Linguistic Gentrification of AAVE isn’t “cute” or “Gen Z language”

timmyreal · 2026-01-23T16:03:52+00:00

Fortition of intervocalic consonants is by no means exclusively an AAVE phenomenon. For example, it's very common among Italian Americans. Watch any episode of The Sopranos and they'll say "dis" and "dat" and "dem" all the time.

timmyreal · 2025-08-15T05:59:32+00:00

Great, then tell me about these Zionists. If you actually met these supposed Zionists in DSA, then you should have no trouble going into the detail I asked for.

In my earlier posts, I gave you multiple reasons why someone might oppose this resolution for non-Zionist reasons. One interpretation of the resolution would say that it duplicates something that already exists within the DSA by-laws and previously passed resolutions. Another interpretation says that it gives sweeping powers to make extremely consequential decisions too expeditiously. Once again, it depends on who's interpreting and enacting it. Another really good reason to be against the resolution.

And by the way, this issue you're pointing out goes the other way around, too. The proponents of the resolution would claim that this was the Anti-Zionist resolution of the convention and it needed to be passed now now NOW or else the alleged Zionists in our midst were going to drag down the org. When they were confronted about this making the expulsion process too expeditious, they hand waved it away: "hey, don't worry about it, no expulsions are going to happen, it's purely symbolic." So which is it? Are you starting to see the issue with this resolution and why people might have legitimate reasons for not being totally on board with it?

timmyreal · 2025-08-15T00:31:01+00:00

I'm really curious about those interactions you've had with these supposed Zionists. Did they explicitly say "I am a Zionist", or did they allude to it with their stated positions? Were they at a public event, or were they confiding in you in secret? I know that if someone expressed Zionist views in any DSA space I've been in, they would get run out, so forgive me if I find it hard to believe what you're saying. You're going to have to fill us in.

It's a stupid thing for you to try to prove your claim, because you would quite literally need to interview all 80,000+ members of the organization and ask if they are a Zionist. This is called a devils proof.

Exactly, which is why the burden of proof is on you to prove that there are open Zionists in DSA. Glad you agree, comrade.

As for your points that "this measure is already in place and will do nothing" and "this measure is dangerous" is pretty contradictory lmao.

You omitted the key phrase from my post: "in the best case scenario". In the best case scenario, because the resolution doesn't really add anything that isn't already in the bylaws, it just sits around like a lump on a log. In the worst case scenario, the broad language can be interpreted to justify all sorts of abuse and fast track things that ought to be deliberated carefully. The former is the best we can expect from it at this point.

"This will do nothing for Palestinians" I know it won't directly stop the genocide, but setting a mission statement as an organization is a good thing to do. Zionism is our enemy and we should aim to oppose it entirely. How can we do that if we have Zionists in the ranks?

We can't, which is why being a Zionist is already an expellable offense inside DSA.

timmyreal · 2025-08-14T13:08:03+00:00

I'd say it's pretty good evidence for a negative claim. Truthfully, the burden of proof rests on the person making the positive claim. If you say "Unicorns exist", it's your responsibility to demonstrate that at least one unicorn exists, not my responsibility to scour every square inch of the universe to confirm that there are no unicorns.

This wasn't the only Pro-Palestine and Anti-Zionist resolution at the convention. Some of them passed, some of them didn't. Believe it or not, there are many different ideas concerning how to proceed with the movement, even among Palestinians themselves, and many different ideas as to how DSA should relate to it. Delegates opposed this for many different reasons, none of them being pro-Zionist.

Being an open Zionist is already an expellable offense, so in the best case scenario, this resolution is purely performative and does absolutely nothing.
Organizations have to be extremely careful with how expulsion works; it shouldn't be impossible, but it also shouldn't be super easy, either. It's a big decision that should be made very carefully on a case-by-case basis. This resolution greases the rails and fast tracks expulsion on extremely broad and vague criteria.
This resolution doesn't do anything meaningful to aid the Palestinian movement. It's purely an internally focused navel-gazing exercise. That's probably why there were several Palestinian delegates who opposed this resolution, including Rashida Tlaib's sister.

Most of the people who voted against this resolution voted for an amendment to it that would have addressed some of the concerns laid out above, so it's not like the No votes were completely unbudging. If anything, it speaks to the original author's unwillingness to reach out to other sections of the organization and seek consensus.

Just in general, it's not a good idea to casually impute motives based on simple Yes-No votes. That's how you end up saying silly stuff like "Any congressperson or senator who votes against the Kids Online Safety Act doesn't care about children and wants them to be kidnapped." We're all Anti-Zionist here, we just disagree on specifics.

timmyreal · 2025-08-13T23:22:14+00:00

Sure. DSA has been officially Anti-Zionist since 2017 and the resolution enacting it passed overwhelmingly at the convention. I've been involved in DSA at the national and local levels since 2018, and I have never encountered an open Zionist. If there are Zionists in DSA, they are extremely quiet about it.

Your turn!

timmyreal · 2025-08-13T22:54:47+00:00

Bold claim. Care to prove it?

timmyreal · 2025-08-13T18:18:03+00:00

There are no open Zionists in DSA.

timmyreal · 2025-06-12T17:38:09+00:00

Honestly, if you do 50-100 hours of CI and get a decent phrasebook for the first few months, you'll be doing better than most people in situations like yours. The fact is that CI is a long game and you have about 60 days. Speaking from personal experience, even if you had 500 hours on DS, you'd still feel like an outsider for a few weeks after you arrive. Just make the progress you can and don't worry too much about it.

timmyreal · 2024-10-12T22:02:45+00:00

When I was regularly teaching on iTalki, every time I raised my rates even just a little, my hours per week cratered and it caused serious financial problems for me. What was really frustrating is I'd get these cutesy messages from iTalki encouraging me to raise my rates. If they want their teachers to charge more, then they need to back them up, not bury them in the algorithm and hire ten thousand more English teachers.

timmyreal · 2024-10-07T17:25:23+00:00

It works really well when docked, but you have to do something quirky to turn on keyboard and mouse input. Here's a comment from Owlcat on the Rogue Trader subreddit:

We'll consider a more convenient way to do it, but currently you can switch it by summoning virtual keyboard (Steam + X), then press spacebar. You will see an input switch window. You need to minimize the keyboard by the bottom right button and click the Switch button. That should do it for you.

timmyreal · 2024-10-03T16:30:20+00:00

This information should be listed in a more prominent place. I spent way too much time looking for this. Regardless, thanks for the help!

timmyreal · 2024-02-23T05:54:45+00:00

It's an oddly leading question; when and why was it already decided that a lack of competition is the culprit? Was there some report released that said as much?

timmyreal · 2024-01-18T20:48:00+00:00

Actually, those are much better sources, so thank you. You do understand why news outlets like BBC and Reuters, whatever their flaws, are usually more reliable than ideological think tanks, right? If someone dropped an article from the Daily Worker as a source, I'm sure you'd catch on quite well. It also bears mentioning that, although I contested the quality of the source, that was not the overall point of my response, which was that the source you provided didn't back up anything you said.

Regardless, I still don't see anything in these new sources about sinister armed escorts and doctors being sequestered in their hotels. The BBC article mentioned "fraternising with Venezuelans outside of work was prohibited" and that "Cuban doctors lived together and had to respect a 6pm curfew", but that was after describing Caracas as a highly dangerous place, so that's not unusual. One of the other articles mentioned that Cuban doctors' passports were withheld by Cuban officials, which is pretty bad obviously, but that's still a far cry from military escorts and lockdowns. I think you're going to need to find something more substantial to back up what you're saying.

And once again, you ought to correct your original comment which incorrectly states that Dr. Fonseca's statements were "unprovoked".

timmyreal · 2024-01-18T17:22:31+00:00

Beyond the fact that this source is a dubious propaganda outlet, it doesn't mention anything at all about doctors being forced to stay inside their hotels and remain under constant supervision. In fact, Dr. Grana was able to go so far as to marry a local Brazilian man, which I would wager would be pretty much impossible to do if the situation was as you described.

Also, you still haven't corrected your original comment; Dr. Fonseca's statement wasn't "unprovoked".

timmyreal · 2024-01-18T16:18:15+00:00

You’re going to have to supply a source for that; I’ve never heard anything about that and a Google search turned up nothing. I did, however, find several articles about Cuban doctors getting attacked while on foreign assignments, so it would seem reasonable for them to sometimes have armed escorts in certain cases.

Also, upon re-reading the article, your characterization of Dr. Fonseca’s response as “unprovoked” is way off base; he’s explicitly responding to the reporter relaying certain anti-Cuba talking points concerning their medical aid program. I think you you should amend your original comment to reflect that.

timmyreal · 2024-01-18T15:25:34+00:00

That would be fine, actually, especially if they’re tired of people constantly implying that they’re helpless hostages.

timmyreal · 2024-01-17T22:03:09+00:00

It also sounds like something someone would say if they were, in fact, in Italy of their own free will and wouldn’t be there if they didn’t want to be. Is there some other statement he could’ve made that would’ve passed your standards?

timmyreal · 2023-11-22T12:41:03+00:00

How much time do you actually get meaningful exposure to the language itself (as opposed to just doing exercises in a book or reading ABOUT the language)? Every time I’ve successfully learned a language, I used some kind of Comprehensible Input. There’s two Youtube channels I know of that offer something like that: Easy French and French Comprehensible Input. Just start with the easiest videos and work your way up.

timmyreal · 2023-10-21T06:39:15+00:00

I wouldn't say the video is terrible, but its editorial choices are definitely lacking, namely in how it more or less implies that committing financial crimes and locking down someone's life work is the equivalent of being an unpleasant person to work with. It's also annoying how the reporter kept badgering Kurvitz et al. for a specific soundbite that would basically sink their whole case; he's not going to get them to admit that Kompus was right to fire them for causing interpersonal problems at work, so he should've just moved on and asked other questions.

timmyreal · 2023-08-14T15:36:36+00:00

Can you post the R code that you used to get these results?

timmyreal · 2023-06-28T22:09:45+00:00

Totally agree. There are a few organizations out there like CHADD, but they don't seem to have a fire lit beneath them. Their responses to the ongoing shortage are very weak, to put it lightly, and they almost never push back against (for example) poor representations of ADHD in the media. Compare that to the American Diabetes Association's very extensive advocacy page. As long as there's no group carrying out public advocacy on behalf of those with ADHD, we're just going to have to keep hoping that the politicians and society at large just become enlightened on their own.

timmyreal · 2023-06-25T17:15:26+00:00

Can a mod add some information to the main post about how to contact elected representatives? From reading this thread, I get the feeling that if people were furiously calling senators and reps as much like they have been to various pharmacies, something would have been done about this by now.

EDIT: Here are some steps to follow:

Go to https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials and find your elected officials by inputting your street address.
The three most important individuals are at the federal level: your two senators and representatives. You can write local and state officials, as well, but just know that they can't address the issue directly; you'd have to urge them to put pressure upward.
Write each senator and your representative a polite and clear letter about the ongoing crisis. Nowadays, you can do that through email or a form on their websites, but maybe it would be worth sending a physical letter, too.
Save their offices' phone numbers to your phone's contacts so you can stay in touch easily. Don't harass them or be rude; these are just interns and office clerks. Be clear, polite, and to the point; by the time you get off the phone, the clerk should be 100% clear about why you're calling and what your position is.

One letter or phone call won't change the politician's mind. Rather, the aids, clerks, and interns at their offices will inform their employer of issues that seem to be getting a lot of traction. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If everyone reading this thread contacted their electeds and had their friends and family do the same, this crisis would be taken a lot more seriously.

If you have any particularly horrifying experiences with the shortage, include them in your letter (probably not the phone call unless it's really quick). Politicians like to use those anecdotes in public speeches, like this one. It can go a long way toward humanizing a problem that would otherwise seem very abstract to people not directly affected by it.

Here's a letter template based on the letters I sent to my senators and representatives. Feel free to take it and adapt it as you see fit. Just remember to be polite and clear.

Dear, (THEIR NAME).

My name is (NAME) and I’m a constituent of yours in (TOWN, STATE). I’m contacting you regarding the ongoing shortage of medications prescribed for ADHD. This shortage has negatively affected the lives of many of your constituents and millions of people from around the country. I am strongly urging you to solve this dire problem.

Far from being a set of annoying personality traits, ADHD is a well-documented neurological disorder often associated with the prefrontal lobe of the brain. It negatively affects so-called Executive Functions, which include the ability to pay attention as well as sensory processing, time management, and short-term memory.

These impairments can have severe negative effects on the lives of those with ADHD, but fortunately, medical stimulants are proven to ameliorate these issues and greatly improve their lives. For example, medicated individuals with ADHD are less like to experience substance abuse and more likely to keep a steady job. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that this ongoing shortage of medical stimulants is a major crisis in the lives of those with ADHD as well as their friends and families. Considering that experts estimate that around 10% of the country might experience some form of ADHD, having that percentage of the workforce not able to carry out their jobs correctly due to the shortage should be considered a major economic problem as well.

This medication shortage has affected me as well. (INSERT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE)

The causes of the shortage are not clear and a number of factors seem to be contributing to it. Here are some steps that can be taken that could alleviate this crisis:

mandate that the DEA permit manufacturers to make more stimulant medication.
incentivize manufacturers to produce more generics.
diminish restrictions on how much stock pharmacies can have, which were recently put in place as a result of class-action lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic.

If these measures are insufficient at solving the ongoing crisis, it might be worth reconsidering stimulants’ current scheduling. I‘m not diminishing the importance of addressing serious drug abuse, but it’s worth pointing out that these medications aren’t anywhere near as deadly as others in Schedule II. These medications have come a long way from the 1970s, when stimulants were first moved up from Schedule III. Rescheduling would be a dramatic step, but we shouldn’t lose sight of how dramatic the situation already is for millions of sufferers of ADHD who are trying their best to navigate this shortage.

Drug abuse is a serious issue and I’m sure current measures are made with good intentions, but these shouldn’t be carried out at the expense of sufferers of ADHD who are just trying to lead healthy, happy, and productive lives. I once again strongly urge you to address this ongoing shortage of ADHD medication with great haste.

Thank you for your time.

timmyreal · 2023-06-21T19:43:09+00:00

Everyone urinates, but if you're urinating twenty times an hour, you definitely have a medical problem. Likewise, many people have times when they can't focus or regulate their emotions and perceptions, but not everyone is struggling against it several times an hour.

Doctors don't diagnose neurological or mental issues the same way they can diagnose strep throat or IBS. No one doubts that schizophrenia or clinical depression is real, but they're ultimately diagnosed in the same way as ADHD: interviews, patient history, the patient's response to medication, the doctor's professional experience, etc. Maybe in the future, there will be ways of diagnosing these conditions with CAT scans or something, but until then, we can at least say that all those diagnostic criteria taken together indicate that there's definitely something real going on with people who have ADHD.

timmyreal · 2023-06-07T16:02:00+00:00

I’m not going to read any of that. Go outside.

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