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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2590 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 30, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Remember a few years ago when the job title for a person who prepared cocktails was "mixologist"? That seems to have fallen out of vogue.

I remember when Subway used to call their employees Sandwich Artists.

The cultural impact of Subway restaurants is massively forgotten and underrated. Without Subway there is no Chipotle, no Cava, no Sweetgreen.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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