I DARE You To Watch This Without Meeping

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Read Across America Day
Birthday - Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel (author)
World Day Of Prayer
Independence Day (Texas)

I’ve started like six different thoughtful entries here, entries of substance that would express some deep thoughts about culture and beliefs and thought processes, about gender studies and relations and how I was misled* by a class title, but I can’t keep a coherent thought in my head at the moment, so instead here’s a video of a kitten that fits in a shoe.

I would not want to be a Scottish Fold. Can you imagine the social repercussions of having permanently scrunched up ears in a species that uses them so expressively? It would be like a human having a thick, low-hanging unibrow and a permanent squint. I’ll bet Folds get into a lot of misunderstandings in bars—“Hey, buddy, are youse lookin’ for a fight?” “What?” “I don’t like the way yer lookin’ at me! Bring it!” and the next thing the Fold remembers is waking up in the alley with a bite out of his side and four claw marks on his nose.

But it sure is cute.


*Does anybody else ever read this word as if it were the regular inflection of a verb whose infinitive would be ‘to misle’? I can’t help doing it.

Comments

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

AW DAH KITTY!

I have that one actually saved in my favorites, part of a playlist composed of only "ded from teh cute" animals when in need of a pick me up, and I certainly needed that.

As for the word "misled", no, not me. Though after spending so much time with Latin and French I had trouble today trying to figure out if the phrase "did he shed tears" was correct English grammar, for some reason the verb didn't sound like it was fitting. I almost want to say "did he sheed tears".

[annotated_em]

Can you imagine the social repercussions of having permanently scrunched up ears in a species that uses them so expressively? It would be like a human having a thick, low-hanging unibrow and a permanent squint. I’ll bet Folds get into a lot of misunderstandings in bars—“Hey, buddy, are youse lookin’ for a fight?” “What?” “I don’t like the way yer lookin’ at me! Bring it!” and the next thing the Fold remembers is waking up in the alley with a bite out of his side and four claw marks on his nose.

Have I ever told you that I seriously love the way your brain works?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

A slightly belated thank you! ;)

[viizou.livejournal.com]

Darn, I was just fine being angry at the world, tonight... But who could stay mad looking at that?

I think I used to mispronounce "misled" when I was a kid and still learning English. Oddly enough, the fact that it took me a while to figure out its etymology ("mis" + past tense of "lead" = to be led into error) never stopped me from correctly understanding what the word meant.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

There are so many words that I could figure out by context alone, and that was one, so I know right where you're coming from. Often I figure it out automatically.

[nixve.livejournal.com]

I think I meeped when it started trying (vainly) to attack the shoe.

[marajade893.livejournal.com]

Well, I sure had no chance in hell of not meeping...damn skippy.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I still have trouble with "misled."

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time I taught myself to read, and then my grammar school managed to not instruct me on phonetics, thus I have a tendency to mispronounce words--the most egregious is "epitome", which in my mind should be spelt differently if they want to pronounce it that way--and I *still* read it as the past tense of "misle".

A word game my cousin plays--take a plural noun, which becomes a verb (i.e., the plural "chapels" becomes the present tense of the verb "to chapel") and then figure out what the verb means. It's a wonderful time-killer on long drives, if there are signs to read.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Oh--also, my Wicked Stepdaughter has a Japanese bobtail. Bobtails naturally have a stub of a tail (it's a corkscrew, really!), and their brains still try and make them work as if they were full tails. I've only met one Manx, and didn't get to see him interact with other cats so I can't speak to the complete absence of tail, but a cat with a drastically shortened tail does have to work harder to make her body language understood by other cats.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about that, too. I haven't seen a Manx or a Japanese bobtail interact, although they do just LOOK off-balance at first glance. I get a little annoyed with cat breeders who deliberately breed harmful traits like socially crippling ear or tail defects, or something worse like a flattened face that leads to breathing problems.