Some Overdue Birthday Hozannahs

First off, are two con chairs and a pair of men who probably represent the opposite ends of the furry fandom, and yet somehow I have a great deal of admiration and affection for them both. Specifically, tygercowboy and unclekage, happy belated birthday!

Secondly, to that gracious glimmer of girlish glee, kheetor84, happy belated birthday!

More posts as my brain actually begins to function, probably around 10:00 or so.

-TG

Well, Since I Need to Upgrade Anyway...

I am now Permanent Account Man. Get it today if you're going to, 'cause they won't be available tomorrow.

-The Gneech

PS: Here's today's Forgotten English:

dished
Dished, in the sense of ruined or frustrated, is a contraction of the old English word disherit, for disinherit. A person is said to be dished when property he expected to inherit is left to someone else. Byron, in Don Juan, asks, "Where's Brummell? Dished!"

--Eliezer Edwards's Words, Facts, and Phrases: A Dictionary of Curious Matters, 1882

Birthday of George Bryan ("Beau") Brummell (1778-1840), the infamous English dandy who inherited a sizable fortune and squandered it on becoming a fashion trendsetter during the lace-conscious Regency period. At one dinner party, he passed around a particularly well-crafted snuffbox for his fellow guests to admire. One of them was unable to open the lid with his fingers and attempted to do so using a dessert knife. Anxious that the man not damage the stylish box, yet bound by his vanity to express himself with an air of utmost gentility, he instead addressed the host, saying, "Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster." Brummell died dished and penniless in a lunatic asylum in Calais, where he had fled in 1816 to avoid paying his gambling debts.

Rummy, what?

Fictionlet

"Wha-ha!" Brigid announced as she came in. "Wha-ha, ho-ho, and a couple of tra-la-las, to boot!"

"Er, yes?" said Greg, looking up from the laptop.

"Yes indeed!" she said. "And now, for some random dancing around the room!" She immediately launched into a bizarre series of bodily jerks and head thrashings. "MIIIISSED YOU SATURDAY NIGHT!" she began to sing at the top of her lungs. "MIIIGHT HAVE GONE BUT WHAT FOOOOOR?"

"Are you okay?"

"COULDN'T BEAR IT WITHOOOOUUUUT YOOOOUUUUU! DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE!"

Greg's eyes were narrowed. "Are you drunk?"

She stopped and frowned. "No, I'm not drunk! I'm just being myself, loyal, lovable, loony Greg, with a pointless anecdote for one and all and a non sequitur for every occasion! Whoopiee!" She began thrashing around the room again.

"Um," said Greg.

"Come on, come on," she said. "This is the part where you, the ever-acerbic Brigid, make a withering remark about my sanity, my appearance, or just my overall state of existence. Hop to, boy, hop to!"

"If I'm Brigid," said Greg, "then you've got no business calling me 'boy,' have you?"

Brigid stopped and looked at him. "Is that the best you can do?"

"Sorry," he said. "It's not in my nature for me to be withering on short notice."

"Feh," she said, flopping onto the couch. "Fat load of fun you are."

"And besides," Greg added, "if I was going to sing at the top of my lungs, it would be 'Me and My Shadow.'"

-The Gneech

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Subjunctives Make Me Plotz

Snagged from english_majors: Grammar Girl: The Subjective Subjunctive

I put this here because, English Wonk as I may be, there are bits of the language that give me fits, and the subjunctive case (e.g., "If I were a rich man...") is one of them. I always want to use "was" to make it agree with the singular subject, but subjunctive doesn't work that way.

"Lay/lie" is another one that gets up my nose.

-The Gneech

EDIT: More Grammar Girl. Good stuff!

ANOTHER EDIT: I should add that I vehemently disagree with the powers that be regarding the use of "they" as a replacement for "he or she." Call me a heretic if you will, but I say "THEY" and will bite you if you change it to "he" or "she" or "he or she." "They" is elegant and correct.