Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with your

Foreign phrases for "overacting"

zeraus — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:00:44 -0800

foreign phrases for "overacting" In English, there's "hamming it up", and my personal favorite
"chewing the scenery".

What are the turns of a phrase that you use in your native tongue to describe Shatneresque performances?

Florid Victorian "Curb your dog" sign in Lynton, Devon?

schampeo — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:37:55 -0800

Back in 1996, Heather and I visited our friend Jason in Bourne End, northwest of London, and spent a few days in Lynton, in Devon. There was a funicular from Lynton to Lynmouth, and we used to take the train from Lynton down into town and wander around in search of scrumpy. As we got off the railway, at the mouth of the Lyn, we found ourselves on the west bank of the Lyn, and IIRC there was a building right about there with the best ever Victorian-latinate-lingo "please curb your dog" sign I've ever seen. Back then, we were in our "experience life, don't take pictures of it" phase, and so I don't have pictures. But I'd love a pic, if there's any way possible - but I don't know anyone in Devon at all, and various flickr and google searches have failed me. Any hope that you know, or know someone who knows, someone from Lynton or Lynmouth or thereabouts, or who knows what I'm talking about? IIRC, we were about here. thanks, hive mind! (nod to jessamyn)

Help me manage my people collection.

Naberius — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:38:22 -0800

I seem to have a very particular social skills deficit. Can you suggest software that might serve as a kind of brain prosthetic for me? I like people - I really do. But I'm an introvert. And, for lack of a better word, I just lose people if they don't get in my face on a regular basis. I want to maintain relationships, but I just lose track of people and before I know it months have gone by and the friendship has atrophied. A lot of my interactions with friends are sort of "yeah, sorry I haven't been in touch, how are things going with you? I'll try to be better about that." Over and over again.

Also I'm in a field where the ability to network is quite important and because of this particular issue, I really suck at it. Basically I seem to be able to keep up with only a very small inner circle of friends - smaller than most people's - and everyone else drops off into that outer circle of contacts or acquaintances, whether I want them to or not. Sometimes they are hurt. More often they just realize they're having to put in most of the work to keep the connection running, while I'm not really holding up my end, and they let things drift off.

Its occurred to me to wonder about contact management applications like ACT. I gather salespeople use them to manage social connections with more people than our primate brains could normally deal with. But I don't really know much about them. What do they actually do? Would they be useful for me? Or perhaps there's some other kind of application that could basically keep a database of people I know, track how long it's been since I did something to keep that particular plate spinning and prod me to give so and so a call or an email or something? What would you suggest?

take this job and.....

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 09:48:11 -0800

I did a search, but didn't find that anyone asked this specific question, so here goes: I have been working on getting up the nerve to quit my job (not having another one lined up) for many months. Over a dozen years (I'm in my late thirties) of performing "increasingly responsible" admin work, while trying therapists, networking, career coaches, etc trying to "find myself" and figure out what would be more rewarding for me to do has turned up nothing, and my mental and physical health has reached a breaking point.

(my undergraduate degree in communications was so nonspecific that it really didn't give me a direction to go in, and I have never been assertive or aggressive enough to turn what I learned in school into an actual JOB.)

*What do you say to people when you quit your job without having a new one to go to?* I have an unfortunate tendency to blurt out what I'm really feeling when I'm given an opening, and I don't want to tell my formidable boss that really what I want to do is take a month or two to sleep late, take long walks, organize my house, have dinner waiting for my spouse when he gets home, and MAYBE look for part-time office work after that. Work that perhaps crushes my soul just a teeny bit less to cover my bills. I can afford to take some time off.

I want to be more professional than that, both to the boss and to the rest of the people I work for and with. So what do I say? I don't want to burn any bridges - these are good people and who knows, I may one day work with some of them again. And how do I get the nerve to quit? After I left my last job for this one (more than three years ago) my then-boss was so angry at my "betrayal" by leaving him (that's a whole long, other story of a very miserable job) that those were two terrible weeks. That memory still lingers, and makes me afraid to turn in that letter.

why cye

alkupe — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:43:04 -0800

what's the meaning of the title of the show curb your enthusiasm is there a specific origin/meaning/joke to the title?

Where to get cheap CD/DVD resurfacing in NYC

incomple — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 13:14:16 -0800

Does anyone know where in NYC (preferably in or near the East Village) one can have CDs/DVDs resurfaced for cheap? I went to Kim's on St. Marks to sell off some DVDs and CDs, and the bulk of them were turned away for being too scratched to sell. The clerk suggested that I get them resurfaced, saying that quite a few places in the area could do the job for $.99 a disc or less. While that would make it well worth my while, I haven't seen anywhere while walking around, and Googling has proved fruitless. Anyone know of a place with pricing close to $.99 a disc (or less even)? Thanks!

Question number 13974

Saucy Intruder — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:37:53 -0800

PersonalPronounFilter: What's the origin of the word "Your" in "Your Honor," "Your Majesty," and "Your Excellency" (among many others)? Why not "My Majesty" or "The Majesty?" Isn't the Queen supposed to be the source of my majesty? She sure as hell doesn't get any additional majesty from me.