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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 11th, 2023

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  • It means puzzled and/or confused.

    Many authors seem to think it means amused mixed with some confusion or puzzlement or something else like that.

    Some dictionaries have started to include definitions along those lines, which is correct to do if that is becoming a common usage. But that makes the word bullshit because it no longer conveys a clear meaning. Unlike some words that gain new meanings through misuse, it’s usually not clear which meaning is intended from context. Usually I can easily imagine a character’s response to something to be either of these definitions so I often can’t understand the author’s intention. I often find myself taken out of the story while I try to understand which meaning I should use. Because of this I think the word has become useless and shouldn’t be used.








  • I get what you’re saying, but assuming you’re talking about medical doctors, they’re a bad example. I know three doctors well and they’re all dumber than a sack of hammers. Becoming a doctor doesn’t require much intelligence, it requires the ability to stay in school long enough (and being able to tolerate gross stuff from other people’s bodies).

    What do you call someone who got all Ds in medical school? Doctor.









  • That shit kills me. I was reading something on hexbear about some recent anti-gay stuff in Russia. It was all about critical support, and not just Russia. They also talked about critical support for Nigeria, despite them having the death penalty for gay people, because they’re “anti-imperialist.”

    Why doesn’t it go the other way? Why can’t you give “critical support” to countries making strides in human rights while criticizing their economic policy?

    To me, their priorities seem pretty fucked up. Between exploitative economic policy and killing or imprisoning people for existing as themselves, I know which one I’m going to be “critical” of and which one will cause me to refuse support for a country in any way.