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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.

1000 replies

Boiledbeetle · 20/08/2025 21:19

Previous thread 👇

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5387894-the-bluestocking-does-a-late-night-flit-again

Figured it was my turn for once!

Plus this way I beat the rush to the bar.

Now I must return to the previous thread to relocate my Tunnock's secret stash.

Serve yourselves until the bar gerbils arrive.

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
OP posts:
Thread gallery
212
ErrolTheDragon · 21/08/2025 17:44

Igmum · 21/08/2025 17:36

Well belated congratulations to the happy hogs 🍾🥂.

Also, does the wonderful Bluestocking include a Terf Tardis? I’m up to my eyes in work at the moment and could do with another week. Or six.

Tardis
AlexandraLeaving · 21/08/2025 18:09

Boustrephodon sounds cool.

Having grown up in a household where one parent spoke and read Hebrew and the other spoke and read Chinese, I think the closest I have come to boustrephodon was irritation at books whose spines didn't work the same way as the others on the bookshelves.

MarieDeGournay · 21/08/2025 18:22

ifIwerenotanandroid · 21/08/2025 14:26

Ah, Marie has joined us in the tea room, looking a bit peaky but improving, I hope. Gerrymander wants to show you a new word, Marie, which some of the gerbils discovered on an outing to another thread yesterday. It's 'boustrophedon'. Enjoy!

Thank you Android, yes peaky but improving sums me up todaySmile
And thank you Gerrymander, but I already know that word. Old printers used to print like that. It was fun to watch them writing backwardsSmile

Keep looking out for new words for me Gerry, there are lots I don't know and I'm always delighted to learn new ones!

Sionnach, did you always know that Yiddish was written in Hebrew script, or did you, like me, having only ever seen it transliterated in Roman type, find out belatedly and think... 'Oh expletive deleted. Twice as hard as I thought it was going to be.' and, I'm afraid, bottled out of learning it😟

SionnachRuadh · 21/08/2025 18:55

Marie, I came to Yiddish through German, because if you've got a certain sort of inquisitive linguist's mind, once you know German the obvious ways to go are Yiddish or Dutch, so I knew about the weird Hebrew script already.

I think it's a bit like people who get into Romance languages, if you know Spanish then Italian or Portuguese aren't too difficult... and then eventually you try your hand at Romanian and discover the Slavic influence means most of the grammar you're used to works very differently. When I was in Romania years ago it sounded like Italian mixed with Russian, which I suppose is what it is, so I had to lean into what school Latin I remembered.

Or how I've tried on and off over the years to have a go at Manx, which sounds to me pretty much like Ulster Irish with a Lancashire accent, so the spoken language isn't too much of a stretch, but the anglicised spelling keeps tripping me up. I suppose I can't get past a Gaelic language not having Gaelic spelling conventions, as odd as those spelling conventions might seem to the Sasanaigh 😉

One language I've never heard, but I'm fascinated to know of its existence, is Dungan. It's mostly spoken in the stans of Central Asia by Chinese Muslims (Hui) whose ancestors escaped into the Russian Empire after a failed Muslim uprising against the Chinese state in the 19th century. Their descendants speak a dialect of Mandarin written in Cyrillic script, which sounds irresistibly weird to me.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 21/08/2025 19:00

Calling in for a haggis supper with salt and sauce followed (after a suitable pause for digestion) by a Laphroaig with a splash of spring water (thank you quokkas and gerbils) in between Fringe shows and visits to the National Library of Scotland to write yet another card. Bringing my own pencils to the library now because most of the colours have gone and I like purple and green.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 21/08/2025 19:39

Igmum · 21/08/2025 17:36

Well belated congratulations to the happy hogs 🍾🥂.

Also, does the wonderful Bluestocking include a Terf Tardis? I’m up to my eyes in work at the moment and could do with another week. Or six.

It's at the end of the corridor over there. It was working when I tried it out this morning. What a party that was! The roasted dormice were delicious (don't tell the gerbils I said that!). Anyone fancy a grape?

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
Igmum · 21/08/2025 19:42

Thank you @ErrolTheDragon and @ifIwerenotanandroid I greet you both from the depths of time and space 😎

ifIwerenotanandroid · 21/08/2025 19:44

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 21/08/2025 19:00

Calling in for a haggis supper with salt and sauce followed (after a suitable pause for digestion) by a Laphroaig with a splash of spring water (thank you quokkas and gerbils) in between Fringe shows and visits to the National Library of Scotland to write yet another card. Bringing my own pencils to the library now because most of the colours have gone and I like purple and green.

Sorry, the AI was making a beautiful picture of you in an amaryllis inspired dress, eating haggis & then at the last point decided it was an unsafe image, just before the haggis appeared!

AmaryllisNightAndDay · 21/08/2025 20:14

ifIwerenotanandroid · 21/08/2025 19:44

Sorry, the AI was making a beautiful picture of you in an amaryllis inspired dress, eating haggis & then at the last point decided it was an unsafe image, just before the haggis appeared!

Dangerous stuff, haggis!

SionnachRuadh · 21/08/2025 20:23

I have to shamefacedly admit that I'm not too fond of neeps, so when I have haggis it's with champ and scallions.

Britinme · 21/08/2025 20:54

I speak enough French and German to get by as a tourist and can often work out a word's meaning using those and English language and a smattering of Latin cues, but the most frustrating language I've encountered on holiday was Turkish. It's not written in an alternative script, but the words often bear no relation to any vocabulary I know. In Greece, however, if you can figure out the letters you can sometimes get an idea of what the word might be - just takes an awfully long time.

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:05

Britinme · 21/08/2025 20:54

I speak enough French and German to get by as a tourist and can often work out a word's meaning using those and English language and a smattering of Latin cues, but the most frustrating language I've encountered on holiday was Turkish. It's not written in an alternative script, but the words often bear no relation to any vocabulary I know. In Greece, however, if you can figure out the letters you can sometimes get an idea of what the word might be - just takes an awfully long time.

While doing science A levels and then a science degree, I discovered that I could transliterate Greek quite readily, because I was so familiar with the alphabet. Figuring out the meaning only worked if the word shared a root with the equivalent thing in English.

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:17

DeanElderberry · 21/08/2025 11:29

Was the creation of the bluey a misguided attempt to build a blue animal that would need the maximum number of stockings?

Maybe...

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
SionnachRuadh · 21/08/2025 21:18

Britinme · 21/08/2025 20:54

I speak enough French and German to get by as a tourist and can often work out a word's meaning using those and English language and a smattering of Latin cues, but the most frustrating language I've encountered on holiday was Turkish. It's not written in an alternative script, but the words often bear no relation to any vocabulary I know. In Greece, however, if you can figure out the letters you can sometimes get an idea of what the word might be - just takes an awfully long time.

Bilbao was a tricky place for me, because I could sort of make sense of Spanish, but when I was confronted with Basque there was literally nothing familiar to latch onto.

Slavic languages at least are all very close to each other. I wasn't silly enough to speak Russian in Poland, but my sketchy knowledge of Russian was pretty helpful in trying to figure out what Polish words meant.

FuzzyPuffling · 21/08/2025 21:23

My father spoke fluent Urdu, plus Welsh and Mandarin.
I can really only do English, and sometimes that's garbled.
I'm very impressed by the multi lingual Bluestockingers and am feeling rather inadequate. The blue gerbil probably sums up how I feel!

DeanElderberry · 21/08/2025 21:24

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:17

Maybe...

Noooooooooooooo!

give that poor beast lots of chocolate now

a big hairy spider crossed with a rat. with an extra leg just in case

I repeat

Nooooooooooooooo!

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:28

DeanElderberry · 21/08/2025 21:24

Noooooooooooooo!

give that poor beast lots of chocolate now

a big hairy spider crossed with a rat. with an extra leg just in case

I repeat

Nooooooooooooooo!

Gemini can't count.

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
SionnachRuadh · 21/08/2025 21:28

I don't know about multilingual, I can scratch by in several languages, but even in Irish I'd say cad é mar atá tú and any Irish speaker from outside Ulster would just be scratching their wee heids.

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:29

This one was supposed to have five legs. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
FuzzyPuffling · 21/08/2025 21:50

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:29

This one was supposed to have five legs. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This one looks fine to me, except it's blue. Please can we adopt in into the Bluestocking and find it a purpose in life. It looks so sad and anxious.

Magpiecomplex · 21/08/2025 21:53

FuzzyPuffling · 21/08/2025 21:50

This one looks fine to me, except it's blue. Please can we adopt in into the Bluestocking and find it a purpose in life. It looks so sad and anxious.

Certainly! I think Glaucous would be a good name for her. I'm not sure if she needs to be permanently covered in chocolate to maintain a normal number of legs, but it might be prudent to put her in charge of the hot chocolate machine regardless.

AlexandraLeaving · 21/08/2025 22:18

Bessie thinks she may have cured Glaucus, but it is uncertain whether this is a permanent solution. They both say to keep the hot chocolate on tap for the time being.

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
Swashbuckled · 21/08/2025 22:26

Thanks for the tug boat. We touched a bit of trouble on the way round; high seas, enemy pirates, gerbils arguing about who was steering. Glad to be here; albeit a bit wet and worse for wear.

A large gin and a thick bar of dark chocolate would fit the bill perfectly. (I have a craving for dark chocolate. Maybe with ice cream. In fact, I might actually go and get some IRL.)

Boiledbeetle · 21/08/2025 22:33

Swashbuckled · 21/08/2025 22:26

Thanks for the tug boat. We touched a bit of trouble on the way round; high seas, enemy pirates, gerbils arguing about who was steering. Glad to be here; albeit a bit wet and worse for wear.

A large gin and a thick bar of dark chocolate would fit the bill perfectly. (I have a craving for dark chocolate. Maybe with ice cream. In fact, I might actually go and get some IRL.)

You do look at little damp.

The Bluestocking Pub - Withered Old Haggis edition.
OP posts:
Swashbuckled · 21/08/2025 22:35

Boiledbeetle · 21/08/2025 22:33

You do look at little damp.

Thank you!

That is just what I wanted, Boiley. And worth being wet for…

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