If You Think About It, All These Thinkpieces About How Millenials Are “killing” Various Industries

(via xamvet)

"Where is a frown?" Americans say mouth, Brits say forehead (my mind=blown)

This recent post from Lynne Murphy on Separated By a Common Language created much discussion in my Twitter feed and over dinner with a collection of American, British and Australian English speakers. Many of us have been living with semantic variation staring up in the face. Even (American English) Lynne didn’t realise her (British English) husband had a difference sense from her:

When I tweeted the question “Where is a frown?” British people told me “on the forehead”. When I asked the Englishman in my house, he said the same thing. Fourteen years together and only now do I know that he’s been frowning much of the time.

And like one of the blog commenters, the Brits I talked with had an epiphany: so that’s why Americans say “turn your frown upside down!” to mean ‘cheer up!’.

Older Australian English speakers I talked to identified the forehead frown as the sense that they have, but a frown has always been the opposite of a smile for me, all about the mouth. Otherwise, what is the opposite of a smile? It looks like we have some intergenerational semantic shift happening right under our noses.

See Lynne’s original post on Separated by a Common Language.

if two people sleep in a bunk bed do they have to share a monster

Little comic I did recently. <3

I combined all the Hamilton feels into one.

Biggest fucking mood.

Tumblr really hates small artists promoting their work through links, so if you’re one of the rare people who actually sees this, please do me a huge favor and reblog it! It’s free and supports me. <3 

Places where you can buy my art that are doing deals this weekend: 

INPRNT: inprnt.com/gallery/misspenart Society6: society6.com/zimmay Redbubble: redbubble.com/people/zimmay/shop

All of these places support me! Though the best place to buy is direct from my Shopify. missypena.myshopify.com Thanks!!

Could somebody be a paramedic if they were missing a forearm?

Y’know, sometimes a question comes along that exposes your biases. I’m really, really glad you asked me this.

My initial instinct was to say no. There are a lot of tasks as a paramedic that require very specific motions that are sensitive to pressure: drawing medications, spreading the skin to start IVs. There’s strength required–we do a LOT of lifting, and you need to be able to “feel” that lift.

So my first thought was, “not in the field”. There are admin tasks (working in an EMS pharmacy, equipment coordinator, supervisor, dispatcher) that came to mind as being a good fit for someone with the disability you describe, but field work….?

(By the way, I know a number of medics with leg prostheses; these are relatively common and very easy to work with. I’m all in favor of disabled medics. I just didn’t think the job was physically doable with this kind of disability.)

Then I asked. I went into an EMS group and asked some people from all across the country. And the answers I got surprised me.

They were mostly along the lines of “oh totally, there’s one in Pittsburgh, she kicks ass” or “my old partner had a prosthetic forearm and hand, she could medic circles around the rest of her class”. One instructor said they had a student with just such a prosthesis, and wasn’t sure how to teach; the student said “just let me figure it out”, and by the end of the night they were doing very sensitive skills better than their classmates.

Because of that group I know of at least a half-dozen medics here in the US with forearm and hand prostheses.

So yes. You can totally have a character with one forearm, who works as a paramedic for a living.

Thanks again for sending this in. It broadened my worldview.

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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But if you’re not alone in the booth, is it really a date?

TBH, people should be lining up to date me for my ability to get a booth in the dining hall

alone.