Patriarchy. Still shit.

[treemom]

Oh and for the record I only knew Tanzania because I have been reading books about it for our trip next year.

[emmiedahl]

I like portmanteau words, and Dr. Seuss ones as well. They embiggen my vocabulary.

[treemom]

I like portmanteau words, and Dr. Seuss ones as well. They embiggen my vocabulary.

And really when you think about it they are quite cromulent.

[justlurking]

Let's not forget the most important portmanteau, and the reason why we're all here...snark!

[Lainey]

Gerrymander? But that is probably and American only term.

Let me think. Napalm? Newscast? Bit?

So what words do these come from?

[Guest Anonymous]

So what words do these come from?

I think I can tell you where gerrymander comes from. In the early 1800s, Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts was running for re-election and had various areas re-districted so they'd be dominated by his party. Several critics and cartoonists noticed that the result looked like a salamander, which prompted them to dub the outcome a "Gerrymander".

[Lainey]

Ah, thanks! I know newscast=news + broadcast...and I just learned (and immediately forgot) what napalm came from.

[treemom]

I can't remember napalm. But bit is binary and digit. Modem is modulator demodulator

[kamcho_papio]

Napalm:

na(phthenic) palm(itic) acids, used in manufacture of the chemical that thickens gasoline

from etymonline.com

[JesusFightClub]

Gerrymander? But that is probably and American only term.

Let me think. Napalm? Newscast? Bit?

No, we know "gerrymandering" in the UK at least :)

[2xx1xy1JD]

JFC - your post about your mom reminded of the odd time that I've used men underestimating me to my advantage. Background: Aside from being female, I was also really young (22) when I graduated law school, and I look young. I also spent my first few years going in front of the same judges almost every day. So with that in mind, here's the story:

I was representing a single mom who was going after the baby's father for child support. His lawyer was an older man, who wasn't that familiar with this courthouse, who was earnestly trying to explain to me that his poor client had no money to pay support, especially since he had so many expenses. One of those expenses was a Corvette. So, I just smiled sweetly, and said, "yeah, that's an issue, I guess we'll just have to talk to the judge and have you explain the problem to him". We went in, I simply told the judge that my client desperately needed money for her baby so we were seeking child support, that the guidelines suggested that he could be paying $X based upon his income, but that I understood that the father was objecting on the basis of his car expenses, and that I would now let his lawyer explain the issue. The lawyer stood up, started to make his argument, and failed to notice the judge's face getting redder until it was too late. Somewhere around the time that he explained that his client also needed bus tickets because the Corvette was just his "summer car", the judge exploded. He screamed and yelled for a good ten minutes, and practically threw the guy threw the back wall. The sneaky part was that I knew perfectly well that his judge had a temper, and that nothing would set it off like a guy who put car expenses in front of child support.

Re patriarchy/equality/female supremacy - there are some who think that the opposite of male domination is female domination, but I think that equality demands a real paradigm shift. Especially in relationships, it's a completely different way of partners relating to each other. IMO it benefits both, because I don't think that either party in a dysfunctional relationship wins, and patriarchy seems to be designed to actually prevent a couple from having an honest and functional relationship.