FtttG
User ID: 1175
There is an archaic noun "ruth", which seems to mean the same thing as "rue". Many centuries ago it was a commonplace for Christian parents to name their children after Christian virtues they want them to embody, which is where the name "Ruth" came from: along with "Grace" it's the only such name which has really stuck around in Ireland. Some of these like "Hope" are more common in the states, and you'll sometimes encounter Nigerians called "Goodluck" ("Chastity" only gets used ironically by sex workers).
FtttG
2d ago
"Rate" seems to me like it is indeed used as you describe. Someone's accoplishments can "rate", or properly deserve, praise. A work of art can be "rated highly". There are plenty of industries in which saying that someone's job is to rate, or grade or assess, quality or purity would be perfectly logical.
But my point was that the adjectives "overrated" and "underrated" refer to instances in which the assessment of an item's quality was considered to be inaccurate, either too generous or too harsh, respectively. To me this implies that "to rate" something is to make an accurate assessment of its quality. But I don't think it really does carry this de-/con-notation: much as with "interpret", the verb "to rate" is equivocal on whether the resulting assessment was a fair or accurate one.
A few weeks ago my girlfriend was on Instagram and found a reel of a group of women (and one man) respectively cosplaying as the Bubble Head Nurses and Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2. I mentioned that the game is really good and we could try playing it together if she liked, a suggestion she responded to with enthusiasm, despite not really being a gamer.
I have a complicated relationship with Silent Hill 2. I was aware of the franchise (and I think even played the demo for Silent Hill 3 as a child, without having played either of the previous two instalments, only to find that my PC couldn't hack it), but the first time I encountered the idea that Silent Hill 2 specifically was a game with real artistic merit was from hearing Yahtzee relentlessly gush about it. Curiosity piqued, about fifteen years ago I bought a secondhand PS2 and a copy of the game and gave it a whirl, only to give up on it an hour or two in. The same thing happened on my second attempt. On probably my third attempt I decided to just power through it and made it to the Brookhaven Hospital — at which point it finally clicked for me, and I played all the way through to the end. I played it through to the ending a second time, and haven't touched it since.
With my PS2 gathering dust somewhere, I installed the PC port of the original game* which is apparently abandonware, along with the "Enhanced Edition" mod, which optimises the experience for modern PCs and enables controller support. We booted up the game and got stuck in, with my girlfriend playing until she got too scared and then asking me to take over. I don't scare easily, and even on the times I've played the game to the end generally found it more creepy and unsettling than outright scary. My girlfriend scares much easier than I do, and after subjecting her to innumerable scary movies over the years, I can say without exaggeration that Silent Hill 2 was the most scared I've ever seen her: she was literally shrieking in terror in places, and mentioned having had nightmares about Pyramid Head. In much the same way that comedy films can seem funnier when watched with a group, playing a horror game with someone sitting next to you who's frightened out of her wits really enhanced the experience, and I found the game scarier and more unnerving than any previous playthrough. By the time you've emerged from the Historical Society and are making the lonesome voyage across the lake, the game has become utterly hypnotic.
In some ways my opinion of the game hasn't changed: almost everything prior to the Brookhaven Hospital remains a boring slog through a set of bland, repetitive environments. (Maybe that's necessary to lull the players into a false sense of security so they can pull the rug out from under them later, modulating from survival to psychological horror.) The titular town is terrifying at nighttime but dull as dishwater during the day, fog notwithstanding. The transition from in-game cutscenes to pre-rendered cinematics might be the only thing that really dates the game to the early 2000s, as it's a trope that completely fell out of favour once graphical fidelity hit some floor. In other ways I'm surprised to admit that I get it now: the people claiming that the dodgy voice acting and imprecise facial animation contribute to the game's dreamlike Lynchian atmosphere sounds like pure cope — but goddamn it, those things do contribute to the game's dreamlike Lynchian atmosphere, whether intended by the creators or not. (Part of me even wants to call the game a spiritual adaptation of Mulholland Drive, given that both stories are fundamentally about
Roger Ebert once said that, for him, cinema is first and foremost an emotional medium: he dislikes films that delve into intellectual debates, considering it a misuse of the form. I tend to agree: I can't remember a film I loved specifically because it made me think (although it may have done so incidentally). By contrast, despite video games' strenuous efforts to replicate the visual iconography of cinema, I've long thought the medium they most resemble is actually books, in the sense that they are long-form storytelling media the consumer must actively engage with to move the story forward, unlike passively consumed movies or TV shows. It is for this reason that I've long considered games more compelling from an intellectual standpoint than an emotional one, which makes sense when you consider that even getting to grips with the game mechanics is, to a greater or lesser extent, a fundamentally intellectual exercise: most of the games I've loved, I've loved because they made me think, not because they made me feel (e.g. Metal Gear Solid 2, Spec Ops The Line, SOMA: they all made me feel emotions a little bit, but the main reason I loved them was because they made me think). But I now think Silent Hill 2 might be the exception to this trend. Having now completed my third playthrough, I think it might be the most unsettling, moving, emotionally affecting video game I've ever played, bar none.
gushing over
I've become vastly fussier as a gamer in my advancing years. Last night I wanted to play something by myself, so I played the first half-hour of Trek to Yomi. Gorgeous to look at and I like that the spoken dialogue is in Japanese, but the gameplay was already starting to feel a bit rote and repetitive, so I gave up on it. Next I tried Advent Rising, notable for having its story co-written by Orson Scott Card. Gave up on that even quicker, inside of ten minutes.
A few years ago I tried playing Undertale after the world and its mother were raving about it. I think I played it for about two hours and remember enjoying it, but for some reason I never got around to finishing it. Last night I took another crack at it, playing about as far as the title card (i.e. the game held my attention for significantly longer than the previous two games I tried that evening). It's rare for a game to make me laugh out loud, or to make me think "aww, how sweet", so props to the game for doing both. Will see if I can manage to make it to the end this time.
*No remake for me, thank you very much.
There are many words in the English language which are formed using a prefix or a suffix, but for which the antonym formed by removing that prefix or suffix (or using the opposite prefix or suffix) is never used. There are even a handful of cases in which two compound words can be formed using a prefix and its antonymic prefix, but the word itself is never used in isolation, or has a vastly different meaning than would be inferred based on the meaning of the two compound words. Some examples:
- abuse, v. (antonym: disabuse): to affirm that another's belief is correct and not a misconception
- appointment, n. (antonym: disappointment): the state of feeling satisfied
- baseful, adj. (antonym: baseless): (of claims) with sound evidentiary backings
- concerting, adj. (antonym: disconcerting): tending to cause ease and comfort
- faultful, adj. (antonym: faultless): containing many imperfections
- feckful, adj. (antonym: feckless): purposeful, competent, effective
- gormful, adj. (antonym: gormless): sharp; intelligent; with his wits about him
- gruntled, adj. (antonym: disgruntled): content, satisfied
- gutful, adj. (antonym: gutless): brave, courageous
- hatful, adj. (antonym: hatless): the state of wearing a hat
- homeful, adj. (antonym: homeless): of a fixed abode
- inotic, adj. (antonym: exotic): indigenous, native
- interminate, v (antonym: exterminate): to commit mass suicide à la Jonestown
- interpret1, v. (antonym: misinterpret): to understand correctly and accurately
- jointed, adj. (antonym: disjointed): connected, coherent.
- parage, v. (antonym: disparage): to commend or praise.
- peerful, adj. (antonym: peerless): (of individuals) with many equals
- pitiful, adj.2 (antonym: pitiless): empathetic, caring
- rate, v.3 (antonyms: overrate, underrate): to assess the value of accurately
- react, v.4 (antonyms: overreact, underreact): to respond in an appropriate fashion
- reckful, adj. (antonym: reckless): cautious, careful
- ruthful, adj. (antonym: ruthless): scrupulous
- seamful, adj. (antonym: seamless): amateurishly put together
- spotful, adj. (antonym: spotless): dirty, disheveled
- substar, n. 5 (antonym: superstar): a minor celebrity; a B-, C- or Z-lister
- subvise, v. (antonym: supervise): to oversee ineffectually
- superstandard, adj. (antonym: substandard): in excess of requirements, superior
- timeful, adj. (antonym: timeless): bound to a particular era, a product of its time; an unintentional period piece
- tireful, adj. (antonym: tireless): prone to exhaustion, easily worn out
- topful, adj. (antonym: topless): decently clad
- underdose, n. v. (antonym: overdose): an insufficent dose
- underdraft, n. (antonym: overdraft): a positive bank balance
- underkill, n. (antonym: overkill): to use methods insufficient to accomplish one's goal
- undersee, v. (antonym: oversee): to supervise ineffectually; to ignore or forget about
- understay, v. (antonym: overstay): to cut one's residence short
- undertake, v.6 (antonym: overtake): to be overtaken by sb
- whelm, v. (antonyms: overwhelm, underwhelm): just the right amount, neither surplus nor insufficient to requirements
- witful, adj. (antonym: witless): intelligent, sensible
Can you think of any other good examples?
1 Obviously this word does see use on some occasions, and yet it isn't strictly an antonym for "misinterpret": "misinterpret" specifically denotes an inaccurate interpretation, whereas "interpret" is equivocal on whether the interpretation was accurate or not.
2 We move here into the realm of pedantry, as while this word does see use, it's not used as an antonym of "pitiless": rather, it denotes someone deserving of pity, which is more properly denoted by "pitiable". See also "nauseous"/"nauseated". In other cases people get this distinction right e.g. "contemptuous"/"contemptible".
3 See also "interpret": unlike "to overrate" and "to underrate", "to rate" does not pass judgement on whether the assessment was a fair or accurate one. Confusingly, "to rate" also carries a colloquial meaning of "to think highly of, to commend"; when Roy Keane said of Mick McCarthy, "... I didn't rate you as a player, I don't rate you as a manager, and I don't rate you as a person..." he meant that he didn't think highly of him in any of these capacities. This runs contrary to the word's usual meaning of "to assess", which includes both positive and negative assessments.
4 See also "rate".
5 There was a British comedian (it might have been Lee Evans) who once quipped that every actor who appears in a porn film is denoted a porn star, which is not the standard we apply to actors in general, only a minority of whom can be called "stars". "Where are all the porn actors?"
6 As distinct of its meaning "to undertake a task".
FtttG
5d ago
This report from 2021 claims that trans people are over four times more likely than cis people to experience violent victimisation, based on data from the 2017 and 2018 National Crime Victimisation Surveys. As it's based on survey data rather than police reports, the usual caveats apply.
FtttG
5d ago
FtttG
5d ago
Ziz echoed a lot of these talking points during his arraignment yesterday.
It probably didn't help his case that when asked to state his date of birth for the record, he replied that he had been born many times.
FtttG
5d ago
I noticed something peculiar this evening. In the coming weeks there's meant to be a protest against what's euphemistically called "gender-based violence", and there have been posters dotted around the city advertising the protest in question. Curiously, the posters are bilingual, half of them solely in English and the other half solely in Spanish (even though I'd hazard a guess there are more Portuguese speakers in Dublin than Spanish). The English-language posters refer to a protest against "gender-based violence", whereas the Spanish-language posters don't beat around the bush and refer to a protest against "violence against women".
I guess Spanish-speaking feminists haven't totally ceded all territory to the Ts.
FtttG
6d ago
It is pretty striking how high a proportion of the victims are Black.
I presume it tracks the murder rate by ethnicity among US population as a whole.
FtttG
6d ago
Liara Tsai, “a 35-year-old white transgender woman”. Body found in crashed car, ex-girlfriend (who, again, likely has mental health issues) was convicted for the stabbing.
In at least this case (and probably several others), the perpetrator was also trans, which in a sane world would rule out "anti-trans animus" as a motive:
An autopsy determined that Tsai died from multiple sharp-force injuries, though it’s unclear when she died. Lewis, an acquaintance of Tsai’s who was visiting her from Boston, has been taken into custody in Olmstead County and charged with a felony count of interfering with a dead body and second degree murder, according to local outlet KTTC. Olmstead County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson told MPR that there was no indication that the killing was motivated by anti-trans bias, as Lewis is also trans.
META: I'm getting some weird CSS errors when I view my own comments on mobile. See the upvote/downvote counters in this screenshot.
Possibly related, hovering over the upvote/downvote counter on a desktop browser doesn't work.
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