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    <title>Rock &amp; Bach: Would You Say He's a Cheesedick or a Dickpants?</title>
    <link>http://rockandbach.com/articles/2007/08/30/are-we-communicating</link>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <ttl>40</ttl>
    <description>Something for Everyone</description>
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      <title>Would You Say He's a Cheesedick or a Dickpants?</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;The first English word I ever learned was &lt;em&gt;cat&lt;/em&gt;.  Later when I came across the word &lt;em&gt;city&lt;/em&gt; for the first time, I pronounced it &lt;em&gt;kitty&lt;/em&gt;.  This sort of orthographic ambiguity is a real pain for native Korean speakers learning English: there&amp;#8217;s a very dirty Korean joke that revolves around a certain doofus politician&amp;#8217;s inability to master the distinction between the soft G and the hard G.  &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was a pretty serious logophile as a kid and spent a lot of time reading dictionaries and trying out words.  I went through a phase in fourth grade when I was enamored with wonderful and stuck it anywhere I could, like &amp;#8220;French fry is wonderful&amp;#8221; or &amp;#8220;Homeworks are not wonderful&amp;#8221; and so forth.  I always had teachers who would say that you shouldn&amp;#8217;t use a word unless you&amp;#8217;re sure of the meaning, but is this really practicable?  I once heard Aidan, Mathematician Will and Noodletown Shannon parse the distinction between &lt;em&gt;dickpants&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;cheesedick&lt;/em&gt;.   I still don&amp;#8217;t really know how to define dickpants, but I like it as a word.  &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;An early attempt at application:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;School is bitches. Daily I see the North American Dickpants in his natural habitat.  &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Aidan&amp;#8217;s response:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In Boston too we enjoy the splendor of the North American Dickpants, of the especial Northeast variety; though, here at UMass, I am more privy to intimate glances of the South Shore Retard and the Feathered New England Ball Washer. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Are we communicating?  Music is often like this - you just sort of have to assume a basic level of shared experience and trust that something will get across.  I&amp;#8217;ve always been suspicious of claims of universality in music; to me it just seems like thinly veiled chauvinism.  You never hear claims of universality made for West African drumming or Chinese opera.  I like Paul Celan&amp;#8217;s more modest view - that a poem (or a piece of music) is like a message in a bottle that you float in the hopes it will reach shore sometime somewhere.  Odds are it&amp;#8217;ll simply break or sink, but it&amp;#8217;s good to be hopeful.   &lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:37:00 +0000</pubDate>
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      <author>Kangmin Shin</author>
      <link>http://rockandbach.com/articles/2007/08/30/are-we-communicating</link>
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      <title>"Would You Say He's a Cheesedick or a Dickpants?" by jhoyhi</title>
      <description>ljhmib  &lt;a href="http://cpzcfbotudsr.com/" rel="nofollow"&gt;cpzcfbotudsr&lt;/a&gt;, [url=http://xxhfxezdyqwg.com/]xxhfxezdyqwg[/url], [link=http://eywlcctoaieo.com/]eywlcctoaieo[/link], &lt;a href="http://zteqsgcrkisq.com/" rel="nofollow"&gt;http://zteqsgcrkisq.com/&lt;/a&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2008 23:05:36 +0000</pubDate>
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      <link>http://rockandbach.com/articles/2007/08/30/are-we-communicating#comment-1354</link>
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