News of the day, fashion of the day
Terrible presidential candidates continue to do terrible things.
Anthony Weiner has another Weiner incident, and his wife Huma says she’s finally leaving him (for now, anyway).
That’s about it.
Oh, and then there’s the really important news, lead story on Yahoo home page today: this lovely fashion which appeared at the MTV Awards on some pregnant person named Laura Perlongo, who is the fiancee of some actor/producer named Nev Schulman who was the somewhat hapless focus of the movie “Catfish”:
If you are asking “who on earth is Laura Perlongo?” the answer is pretty much “Nev Schulman’s pregnant fiancee who dispensed with her shirt at the MTV Awards.” And if you’re asking “who is Nev Shulman?” the answer is pretty much “the Catfish guy whose pregnant fiancee…etc. etc..”
And if your real question is “why the **** should I care?”, my answer is that maybe you shouldn’t. And if your question is “Then why are you featuring it?” my answer is that (a) it’s better than talking about Trump and Hillary every single day; and (b) it’s another symptom of the decline in societal standards of propriety, as well as the ascent of a bizarre sort of body narcissism.
Sometimes that narcissism is combined with a focus on the nastily-named “baby bump” as a kind of trophy to display (I wrote about the phenomenon here, and also about post-preganancy baby “bumps” here).
And if you think there’s some connection between all the things in this post, you’re probably right.
[NOTE: By the way, about the grammar of that last sentence—yes, I know that “between” is used for two and “among” for more than two. But it seemed to me that after the word connection, “among” doesn’t quite work. I tried to look it up and didn’t find a definitive answer. So I went with my gut—as it were.]
Sigh. It would have been more ‘daring’ had the guy also worn just his underwear, like the host at the academy awards and, shouldn’t her shoes be in black? sarc/off
I’m becoming my grandmother. This basically disgusts me and her mother should be horrified.
I feel really sorry for their kid, to have them as parents.
Something else to talk about? Sure; why not.
“Connection between” sounds right. The first word is singular, and “connection among” sounds off to the ear. But I don’t think you’re talking about multiple connections among the topics; you’re talking about a single connection. I would have bailed and gone with “…some underlying theme connecting the things…”.
What is wrong with these people????
That is just disgusting. What kind of people do that on national tv?
Our culture has gone insane.
You could try ‘amongst’. If it sounds British, it probably will be good.
Hey if you had to tune in everyday to your erstwhile “wife” hanging around being the handmaiden of the Troll Queen, you’d text shots of your stuff to whoever would take them.
vanderleun:
Nope, don’t think I would.
By the way, he did this while his wife was on the road.
It’s either a case of body narcissism or an awkward attempt to educate people about human evolution. Now we know where babies come from and what is sacrificed with the “choice”.
It all started with Demi Moore way back in 1991 on the cover of Vanity Fair. Here’s a sample of some other covers she inspired. Good grief.
And here’s Merriam Webster on usage of between:
Do you have any videos of a pregnant Labrador who sings in her sleep?
Remember that Vista shooter? His father was a playboy middle/big shot in Hollywood, and look how he turned up.
OK, there’s something going across her chest. Are they holding her top in place?
Mystery cults.
When traditions are eroded and the people lose faith in approved religions, they turn to mystery cults. Chief among these is the cult of the self.
It looks like just about everyone at the MTV Awards show embarrassed themselves with their fashion choices.
So, so tacky!
http://www.gofugyourself.com/
Nick –
I believe so. That’s the only thing that I can see that would keep her from flashing everyone in front of her every time she so much as twitched. A jacket like that is *not* going to stay in place on its own, particularly with all of the big bulges underneath it.
As the donald would say sad, bad. There is a special beauty in pregnancy, a best kept private beauty. The urge to make the special, private portions of our lives public is a sign of the narcissistic nature of our society. Personally, I blame my generation and Carlos Dangerous.
Pregnant fiancee, right. Two poseurs.
How are we ever to stop the decline?
Where is the bottom?
Theodore Dalrymple, help us out here.
Where is the bottom?
Frog:
Don’t encourage them! At least the bottom is covered up by her pants.
Matt_SE: A good point, but chief among the mystery cults has long been said to be the Fertility Cult. (I wouldn’t know. That fat little statuette from Willendorf was before my time. But for the record, I never thought she looked preggers — just fat. Didn’t I read somewhere that in the Bad Old Days, when there wasn’t enough to eat, being fat was a status symbol? Or maybe it indicated that she was aged, thus deserving of special respect….)
And I’m 80% sure that Demi and her, um, “handler” thought that she’d get plenty of delicious attention with that cover, and was handsome enough to carry it off. Ditto for Vanity Fair.
But acknowledging the existence of all the parts of the human body, including the indelicate ones, and then becoming so familiar with them as part of the mental as well as the social scenery, has been a project since at least the ’50s, and probably before. Really, the entire 20th century and right up to today has been involved in trying to break free of the restraints of the Victorians (never mind the culture changes that occurred over Queen Victoria’s 60-year reign); in particular, in manners and morality.
(I imagine part of this is the normal inter-generational cultural rebellion, and of course it was a big theme of the Marxists, from whom the New Left got it. Important issues, like should you close the door to the loo, or is that too bourgois?)
I’ve often thought that in the second half of the 20th at least (I was born in 1943) people were far more obsessed with s*e*x than the Victorians ever were. “Sir, do you know how many children I have?” asked the Queen….
And part of that is accepting that preggers is preggers, and that beauty and meaning can be found in the condition. As well as pride shared by the about-to-be parents; and Hope.
OR, of course, the whole thing can be put on for shock value and to get attention, and to show how very avant we all are.
Personally, when the Young Miss was in that somewhat unfinished state, we still wore Maternity Dresses and Maternity Blouses.
Sometimes we were still wearing them ten years later.
By the way, if anyone needs an opinion on English, I have plenty and to spare. Just ask. *g*
I really don’t give a fig for what Merriam-Webster says. It’s never been authoritative; none of them are as informed as the completed 1933 Edition of the OED. The 1971 reprint is even better as it includes errata, and a few new words. I am fortunate to have the 1971 Reprint in compact form, just two very thick and heavy volumes, and you need a x64 magnifier to read the print, but oh well. (This is known as the Compact OED. It was produced from microfiche, I think, of the original.)
And in any case, as we are so often told, the Dictionary purports to be descriptive not prescriptive: It tries to tell us how word are or were used, not how they should be used.
(It’s much better, of course, to take them as both reporting on usage and setting the rules for it, assuming the dictionary is reliable; because in that way, everyone in a discussion can start from the same place. Used properly and with comfortable familiarity, its use can greatly ease communication and even more importantly, aid in clear thought.
Let me point out that just because people have used a given word in an unfortunate and sometimes contradictory matter over the space of, say, 500 years, does not make that use legitimate. There are still people who literally believe in witches, too, but that doesn’t mean witches exist. (Except in my house. I hear them whistling around at night, in the dark….)
Construction — BE – TWEEN — suggests that Neo’s rules, and the rule I learned, is correct. Between certainly suggests, and ought to be consistently used, to denote a relationship or connection of some sort, of two elements; AMONG where there are more than two.
. . .
And for the love of heaven, don’t be bullied by the PC crowd into giving up Standard English!
HE is, in one meaning, the pronoun of UNSPECIFIED gender; in another, the pronoun referring to the male. They are conceptually quite distinct, hence in fact are homonyms.
It is in no way disrespectful of or demeaning toward us girls to write things like, “When a person goes out on a rainy day he often takes an umbrella.” If that upsets one, one is acknowledging that one is of the Victim Class, and by now, that one is ignorant besides.
I see Learned Professors, especially in Law and in Philosophy, stooping to pretend that “she” is a pronoun of unspecified gender also.
It’s not only grating; it makes the writer look silly, ignorant, and craven, all at once.
And it makes those of us who can read, want to throw the book or article you-know-where.
Yes, I see I committed an unbalanced parenthesis above. There’s at least one other little problem in there as well, but I forget what it is.
My guess is that there is double sided fashion tape holding the fabric to the chest area. This will let the rest of the jacket look like it is flowing free (and suggesting possible total exposure).
Walk in any urban area and you will see much worse, although not as explicit.
re: fashion
I’ve been traveling lately. I notice more tattoos in Arizona and New Mexico than I saw in San Francisco, and often on people 40+ years-old.
I guess the point is to let you know she’s going to have a kid who will be well-fed. (I can’t believe I just thought of that line. I wish I’d opened with it.)
The biggest shock I had was learning about the MTV awards. Why in the name of all that is holy are there still MTV awards?
Oh, yeah, that’s right. So a couple of disgusting people who wouldn’t have a future as a men’s room attendant or a waitress at a Vegas strip club can “do their thing” on a red carpet. Somewhere in the world.
I feel so sorry for that kid.