"Could you die in a fire?"

Speak up, I can't hear you – "Can it really be true that men and women understand language in different ways? Nonsense, says Deborah Cameron in this second extract from her new book – the supposed miscommunication is a myth."

Gray seems to be suggesting that men hear utterances such as "Could you empty the trash?" as purely hypothetical questions about their ability to perform the action mentioned. But that is a patently ridiculous claim. No competent user of English would take "Could you empty the trash?" as "merely a question gathering information", any more than they would take "Could you run a mile in four minutes?' as a polite request to start running.

I highly recommend reading that.  It's the second in a series of deconstructing this whole man/woman language barrier nonsense.  First part is here; last part comes out tomorrow.

Oo, another good one:

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that someone who feigns unconsciousness while in bed with you probably doesn't want to have sex. But nobody criticises the defendant for being so obtuse. In these proceedings, the assumption does seem to be that avoiding miscommunication is not a shared responsibility, but specifically a female one.

EXACTLY.

Go read this article.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

Maybe it's Microsoft(r).

Goddamn I hate looking for answers sometimes.  Mostly I love it, but sometimes it's Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162246

Currently for a contact, it changes (frex) '555-444-1212' to '(555) 444-1212'.  I want it to not do that.  How do I get Outlook to stop autoformatting numbers?

I think I'd have to change the country I'm in.  What the SHIT.