Clarification

April 21, 2008 at 2:00 am (Awkward, Inappropriate, Posted by Cindy)
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My erstwhile roommate seeks clarification. I offer enlightenment.

What was the Wes story? Uh. This is embarrassing (note the usual lack of embarrassment, and conclude that it must therefore have been quite mortifying*).

On the first day of the Spring Break road trip, I conversed with Wes on the mobile, as we are wont to do. (Despite my lack of time for any real social interactions and his commitments to Ben/Jess, pre-med studies, and broomball, we do manage to uphold a “decent” call-to-callback ratio. Well, decent by Wes standards.) We happily discussed various issues of pressing (and non-pressing) business. Then, Wes said, “Hey, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Well, dear reader (Mik, you’re the only one who asked about this…and you’re going to regret it in about 15 seconds!), I have encountered situations like this in the past. Allie thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to use the facilities while on the phone with me. Contrast this situation, of course, with Mik, who refuses to speak even to continue a conversation while we are both physically in the same bathroom. Anyway, Wes falls into the Allie camp. Note, of course, that the general course of action is that Allie and Wes are in the bathroom (ha! syntactic ambiguity!), while I am reposed on my bed. I have taken advantage of our agreement only once, when Wes woke me up in the wee hours of the morning. (Not really. It was probably around 10:00.) TMI? Yes. But remember, you [Mik] asked for it.

Me: Go for it. You and Allie are probably the only two for whom it’d be okay.
Wes: Cindy, I have to go to the bathroom.
Me: Yeah, and you’ve done it before.
Wes: I have to take a dump.
Me: Well, I guess if I say something now, I’d be prissy. So uh…go for it.
Wes: Okay!
Me: You have no shame.
Wes: I know! And I’m going to keep the door open, too!

Fin.

_____*_____*_____

*Addendum: The last time I saw the word mortifying, it was in an email from the great Andrew Garrett. For background purposes, I will include my email to him, but you don’t have to read it. It’s boring.

Dear Professor Garrett,
I wanted to apologize for putting you on the spot today regarding webcasting your lectures. In SLUgS, we’ve discussed possible reasons why your classes aren’t webcast; from fears of attendance decline to facility constraints (The Cave! Egads!), the idea of mortification never came up though! I don’t suppose you would tally these things like state representatives’ offices do, but on the off chance you DO count every email as representation for say, five constituents, I want to put my vote in for webcasts! (Not because I want to skip class, but because–and I think I speak for many others, here; certainly SLUgs, at least–these lectures ought to be preserved for posterity.)
On a more content-based note, I’m not sure that the “rouge” borrowing we discussed in class today was necessarily based on prestige. I seem to remember reading historical fiction where “proper” English ladies sniffed at French…er…ladies of the night who “rouged,” or wore rouge. Again, this might not be reflective of any actual linguistic history, but it would seem as though “rouge” would be the opposite of a prestige borrowing; rather, the Anglophones started using the French word because they were describing a coarse habit of the French.
At any rate, have a nice weekend!
Cindy Lee
And his response:
Sorry, I accidentally sent a blank email to you just now. Anyway, I
don't agree with you about preservation for posterity -- maybe later,
when I've figured out more; and anyway the mortification argument
 trumps
all else.

About "rouge", that seems perfectly possible. I was speaking loosely,
and the main thing is that there should be some definable social
rationale (such as what you mention), something distinctive either
 about
the object or about the foreign use of it or the role it plays in the
other culture, or something like that.

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