Mrebo

CP3S said:

I think Mrebo thought the joke was me providing the definition of it, and thought I was making it up the meaning.

I thought the joke was your claim to actually believe Card used "buggers" as a swipe at homosexuals...rather than just an ironic happenstance.

Like, "dude...the words are the same it must be intentional!"

Ryan McAvoy said:

IMO it stretches credulity to imagine that Card, who seems to have been writing novels for a decade before 'Ender's game', would not have a grasp of the meaning of words. Afterall, if I was writing a Sci-Fi saga I'd agonise for weeks over what to call the antagonists.

The fact that in the last decade he has apparently ret-conned the "Buggers" to have a different name "Formics" which he used becasue it is derived from the Latin for Ants, suggests he has a deep understanding of the meaning and entymology of words.

Ryan is speaking to the first interpretation I outlined. None of that necessarily means Card intended to make an association between the two words. As Ryan points out there are other meanings of the word "bugger" and I'm pretty sure I've heard things like "get the little bugger" more than any use of it relating to sex.

I don't know the truth of the matter but I'm with Bingo in thinking it silly to obsess over and make adamant conclusions about.

It sounds like Card holds the same views as a great bulk of Christians; if one doesn't want to read works by people holding such views that is their prerogative.

If someone used it in a sentence to refer to a particular sex act, I'd really just think it was a crude way of referring to sex in general.

Fetishists may find advantage if advertising as providing diagnostic health services.

I am also one of those not well-informed on buggery.

If someone used it in a sentence to refer to a particular sex act, I'd really just think it was a crude way of referring to sex in general. I never knew it had that other kind of specific meaning.

There are two interpretations here:

1. Card is a learned writer who includes all kinds of layers of meaning, as writers are wont to do, and must have known what he was going in using that word.

2. Some people here are suffering from confirmation bias, assuming Card was making a sort of sly-as-a-Magic-Eye allusion to homosexuality because they think he's basically obsessed with the topic, when in it was really just a simple way for humans to term bug aliens.

As far as literary analysis goes, the first interpretation can make you feel smart because you're seeing through the layers. But it's also awfully lazy. The second interpretation may be criticized for being naive. I don't know the truth but I'm not going to assume ill intent in the use of the word "bugger" to refer to bug aliens.

All I can say is that I would never have made the connection. I've been doing a sort of personal study of Baum's Oz books. Some have argued that Baum was writing an allegory about the politics of his day, and while many colorful analogies can be drawn, it's still unfounded. I wonder if there may be an atheistic streak in Baum's writing, where the only life that matters is the one here in Kansas, however bleak and gray, rather than a fanciful world where one seeks salvation from a great being who actually isn't. And the only "salvation" that matters to our protagonist - to be back home - is obtained essentially by her rejection of that other world. The scarecrow had remarked that if people didn't have brains they'd probably all live in the beautiful places (unlike brainy Dorothy wanting to be in Kansas rather than Oz). There was also the sole bit of religion in any Oz book in which a china church steeple was broken by a swing of the lion's tail. On departing the china village, the heroes remarked that the village was unjustified in its anger since they only lost a church steeple and the hoof of a cow. Seemingly equating the two was curious to me.

Then again, these are just musings. I may be reading tea leaves. Maybe it is best to take Baum at his word that these are just fairy tales with no other real meaning.

I respect not buying something when you find the creator "evil" but it's getting nutty to be so certain that anything he wrote that might be construed a certain way must be construed that way.

I thought you were kidding about the buggers, CP3S. Maybe you are.

SilverWook said:

.....

LOL. Seriously. Best post of the page.

I might have hallucinated a search bar.

*sigh*

Who here has paid money to see a Roman Polanski film? Sean Penn fawns over dictators but how many of you avoid his films? Still, I get how having a visceral objection could impede enjoyment. So I don't blame Bingo in that regard. I know people who still refuse to eat Chick-Fil-A though they talk about how delicious it is. People see evil in chicken and I doubt the chickens thought themselves evil.

What are you doing for Halloween costumes?

If I had reason to wear one, and I were to think about it now, it wouldn't have to be lame or expensive I'm thinking.

Last year it was a last minute pair of fairy wings.

Enter Frink Stage Left

No...sadly I responded to most of his responses to me before he started ignoring me.

Sometimes to get to sleep I put on RLM's prequel reviews. So cathartic.  Or recently, What If the Prequels Were Good (that actually is quite good and worth considering for PT rewriters). If there was a willing artist, an animated or even still-image alternative prequel with good voice work would be awesome.

I've been "ignoring" Warbler for awhile. Now he's ignoring me. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.

I've strived to be no one, for better or worse I'm still someone.

"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned the Pumpkinhead; "but I do not understand you."

"What don't you understand?" asked the Scarecrow.

"Why, I don't understand your language. You see, I came from the Country of the Gillikins, so that I am a foreigner."

"Ah, to be sure!" exclaimed the Scarecrow. "I myself speak the language of the Munchkins, which is also the language of the Emerald City. But you, I suppose, speak the language of the Pumpkinheads?"

"Exactly so, your Majesty" replied the other, bowing; "so it will be impossible for us to understand one another."

"That is unfortunate, certainly," said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. "We must have an interpreter."

"What is an interpreter?" asked Jack.

"A person who understands both my language and your own. When I say anything, the interpreter can tell you what I mean; and when you say anything the interpreter can tell me what you mean. For the interpreter can speak both languages as well as understand them."

Don't know if this was posted someplace or maybe deserves its own recognition, but sounds like a nice Kickstarter in support of Peter Mayhew.

Global warming is making all manner of crazy happen. My favorite quote from that article: "That is always a risk with a building with a new shape."

A never before heard of shape! Always a risk that a new-shaped building will melt cars!

One of those drunken elk stories.

Steal the pennies from beneath their tongues if you really want to cause them trouble, Bingo.

I need something new to read. I recently finished another Oz book, the first I've read of Ruth Plumly Thompson. It was faster, more intense than Baum's writings.

Brings a tear to my eye.

One of those terrible stories.

twister111 said:

Mrebo said: And I continue to regret not advancing and perfecting French.

It seems like you've fallen into a trap of thinking one can "perfect" a language. Frankly languages aren't "perfect" by any means. Hell the word "perfect" has lost it's initial meaning used superfluously to get across a meaning of "really good". I see it all the damn time on Tumblr.

*actor speaks a couple of lines in another language in an interview*

Random Tumblr person: "OMG! You are so perf!"

"Nobody's perf-"

*pic of someone or something implying they are perfect. I've seen this done with a pic of pizza*

Oh, no, I just mean improving, attaining fluency. The dedication is important. Most impressive when you don't have people to speak all these languages with :)

Ginger Pride

I want to hear more about a "Ginger Community" and "Ginger Americans."