginning with https://,and I would check to make sure it was clean before posting.I didn’t take a typing class,but pulled straight A’s in English and advanced vocabulary all through school.I’m not sure which is more pathetic here…your scolding me like a school child, referring to me as an “it”,or your “waste of time” to criticize my typing in response to a sincere and heartfelt post regarding the holiday.Troll on man…it’s your right.

@narfcake Thanks! Sadly,the wrath of the keyboard Nazi has already been incurred.

@detailer @narfcake @yakkoTDI

1. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has occasionally clicked on one of your fallacious “links”. @yakkoTDI alluded to that possibility in that post above. YOU are the one causing those.
2. Funny, when I type a space at the end of a sentence, it seems to stay OK when posted and does not get reformatted. What software are you using?
3. For someone who “pulled straight A’s in English”, you don’t seem to have the capability of reading and then possibly editing your posts. [FWIW, I’ve seen many English “instructors” who didn’t seem to know the rules of grammar, at least as they were when I was educated. And those included “teachers” at both the high school and college level, at which I taught. And those rules included putting an actual space at the end of each sentence, whether it was typed or even handwritten. So pardon me if I don’t give a lot of credence to your “straight A’s”.]
   I, for one, feel a bit of embarrassment if one of my posts with grammatical errors stands uncorrected. Apparently you don’t.
4. I reread my post above and still don’t see any intended “wrath”. In fact, I was trying to be somewhat humorous. Sorry you missed that (also).
5. Calling me a keyboard Nazi for commenting on @narfcake’s post seems a bit extreme, unless you are a member of the keyboard ANTIFA.
6. In current times, approved personal pronouns seem to be a definite THING. I was trying to avoid that wrath, possibly, from you. Please enlighten me on your favorite personal pronoun of choice, and I will forever afterward refer to you by it, and hope all other Mehtiverse people do the same.
7. When I screw up, I will admit to it. But no, I don’t take unwarranted criticism very well.
8. Why do you assume I am a man?

Have a Meh day.

@phendrick

I usually assume you are a “Meh-capable-being”

Please provide your pronouns, “MCB”.

@f00l Personally, I enjoy the Royal “We”, but usually just stick to “I” and “Me”.
Those who know me, when not saying “Hey, you!”, generally use “He, Him, His”.
I did have a Chinese colleague who referred to me (and others) with “She, Her, Hers”. He had a lot of trouble with gender words in English. (I think he has retired, else this gender-awareness of today’s culture must be driving him nuts in his professional work.)

Curious why you asked me and not @detailer. I believe yours are “She, Her, Hers”, n’est-ce pas, mon amie?

And, yes, I am capable of being meh.
(Much too often, actually.)

@phendrick

My preferred pronouns are “hey, idiot” and “hey stupid”.

@f00l But you can call me Ray, or you can call me …

It’s been a while. This was meme status before there were memes!

@mike808

We are often a trifle rowdy; but maybe the Queen is ok with that.

NB: The Queen ordered the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace immediately after 9/11/2001 (on 9/13).

And, on 9/14, at the following 9/11 memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral (which was organized upon her order), both the American Anthem and the UK Anthem were played.

During this 9/11 service of mourning and remembrance, the Queen was seen be persons attending to not only stand for the American anthem, but also to sing it;
which would make this event the only time the Queen has been seen to sing any national anthem (including her own) since she became Queen.

The American National Anthem has been played publicly by a British regiment at one of the Queen’s official residences, ever since, on 9/11. Our Ambassador and other raking and important Americans, as well as American tourists and residents, are always invited.

Considering that the anthem was written by Francis Scott Key to celebrate and encourage the American side in the midst of a battle against the British at the Fort McHenry, port of Baltimore, MD, in Aug 1814: Hmmm.

Maybe the Queen has gotten over 1776.

@f00l Wow, interesting - I didn’t know any of that.
I really wish our anthem was “America the Beautiful.” It has a message I can get behind better than the SSB, which is also too hard to sing.

@Kyeh

Unless you’re Whitney

/youtube Whitney Houston Star-Spangled Banner

@f00l Exactly.

@f00l @Kyeh What? Not a fan of the Rosanne Barr version? Surely you’re not applying the intellectually bankrupt fallacy of “No True Scotsman” to public displays of patriotism?

We may have different ideas of what America is, but there is no distinction between “Americans”. We are all Americans. Anyone that promotes a fascist authoritarian agenda of declaring one tribe or another as being “other” or “less than” a “True American” clearly does not understand the Constitution as written (including amendments) nor the nature of democracy and “the republic for which it stands”. I exclude the “One nation under God” part as that was added by religious zealots who wanted to flex on those pinko commies that Republican Senator McCarthy was so interested in “rooting out” for not being “American” enough to his liking.

'Murica!

@Kyeh @mike808

It’s summer. It’s hot. My brain is all melty right now.

Despite allegedly (or verifiably) being descended from various privileged, white, educated, high-status males who assisted in writing of, or participating in the adopting of, and signing of, the DOI
(and who also, according to the laws of the time in the Colony of Virginia, “owned” enslaved persons),

Despite that, I know a little about various perspectives on US (and UK) history, and not vastly much about many of them, having never been a real historian. And I do try to be aware if the not-so-great implications. as well as the more admirable aspects.

And I’m not working that hard at the moment because my brain is fried, and I’ll be vacating thinking for some time, assuming I was ever capable of it.

Pls make allowances for me, if you wish to.

@Kyeh @mike808

PS. R Barr is a talented comic who appears to be kinda seriously nuts.
Also, singing (and performing while singing) do not appear to be among her her superpowers.

No, not so much a fan of that version.

@f00l @Kyeh As for the Queen singing the USA National Anthem, I don’t think she cares what people think of it.

I think jolly old Great Britain has numerous reasons to be very proud of creating more Independence Day Celebrations than any other nation.

@f00l
@mike808 I have no idea what you’re talking about and don’t feel motivated to try to unravel it … I just prefer ATB to the SSB as a national anthem. And if you asked me to sing the SSB I’d probably sound as bad as Roseanne Barr, though I’d skip the gestures.

@f00l Linked to Whitney’s version of the SSB.
@Kyeh You chimed in with agreement.

I was referencing the almost universally disliked version RB belted out to jokingly point out the nonsense of how people (outside of this fine community) think singing the SSB is some sort of “test” of how 'Murican you are (or are not), as an example of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.

I also agree that Whitney killed that joint. And that RB’s was particularly cringeworthy.

And I also think ATB would make a better anthem, but c’est la vie.

@f00l @mike808
Ahh. Thanks. I thought Roseanne was trying to be funny but made a mistake about what people are willing to laugh about. But I’m also so sick to death of performative “patriotism” and co-opting of anything flag or anthem or red-white-and-blue related; also of the assumption that “God” is of course the Christian diety, not any other. Sick of seeing people wear the stars and stripes on their ass and thinking it’s a sign of being a better “Murican” as you say. Fuck that crap.

@f00l @Kyeh A yes, performative patriotism as a form of virtue signalling. Goes hand in hand with the “we must be really stingy about any charity to the poor until we test and make sure they are suffering enough to make us feel really good about ourselves by giving them a token handout, but not enough to really make a difference to break the cycle of poverty”.

@Kyeh @mike808

Surely “no true Scotsman” would give a rat’s ass about what it means to be an alleged “true Scotsman”.

I wonder if the Scots have their own versions of redneck jokes?

I think I sometimes qualify as a little of both.

/giphy “you might be a redneck”

@f00l @mike808
This seems appropriate for today’s Meh offer:

True Scotsmen, obviously!