"Were you aware that dumb" Topic

ends with the letter b?

Yes
No
Not a wargamer

Of course!
I went to public school in the 50s!

I even pronounce it that way.

Did you?

Yes, of course--unless you're talking about dum-dums.

I'm very tired and disheartened today. Would someone else please copy and paste some previous sniping of mine at silly poll suggestions unrelated to miniatures or warfare? Thanks.

How to put this delicately… was the OP not aware of this?

Oh, I was, but…apparently, and I have this on the highest authority, most americans don't know this

My lack of interest in the poll outcome is profound, 20th, but I am curious about who the highest authority is.

Robert

But can he without bringing politics into the forum?

Because at that point this post becomes a purely political post. 😏

By the way:

" Dum (Slang): A deliberate, stylized, or phonetic respelling used in texting, hip-hop, or playful insults (e.g., "dum-dum"). [1, 2, 3]"

"Lighthearted Teasing: Use it to call a friend silly without being mean.Example: "Don't be dum, come to the party."

Phonetic Slang: Use it to shorten your text messages.Example: "That was a dum mistake."

The Idiom "Dum-Dum": Use it as a mild, playful noun for a foolish person.Example: "You forgot your keys again, you dum-dum."
"

Wonder if "they" know about numb.

Duh? Yes, of course. +1 John

Plumb?

Seeing the above, I had to check on the bullets.

No 'b', but was the name of an arsenal in India.

Now *I* feel dumb…

Doug

I think 20th could safely PM me without either of us getting DH'd.

If Bill wants to enforce the "no politics" rule, he can start with the steady drip-drip of links to articles explaining how much better the world would be if the Americans hadn't rebelled against their betters. Most recent was last week, I think.

And the reasoning for this post, it made sense to not use the B.

Grimm

I have this on the highest authority

Please name them.

Same person who informed us that us is spelt using just two letters (U & S in case you didn't know)

Catherine Zeta-Jones? 😏

Phonetic Slang: Use it to shorten your text messages.Example: "That was a dum mistake."

Equally likely that the 'b' key doesn't work… ;-)

I itching for the day when tom becomes the issue.

The highest authority is the one who proclaims that the English language has made a habit throughout history of stealing words from its betters.
Whatever language "we" English speakers stole from to get "dumb" actually pronounces the "b".
Just like we stole "knight" from some dumb foreign language, and don't even bother to pronounce the "k" or the "gh".
And all these words sound better the way we (meaning Americans, of course) pronounce them, than the dumb foreigners! (Can we leave out the "g" there? Please?)

Foreigners win spelling bees because they care about the dumb letters that stick to words we stole. We don't care.

Somewhat on topic, Calvin Trilling said that "whom" is a word designed to make us talk like butlers.
Harrumph. There I said it! Harrumph!

I believe the original observation was approximately "English doesn't so much borrow words as mug other languages in dark alleys and go through their pockets looking for loose vocabulary."

At a minimum, we have a Latin-descended and a Germanic-descended word for everything, which is why we have both cavaliers and knights, both spirits and ghosts and can be either stupid or dumb. Then we tour the world looking for terrain and clothing--mesas, arroyos, boondocks, chaps, mocassins, sombreros--50,000 words, as I recall, to French or German at 25,000 each, and two English words hardly ever mean exactly the same thing.

link

Thank you, eto. On the buy list for about Christmas, which is when I expect life to settle down a bit.

Maybe.