@olddog1 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, people have been using the word “gender” to refer to male-female distinctions in humans and animals since the 14th century. As Paudil says, they were uncomfortable using the word “sex”, since that word didn’t come into English usage until almost a century later, according to online sources.
I spent half an hour watching an intersection near my university, and over 90% of the cars violated traffic rules. Same for bikes. City police report that over 50% of all traffic exceeds the speed limit (they didn’t report how they measured that). It’s curious that so many commenters see bikes a scofflaws, but give the drivers a pass on all their violations. Our state requires giving 5’ of space when passing a bike, and drivers ignore that almost universally.
It’s sad that so many people commenting on traffic issues take the position that because many cyclists are jerks, it is OK to insult, assault, and threaten any cyclist, and to deny cyclists their legal rights. Most drivers assume that they know the laws, but often they don’t. Riding two abreast in the traffic lane is legal in many places, and illegal in many others.
If we could get all the bad drivers and cyclists off the roads, traffic would be very tranquil. If we could get everyone to obey the laws, it would be a miracle. I don’t know the solution, but a little more respect in discussion and action on the roads would be a good start.
And don’t forget, a dial phone transmitted the numbers that you dialed via a digital signal to the phone substation. “Modern” Touch-tone phones use an analog signal.
A significant proportion of cartoons play with stereotypes and assumptions. At a guess, I’d say that the majority of Frazz cartoons revolve around someone in the cartoon making a wrong assumption, misunderstanding something, over-generalizing, or combining disparate ideas. That is where the humor and charm come from, for me.
While today’s Frazz isn’t one of them, some cartoons also deal with racism. Usually to parody it, but sometimes to encourage it. I’m disappointed with the number of comments on such cartoons, which assert that parodying racism is itself a racist act. I think it is a part of the antidote to racism.
@masterskrain and olddog1: I’m a big fan of Esperanto, so I hope Danae never finds out about it! (On the other hand, I’d welcome Lucy the horse into my linguistic world anytime!)
Hey, Nelly55, are you one of those four-fingered cartoon characters? When we used to count on our fingers in binary, I could get up to 31, or 63 if I mentally carried the nibble.
I agree that finger-binary 4 always got some attention. I still use finger-binary at times, although these days mostly to increase my nerdly street-cred.
I like these cartoons with the “My costume might have been…” scenarios. It’s great to hear additional costume ideas.