When Trump was running the first time for the 2016 election he got a lot of attention for using that word. I remember an NPR host saying how he’d used it before in a similar context that Trump did (a political loss), but at the same time he was regretful about it. I don’t remember the details but actually let me search…
Neal Conan. I’m fairly certain I remember him talking about it on the radio, was why this rang a bell for me. But apparently he even wrote an op Ed about it: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1223-conan-schlonged-20151223-story.html
Conan used it literally once in a political context and regretted it as you can read above. And he seems to have vaguely meant it in a way you might say “wow, they got fucked” as you might say about someone being cheated, or “fucked up” for beaten up. Like ruined in some way, not with a literal sexual meaning, just a vague association because of the word itself.
Not that this makes it any more couth or anything; feel how you want to feel about it. Clearly saying “they got fucked” still has that same vulgar sound, so we avoid it in polite conversation, so I imagined a word that sounds so vulgar would probably be avoided by a high profile politician, as given people feel weird about it. And it happened twice.
I just think it’s interesting that it’s come up again. Language is weird.
Sure it sucks, but it can’t be a surprise anymore.
The username @X was also taken from a user. Same with @Music, who if I recall correctly, was a fan of Musk and was even subscribing to Twitter at the time. They even continued to do what @Music was doing with music recommendations, so it was barely a rebrand. It was basically just hijacking the work someone else put into establishing their social media presence.
I know this is the politics community so forgive me for saying “this comment aside,” but we really need to figure out a cheaper and cleaner way to desalinate seawater.
A string is just a collection of characters, in programmer speak. When you use quotation marks in your search to find exactly what you want. If your search was:
dog “fast drive”
Google used to show results that only had both the word “dog” and the joined phrase “fast drive” in the same result. Or tell you there were no results.
Now it feels like Google uses that as a suggestion, giving you “dog” and any combination of “fast drive”, “fast driver”, “fast driving”, or whatever else Google thinks you want, instead of what you asked for. Or if they don’t find it, they serve you up whatever they want, with a small message about there being no matching results.
I was at Full Sail in 2003-2004. Say what you want, but the point here is that people there LOVED games. We’d set up 2 TVs in the living room, and 2 in the bedroom, and go crazy for hours. A single game of single flag assault on Blood Gulch could last hours. Then we’d play FFA to pick leaders, then go again. After 2-3 games the hype would dwindle, some would leave, and we’d go to Munchkin. Then occasionally poker. Then Denny’s for breakfast because it was early in the morning and class was in a couple of hours on Monday.
Talk about a feeling of belonging. Definitely chasing that feeling still, and not ashamed of it.
I absolutely don’t get what my parents have to do with oil barons, but okay.
I remember for a brief time Google offered up names, addresses, and phone numbers in their search results. Then after like a year (maybe less?) people decided to get freaked out over it. They offered a way to opt out, then just removed it entirely.
I also remember back in the 90s, my mom and stepdad buying a 7 disc set of phone numbers and addresses. No idea why they did it… But it was a thing.
It’s okay Jeff. It’s okay. And yourself?