Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Calling pedants, teachers, wordsmiths and class warriors.

469 replies

shylock · 14/03/2007 08:22

I have a question.

OP posts:
KathyMCMLXXII · 14/03/2007 11:54

link

KathyMCMLXXII · 14/03/2007 11:53

A much criticised work, if the results of my 3 minutes googling are anything to go by.

AitchYouBerk · 14/03/2007 11:53

do you think snowleopard is also scrolling through amazon?

pointydog · 14/03/2007 11:50

pass the paracetemol.

pointydog · 14/03/2007 11:49

ta-dahhhh!

Anna8888 · 14/03/2007 11:49

David Buss - The Evolution of Desire

pointydog · 14/03/2007 11:48

any research'll be cobbletastic.

Soapbox · 14/03/2007 11:46

She's going to have to go some to pull that scientific research out of the bag. Maybe she is furiously writing her own racy version of it as we speak

snowleopard · 14/03/2007 11:46

Phwoooaarrr Bernard Manning!

Molesworth · 14/03/2007 11:44
pointydog · 14/03/2007 11:44

"Scientific evidence that our sense of beauty is distorted by political correctness"

Quote of the week.

Brings Bernard Manning to mind somewhow.

snowleopard · 14/03/2007 11:41

He's a science populist, and we need them - and he's also an important proper scientist in the field of assisted reproduction. But when he makes things "digestible" for the public he does tend to bastardise the science far too much (though that may be the fault of his publishers/producers who think we can't handle scientific reality). So in summary - not good enough Anna, we need a research paper. How and exactly why does political correctness affect our concet of beauty and while you're at it, what is "non-art'?

Bink · 14/03/2007 11:39

(this is going very well, pedants and entertainingly literate people, well done)

yes, Ellbell, that's a contender indeed. Somehow I am thinking music theory would be good source too ... Reminds me to go & find music encycl. for ds this lunchtime.

Soapbox · 14/03/2007 11:39

Sorry spelling all over the place - have a poorly child with me, so having a day away from work to look after him and trying to fit in some intensive MN at teh same time

NotQuiteCockney · 14/03/2007 11:37

Eh, the bits I've seen, he's always conflating correlation and causation. Peerage or no peerage, 'Winston says so' isn't really the same thing as actual scientific references.

AitchYouBerk · 14/03/2007 11:37

synthesises, cobbles together... who's counting?

pointydog · 14/03/2007 11:37

anna, you'll give yourself a headache.

AitchYouBerk · 14/03/2007 11:35

soapy's points are good, particularly the one where she notes that Anna8888 likes to wind people up.

Ellbell · 14/03/2007 11:35

Am also tempted to suggest (in homage to MrsBadger's former teacher) 'meta-thread' for what happens when the thread stops discussing the topic raised by the OP and starts discussing itself instead.

Like I'm doing now, in fact...

(MrsB - Had a similar thing with a South African who told me she wouldn't be able to stand living in the UK because of the 'wit'. Took me ages before I realised she was talking about the weather, not the sense of humour. In my defence, I should say that I was young and very wet behind the ears at the time!)

Anna8888 · 14/03/2007 11:35

Notquitecockney - come on, he's one of the great scientists of our time because he sees the big picture and synthesises huge amounts of seemingly disparate scientific research. And he got a peerage for his contribution to our society...

NotQuiteCockney · 14/03/2007 11:33

Hmmm, the bits of Winston I've seen haven't seemed very scientific to me.

I'm reasonably up to date on political correctness, I think, but I missed the bit where 'racism is bad' became 'non-art is good'.

KathyMCMLXXII · 14/03/2007 11:33

Dunno Aitchyouberk.

Actually I love Essex accents because I am from there. When I hear someone pronounce 'th' as 'f' I go all warm and fuzzy, as if contemplating shagging John Prescott.

Soapbox · 14/03/2007 11:32

I think that when averaged out, the majority of people prefer semetrical faces, but that does not make the individual assessment of beauty or ugliness any less subjective.

It's a bit like saying it is an absolute truth that everyone prefers carrots to spinach. Whilst the majority of people might prefer carrots to spinach, each individual can still have widely varying views.

So to link back to the OP - whilst the dialect/grammatical errors they used grate on the majority of people, it does not mean that some people will not see them as beautiful. And since beauty is oft said to be in the eye of the beholder, one might assume that these people are more likely than not to come from Essex

Anna is frequently rude to people ime!

AitchYouBerk · 14/03/2007 11:32

pmsl at 'digestible format'.

Anna8888 · 14/03/2007 11:32

Read Robert Winston's excellent books The Human Mind and Human Instinct where you will find plenty of scientific references in a digestible format