Chat thread - come chat, rant, or celebrate, here!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

With thanks to the lovely timetosmile - here's the new and rejuvenated Chat Thread.

Space to yak on, rant, post any of the good and bad stuff ... just basically any chat that you don't feel fits into a specific post. With a side order of reclaiming the word 'gossip'.

Gah, this keeps falling off my threadsImOn.

I know what it looks like, I've got some, though I'm not sure how well it photographs. It's just vaguely stripy/lumpy-looking skin, innit?

You mean like post pregnancy?

otherwise the only stripy skin springing to mind is a zebra, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a zebra

Personally, no, just post a healthy quantity of M&S custard choux buns.

I think the stripes you're thinking of are those ones you get when your skin stretches too fast (I have them too, I'm dead sexy, me).

Cellulite looks kinda like little waves and bumps under the surface and is more deeply textured than stretch marks. Magazines describe it as being like orange peel but I've never seen what they mean.

I promise, I have never once looked at a woman and gone 'cor, look at that cellulite'. And you can rarely see what they mean in Heat when they do those crappy red circles on Charlize Theron's thighs.

Maybe someone will come along and tell me it's actually a torment and they're riddled with it, but I suspect it is up there with 'woe is me, my unsightly lower back' as a thing to notice.

My life has clearly been deprived by not reading magazines that are likely to describe cellulite, but I think I know what you mean. That means I've had cellulite for years. I shall tell my dh to divorce me without delay, this is obviously of vital importance and I wonder how he can have failed to notice my lack of sexiness all these years.

Well, it's only come up here because of that advert. I have heard the word from time to time, of course, but somehow never really thought about it.

I doubt zebras think about it either.

I must say I don't tend to notice cellulite on a man or a woman (presumably men have them too!? Now that's a thought. Or maybe not.) I do know people who would comment on it though.

Could have had a good research today at the doctor's waiting room, but the magazines only run to old Yours magazines - no idea what they are but I gathered, after reading a few, that they are for older readers ... These magazines don't seem to be too concerned with cellulite...

And I gave blood today for the first time. Pat on the back for being brave and kick up the backside for having waited so long.

My DH probably has cellulite too, under the hair. Yours may well.

lordcopper - brilliant! Good on you.

Well done, LordCopper!

[Very Big Pat on the back]

{heirokrotima} - in Greek too, just to emphasise how great you are!

I am a card carrying member of my city's Blood Donor Volunteers Group, it's always nice to hear people volunteering!

My dh has just said something unrepeatable about what he thinks of cellulite. On men, women or any other creature. He also said before you know it they'll be selling creams that make your fingers grow longer or your ankles less bony, and there will be people anxiously buying them.

Yes men get cellulite too, but less so as they have a lower proportion (on average) of the relevant cells. Also they have more body hair to cover it up.

Well done lord copper!

Go on, repeat away! You know you need to.

doctrine - so what are the relevant cells then? Is it a fat thing? I want to know.

well, untranslatable might be a better way to put it.

But it boiled down to saying that cellulite could fuck itself up its own arse as far as the entrails (it works fine in Greek). I pointed out that cellulite was on the arse, and he said he'd put the people who thought up these products on their, erm, entrail-fucked arses too.

Niiice.

Your DH is such a poet.

well you did ask me to repeat it!

Not that I took a lot of persuading!

True.

What's the greek for entrails?

I have often been asked for random Greek words by English speaking friends, but I think this is the first time anyone has asked me how to say "entrails". I'm not quite sure how you could slip it into conversation, but here it is:

entosthia

you could also say entera (intestines) or perhaps splachna. I rather like splachna, it makes me think of a butcher throwing meat down on his slab ready to cut. Splat!

[leaves hurriedly as the tone of the feminist boards has been lowered]

Splachna has a good sound to it. I'll try to call somebody a splachna today.

Splachna is brilliant. I love it. And it's a non-gender-discriminatory insult, isn't it? Everyone has entrails.

I knew there were more out there.

I asked because, predictably, when you do ancient languages you get entrail-vocabulary fairly early on. But it doesn't ring any bells, sadly, so either I have no memory (likely) or the word changed since Homer et al.

Well, lucky for you, LRD, I happen to have a Greek etymological dictionary on my shelf.

I have just looked up the three words I gave you this morning.

entera is apparently in Homer's Iliad in exactly that form.

entosthia can be found in Aristotle

splachna is in the Odyssey as splagchna (g=gamma, ch =one letter chi, sorry MN does not support Greek alphabet)

Be honest now--did anyone else get a twitch of the eyebrow when they encountered the words "butcher throwing meat down on his slab"?

(It's the word "his" that I'm talking about--no questions being raised about feminists should all be vegetarians.)

Well, my local butcher happens to be a man. He runs the shop with his son. His wife runs a flower shop across the road. (I know her quite well!) But I take your point, TeiTetua and feel suitably put in my place. I should have put "...on the slab."

Ahhh, see, I was goint to be dead impression with the fancy words, but now tei has pointed out the deep deep sexism ...

That is interesting though, thanks.

Anyway ... I just remembered I had something nice to post. I've been getting steadily a little more depressed, as I keep attending weddings (my mates are all at that age), and these women keep merrily changing their names and having the traditional 'big three' speeches from the father of the bride, the groom, and the best man, while she sits there silently.

I am aware everyone is entitled to do what they like ... it just gets depressing when it's everyone doing the same.

However, DH and I went to the wedding of a couple of mates at the weekend, and not only was it extremely beautiful and so on, but also, the bride who is a lovely and shy woman, got up to explain her new husband had always known she would want to keep her own name and would want to speak, so here she was doing it. And she gave a brilliant speech. It was so lovely to see.