Doesn't *everyone* know Latin? Geez!
I never thought I'd see a wank about gastric lavage outside of an E.R. fan forum, but there you go.

gummyneko posts to

spo_prevention about a dog that came into her workplace that had gotten into the wacky tobaccy. Unsurprisingly, this causes significant problems for the dog (and is yet another reminder that my keeping mine in tins is a really good idea).

But the wank isn't over drugs. Oh, no, it's over semantics.

It starts off okay - since

gummyneko's used complicated terms like gastric lavage and bradycardia, the reasonable suggestion is made that perhaps she should edit for a lay audience. This causes

sopay to get really offended for some reason, which leads to escalation, then mod smackage made worse by

sopay's taking offense at the mod smackage that goes ON and ON, and my favorite,

teratologist's comment that, hey, it's not like these terms are hard for the average layperson who watches daytime talk shows and knows a Romance language 'cause the Francophile Oprah demographic is HUGE. Or something.

Then

doberkim gets annoyed by the use of kilograms amid allegations of Americentrism and more semantic wank. Which causes more mod wank.

It's not huge as wanks go, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in variety. And all this over a grand total of two technical terms.

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no_touching
2006-01-15 04:24 pm UTC (link)

I remember watching a news story about the Brits having to come to terms kicking and screaming into the metric system, and what struck me is the willful and deliberate stubborn stupity people who don't want to convert show. "Oh, I have no idea what a kilogram is." Just try multiplying by two, grandma, that'll be close enough. Or the argument that a yard is a 'natural' stride, but a metre, well that's just unnatural. Purleez!

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	miss_padfoot 2006-01-15 07:05 pm UTC (link)
	Well, however bad they were, they can't have been worse than us Yanks. Because we still haven't converted yet. And it's annoying me. But then, I get more practice using the metric system than most people, because I do a lot of science stuff. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

moonjaguar
2006-01-15 07:29 pm UTC (link)

Oh yeah. The schools started teaching metric when I was in fourth or fifth grade. The first and only brand-new not-used car my dad bought had miles and kilometers on the speedometer (but not the odometer. Go figure). The goal was to have the US converted by 1980. The Reagan admin put the kibosh on that.

The only metric measurement I can visualize now is 100mm thanks to my cigarette smoking years.

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	dracothelizard 2006-01-15 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	Wait, the Brits have come to terms with the metric system? When? And non-metric Brits: At least the metric system is based on science! And makes sense! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	doroc_sabah 2006-01-15 11:03 pm UTC (link)
	Did, I think- I've never seen any problem with it here. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	monkeywrench 2006-01-16 01:08 pm UTC (link)
	>>a yard is a 'natural' stride, but a metre, well that's just unnatural What the...? A metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in absolute vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. Metre is defined using nature itself. You can't get more natural than that! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	platedlizard 2006-01-18 03:15 am UTC (link)
	But that would be logic, which we simply can't have. Considering that the yard comes from the same system that gave use the 'foot' (and i would love to see a real human foot that is a BIG as the foot. Really) I would say that the yard is completely nonsensical. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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