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Why the Hostility and Apathy?
- Thread starter keysersoze
- Start date
not new guy
NES Member
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- Dec 7, 2009
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People can be a bit paranoid at times.
It's not like the AG's office ever lurks or trolls here or reporters even .
It's just us gun folks. Honest.
Pay no mind to the grumpy old farts who jump on someone who's first post is looking for info about who ships ammo to MA., what gun shops are selling off list guns, post ban magazines or anything else verboten in the Peoples Republic of Mass.
It's not like the AG's office ever lurks or trolls here or reporters even .
It's just us gun folks. Honest.
Pay no mind to the grumpy old farts who jump on someone who's first post is looking for info about who ships ammo to MA., what gun shops are selling off list guns, post ban magazines or anything else verboten in the Peoples Republic of Mass.
LTCRN
NES Member
Don't forget the stress bunnies too and unfortunately they aren't affiliated with Playboy.
SpaceCritter
NES Member
Well, I self-describe as ugly, surly, and stinky, so...
![[wave]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/011.gif "Wave [wave]")
As to New England (or the Northeast generally) and its culture versus Outside:
I posted in another thread a tale from my final iteration of grad school, before finally coming to my senses about academe. Here's another:
That aforementioned Big Ten university is in the Midwest. My first inkling that Something's Different came the first time I drove out to see the place. That was back before the days of cell phones, when you had to find a payphone and use a "Calling Card" (lots of digits to dial) to call home and charge it back to your account. When finished dialing all of those digits, the friendly recorded operator would say, "Thank you for using AT&T!"
...EXCEPT in Ohio. There it was: "Thank. You. For using... A... T... and Teeee."
Anyway, we're about halfway through that first semester at the university in question. I'm a TA in a weeder course. Everybody does the formal end-of-semester course evaluation. Because that's too late to make corrections if things are going sideways in the current iteration, places I'd been previously instituted an _informal_ evaluation mid-semester: while the formal eval trickles down through the hierarchy (dean, then department, then your supervisor, then, finally, you), these we get to see immediately. "Take out a blank piece of paper - DO NOT put your names on these." We'd ask some generic questions about the class and their experience: "3 things you like about the class, 3 things you hate, 3 strategies you'd give a friend to succeed, ..." leave the room and get a volunteer to collect them and stuff them into an envelope.
That semester we had something like twenty sections of that weeder, over a staff of a dozen. We all thought it was a Good Idea (including our supervisor, the faculty member who was the lead instructor), and did it. All the TAs got great reviews... except the SpaceCritter. It appears I was the biggest bastard these kids had ever seen.
Fellow TAs sat in on recitations and labs; lead instructor sat in on recitations and labs. Yep, I'm doing everything correctly. And, of course, _I'm_ the one who suggested doing this exercise in the first place.
We're sitting around the grad lab in our department, puzzled, when another guy from our department speaks up, and says, "I know what the problem is."
We look at him. "Well, Mark, we'd love to hear it."
"You're from Connecticut."
"??!?"
"I had a roommate once from Connecticut. It took me six months to realize he wasn't an a**h***."
He went on to explain: "Your vocal inflections, your mannerisms, your choice of words... they're interpreted by us here as VERY AGGRESSIVE."
That same year was Seinfeld's heyday: we had guys in our department with the show's bass riffs as their system sounds. After several long conversations with colleagues, I found a major difference: they loved the show because they considered it totally ridiculous - nobody would actually act like that. Any of us growing up in the Northeast - especially the NY metropolitan area - thought it was funny cuz it's TRUE.
Postscript: years later, a (CT) colleague had her company bought out by a Midwest conglomerate, and they relocated her to the mothership. They sent her to one of those team-building training things. She's (physically) big, but very reserved while OTOH very bubbly: think a young Julia Child. After that training exercise, she called me: she practically had one guy in tears! And all she did was have an idea about how to solve their exercise problem, and gave it in her usually bubbly fashion.
Fixxah
NES Member
Get your ass back here pronto. If you want it to be something more, participate and be yourself. We need more of the originals back to keep an even keel. I for one miss you my friend.
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You need a cuddlier avatar pic. Dat skull. Ouch.
Wouldn’t be so painful to look at if the American flag was displayed properly on it. (IE blue field of stars to the left of the viewers eye when hung vertically)
Lip
Army Veteran
Move or fight. I wanted more toys than Ma could supply. So I moved.
D
Deleted member 67409
Well, I self-describe as ugly, surly, and stinky, so...
As to New England (or the Northeast generally) and its culture versus Outside...
My favorite New England slur is "Flatlander." The term is downright nonsensical yet perfectly expresses the New England abhorrence of those not from here.
To a hardcore Vermonter, a flatlander is someone who doesn't have two or three generations of Vermont-born ancestors. Pretty much if you're ancestors came from New York or Massachusetts after 1960, you're a flatlander. The other application of "flatlander" in Vermont is anyone from outside Vermont. You from New Hampshire, which has many taller mountains than Vermont? Flatlander. You from Maine, which has Katahdin that is around 1000 feet higher than Mt. Mansfield? Flatlander. You from Alaska? FLATLANDAH BASTID!!! And yes I know that the Vermont accent(s) are not the same as the Boston accent. I knew a guy from Lyndonville who spoke with the proper laconic drawl.
To a New Hampshirite, a flatlander is anyone that isn't a M*sshole (M*sshole is also used in RI, CT, and Maine. I don't recall Vermonters using the term).
To a Mainer, a flatlander is someone who isn't from Mass or NH.
What makes the term so absurd is that Vermont's Green Mountains are really rolling hills in comparison to say NH's Whites and Maine's mountains. I would know - AMC NE67 hiking club member here. Though I will say, Vermont has more overall hills and mountains than NH or Maine.
There's also people "from away" and who "aren't from here." I hear the second one more often.
I love my New England brethren. If it wasn't for the new progressive left push to stupidity and their desire for more gun laws and more government control, I would be quite happy here.
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allen-1
NES Member
I've heard, and I believe it to be true, the most unfriendliest phrase in the english language is "You ain't from around here, are you?"
I grew up in Maryland, went to Connecticut, and I have family in Maryland, so I spend time there.
One visit, on my way to my sisters I stopped at the 15 Mile House, a kind of dive bar in Reisterstown, MD, (15 miles from the city limit). I walk outside and there's a bunch of guys wearing patches standing around my bike. And these are candy-ass patch-holders. Seems like every third bike rider in MD wears a patch, and most of them aren't 1%'rs.
I walk up and ask if there's a problem.
I get "You from Connecticut?".
Yeah. So?
What you doing here?
Drinking.
blah, blah, blah.
Turns out that my mother used to buy eggs from the mother of one of these guys. He lived up on Greenspring Avenue. So I took a ride with them and drank some more by a bonfire. After it had been established that I was "from around there".
Lip
Army Veteran
Sheesh OP, and twigg, you ain't sh*t till you get banned. I like 95% of the members here, the other 5 can pound sand. That being said we are a motley lot here I can also say we have wildly divergent beliefs and attitudes. Oh and 1911s are better than glocks.
Lip
Army Veteran
Reminds me when I moved out here, got corrected by a crone on my accent. I laughed and said when you can pronounce mirror come back to school me.
Jason Flare
NES Member
Well, it was nice to have you back for a minute.
Lip
Army Veteran
Wish there was a rep button.
D
Deleted member 67409
Accents are a topic unto themselves. The only thing that truly is verboten is mispronouncing towns.
I used to work with a girl from Arkansas. I had a Captain Picard facepalm moment when she asked if Sandwich, Mass was named after the sandwich. Then I heard her ride roughshod over Worcester. I remember her messing it up pretty bad at first. Her second attempt was "Whore... Whorechester?!?" I later joked to her when she asked if I wanted pizza and I said "there's a 'r' on the end of that..."
Because there is. Pete-zer. Kielbass-er. Lakonee-er. Pipp-er (Pippa).
I have also observed that the hostility, mostly in General and Off Topic, has increased in the last few years. It caused me and several of my shooting friends to take a step back. Many are still here or have returned, but participate much less.
I have no evidence, but suspect when the forum was smaller, more posters had met each other in meat-space.
I also suspect forum culture has changed across the internet. Not much call for 10,000 words on machining a rifle receiver when a youtube video (like and subscribe!) will serve.
I have no evidence, but suspect when the forum was smaller, more posters had met each other in meat-space.
I also suspect forum culture has changed across the internet. Not much call for 10,000 words on machining a rifle receiver when a youtube video (like and subscribe!) will serve.
Lip
Army Veteran
I've both literally and figuratively met a shit ton of folks in person from this site. Good folks. Watch out for Namedpipes he's shifty. You've been warned.
D
Deleted member 67409
RI is the worst for town names.
Burrillville (no one pronounces the double l's except non-RI'ers)
Woonsocket
Pawtucket
Scituate
Glocester
Chepachet
Woonsquatucket
Quonochontaug
Coventry (some people say "Cuv-in-tree", not "Cawh-ven-tree")
Pascoag
Narragansett
North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Kingston, and West Kingston (last two are villages inside SK)
Usquepaugh
Charlestown (not Charleston)
Middletown (heard a CT lady say "Middleton")
Those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I don't remember people mispronouncing "West Greenwich" or "East Greenwich" but I could see someone saying "Green-wich."
Lip
Army Veteran
I grew up in the mid west we used simple words for cities. It's hard to pronounce words in sub arctic temps.
Jason Flare
NES Member
D
Deleted member 67409
See I find "Middleborough" or "Marlborough" or "Glocester" or "Moultonborough" simple. They're extremely English and roll off the tongue if you have a New England drawl. Most counties out beyond NY were laid out by surveyors and pre-planned. For instance, there are 26 states with a "Jefferson County." Outside New England (Pittsburg, NH was named after William Pitt the Younger yet was incorporated in 1840), the rolling English names became passe.
