still. not. me.

so in the health system at my former university, there's an employee whose given name is the same as mine and who's recently married someone whose last name is Fox.

you can see where this is going.

everyone she works with knows that her name has changed. they apparently assume that her e-mail address will also have changed, since its first three letters are always a person's initials; they fail to realize that your university ID stays the same until the end of the world (or similar), so your e-mail address will always be the same. she can get a new (additional) e-mail address if she wants, and have people write to her there and have it forward to her central account, but that address wouldn't look like a university ID and it wouldn't be the same as mine.

no dice. they keep searching for GivenName Fox, and my name comes up first (on a list of more than 100, since the fool program searches for people with either name, instead of only those with both). but for some reason known only to whatever god made the chemicals they breathe over there, they look right past the part where next to my name it says "Grad Graduate Arts and Sciences," which might clue them in to the fact that I'm not the Fox they're looking for.

she comes up fourth. (for some reason there are two Foxes with different given names at #2 and #3.) that's not that far down. you can see her right there, and next to her name it says "Staff MC-6 West" -- the same place they work!

but no. i keep getting her e-mail. no matter how many times i reply and say "please make sure you have the correct GivenName Fox", and "this is your co-worker's correct e-mail address", and "still not me!", the mis-addressed e-mails keep coming. she has sent an e-mail to her whole department, cc'ing me, saying "hi guys, i got married, but my e-mail address hasn't changed, so please leave poor Fox alone, she's been so patient", and they keep coming.

make it stop. make. it. stop.

thinking happy thoughts

(you can fly!)

flt tells me that devilvern's team (SM, devilvern, FH, DA) should be stretching -- or drinking -- now in preparation for their first game at the Dykes, which is noonish.

good curling, boys! and to datlowen's team too, whenever their first game begins.

(between the thinking happy thoughts and "you can fly", i was this close to using my "i do believe in fairies" icon, but as you can see, i didn't. you're welcome.)

lack of back formation

why is it, do you suppose, that nobody (as far as i know) uses, even jokingly, the word *stickle -- meaning what it is sticklers do? people can be sticklers about a variety of different things, after all, but there's no verb related to this clearly nominal form; i wonder why speakers seem not to think of that -er as the agentive suffix (whether it is or not) and thus consider the noun to be derived from the verb, and thus go ahead and coin the verb to fill that slot. i know the way to split it is more likely to be stick + ler than stickl(e) + er, but we have "but(t)le," don't we, for what a butler does?

x-posted to philologist.

[ETA:

well, i'll be damned.

One entry found for stickle.

Main Entry: stick·le
Pronunciation: 'sti-k&l
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): stick·led; stick·ling /-k(&-)li[ng]/
Etymology: alteration of Middle English stightlen, frequentative of stighten to arrange, from Old English stihtan; akin to Old Norse stEtta to found, support
1 : to contend especially stubbornly and usually on insufficient grounds
2 : to feel scruples : SCRUPLE]

preach on, my brothers, preach on.

mecurtin pointed us to happyminion, who quoted andrew sullivan on the hypocrisy of opposition to gay marriage.

between that and the ruling by the supreme judicial court of the commonwealth of massachusetts, it's been a tough week to be on the right wrong, hasn't it?

y'all ever play "scruples"?

from elance:

( memery )