Thoughts on life - glurge warning

[Marguerite]

Hi, I'm telling you now, I know this is glurge, but husband liked it so much because it's also using trains as an analogy for life.

He suggested I share it with you.

It also has spelling mistakes - husband has now downloaded a copy so he can correct it.

At least it doesn't finish with a request to post it on to all your friends!

http://humour.bluehaze.com.au/files/20070105_life_on_a_train2.pps

Another note - husband & I regularly read this particular bluehaze site. I posted a link to this site once before and someone got extremely offended because they considered it a porn site. We don't think it qualifies as such - while the jokes are sometimes occasionally 'blue', they MUST have enough humour to overcome this and not rely on coarseness for the humour. But it IS an Aussie site, and we use words in polite conversation that some people in the US find offensive; just as some words in common use in the US are offensive to us. That might be why someone was offended before,when I posted a link to this site.

There is nothing remotely offensive in this particular post, though (other than the glurge content, which could be a risk to diabetics).

Enjoy!

Marg

 

[ScentofCedar]

You have me intrigued, Marguerite!

I am on dial up down here. The piece will take something like two minutes to download, so I cancelled it.

I can hardly wait until one of us who can download more quickly reads and reports on the piece.

I love funny things!

And I am very curious to know which are the blue phrases Americans might be offended by while Aussies see nothing wrong in them ~ and vice versa.

There IS a little "accent" in your postings ~ and a little different take on life is visible in your writing, too.

It's fun to read your postings.

What I have known about Australia, prior to reading your postings, is limited to that series of novels about The Thornbirds.

It is interesting to me that your husband will post as readily as you do, yourself.

Is this kind of equality and sharing a usual thing down there? Helpful as this site has been to us? My husband would shoot himself in the foot before he would read through my postings ~ let alone deign to give an opinion!

Anyway, I will be waiting to see what happens, next.

Barbara

 

[Star*]

Thanks for the additional carry on....Marg!

Um....what's a glurge? I saw NOTHING of an indiscriminatory nature in that whatsoever. And belive me, I have so few moments of discriminating means I really looked for it. What gives?

Hugs and Baggage
Starbie the traveling Train Barbie. Woooo Woooo

 

[Marguerite]

Glurge is the generic name (not purely Aussie) for the sort of sentimental, tear-jerker stuff that people send to other people. A lot of glurge is accompanied with messages like "if you're a genuine, warm-hearted loving person you will post this to all your friends. if you're not then I won't receive a copy back from you," sort of thing. The emotional blackmail link is common to glurge but not essential.

And occasionally, something crops up that is really worthwhile, in my opinion.

I found a link that defines glurge - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glurge

When I look at it, I'm not sure if this qualifies. But it comes close. Still, I like it. It's not about any specific incident, which makes me feel more comfortable about sharing it. So often the "true" stories aren't. And that gets me annoyed.

Hoax emails are of the sort where you get a warning about a situation or problem, such as the story about a bloke waking up after a party, in a bath of ice with a note on his chest telling him to get himself to hospital because his kidneys have just been removed for sale on the black market. These sort of things are usually spread around to discredit or damage a particular place. Sydney copped that particular one from about mid-1999, apparently aimed to turn people off wanting to visit Sydney, even though in Australia there is no way any organs can be purchased for transplantation in Australia. Even blood donors don't get paid here.

But glurge - not necessarily a warning, just a heart-warming message often about little Betty or Johnny, who never had shoes to wear to school until a kind person gave them some money; now little Johnny (or Betty) owns a shoe company which provides shoes to homeless people, or some similar message. Generally untrue, just made up to sound more inspirational.

Sorry about the slow link to dial-up, Barbara. We've only just gone on to broadband ourselves. It's not a joke or anything, just something a bit sentimental.

About language variations - we first noticed this back in the Sixties when my sister spent a few years in the US & Canada. We had a brand of sticky tape which turned out to be a brand of prophylactic over there. She got into a lot of trouble at work when hunting for the tape.

Then sister in law spent a year in Iowa as an exchange student. She found the language really puzzling and the amount of swearing (generally four-letter words referring to various bodily functions) a bit hard to handle. Then SHE said something which offended her host family. While for us, blasphemy is a category which includes references to the Almighty Himself without it being relevant, any other Biblical reference, such as to purgatory (and other names for it, often associated with the classic Aussie adjective) are not an issue for us. I remember reading "BC" comics and seeing one where a character is walking around holding a sign "War is heck" and the person was saying, "This is a FAMILY strip, pal." I didn't get it.

Basically, some words are more or less offensive, depending on where in the world you go. And it's not just words - some gestures mean totally different things in different countries. That's less of an issue between Australia & the US, it's more Europe & Africa. And Japan. But I do know that if I ever visit the US I'm going to have to watch my mouth.

And it does make for some difficulty in translating some jokes.

For those who saw our pretty pictures of children and references to trains as a metaphor for life, I hope you enjoyed it. For those who couldn't - undoubtedly it will go round again. And again. As they do.

But this one, we liked.

Marg

 

[busywend]

LOVED IT!

Thank you all for being part of my train ride.

 

[Star*]

Authors Note: I am NOT the caboose! no....wait...I do not HAVE a big caboose! I think I can, I think I can! haha.

 

[Sara PA]

Urban Legends Reference Pages is better known now as snopes.com

 

[Marguerite]

Thanks, Sara. We have Snopes bookmarked. The only problem I have with Snopes - it's a distraction! I can lose myself wandering from snippet to snippet. There are other hoax-busting (and similar) websites but we also find Snopes to be the one most likely to have checked things out thoroughly. They admit when they're not sure and not afraid to later admit mistakes.

I have a friend (possibly former friend - haven't heard from her since she got angry with me over her constant posting of propaganda to which I was not allowed to reply) who flooded our in box with glurge, among other things. We got virus warnings, hoaxes, propaganda, 'jokes' from only an ultra-conservative point of view, and so on. We regularly would send her back the Snopes link for that particular item.

You probably already know how, Sara, but a lot of people don't know how to check the validity of this sort of email. What we do, for those who are interested - we find a particularly representative chunk of text, such as " next thing he knew, he woke up completely naked in a bathtub filled with ice". You then paste that phrase, between double quote marks, into your search engine. What usually happens - you get a series of links in which that chunk of text appears exactly as you've quoted. Skim through the hits to find ones where the word "hoax" or similar also appears. Or alternatively, you could add the word "hoax" OUTSIDE the quote marks but within your search query.

it's amazing how much that little trick can refine a search and cut out a lot of the dross.

Star, I love that caboose! Besides, it serves an important purpose. And I wonder how this train analogy would explain two blokes with a hand cart? Individualists cooperating together on their own journey?

Marg

 

[Sara PA]

Back before snopes was well known and when I still got those emails, I would give people the snopes.com link and tell them to check out the whole site, not just the link, because it's so interesting. Got more than one person to stop sending fake emails and start sending snopes links that way.