[FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

[Nick Thompson]

Thanks, Glen.  Oh, I see that it has come to mean many things.  Meaning is like that.  But I was curious about its origin.  Was the person who first used the term thinking about the Billie Goats Gruff (WHO'S THAT TRAMPING OVER MY BRIDGE!) [Yes, Owen, I am shouting.}  or was he putting along, at 2 miles an hour, half a sleep in the back of a boat on a quiet Vermont lake?

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2018 9:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Pondering the slang Adulting

I've always taken "the Troll" to be a species of Trickster... not always comfortable, but often valuable.


On 11/14/18 7:39 AM, ∄ uǝʃƃ wrote:
> It's come to mean many things, but all along the lines of provocation.  Boghossian et al, for example, did a *great* job at provoking Wilson and Shaw and a host of other actual scholars into responding to their science fraud.  But it's important, to me anyway, to remember that trolling also encompasses behaviors like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and Socrates' treatment of Euthyphro.
>
> So, the options you've offered, fishing or monster, is impoverished.  The village shaman is a better example.  Even if shamen/witches mostly use provocation to hypnotize and control the villagers [†], we can assume that some (perhaps small) percentage of shamen/witches are doing it for the good of the tribe, not just to grab a quick bite.
>
> As I've posted before, here is my favorite defense of trolling:
>
>   How to make a nuisance of yourself in [usenet] news
>   
> http://web.archive.org/web/20070609085706/http://www.sm.luth.se/~torke
> l/eget/net.html
>
> Torkel's dead, but definitely not forgotten!
>
> [†] Perhaps mostly in self-defense, since the physically or mentally abnormal people who didn't become holy people might be executed or exiled.
>
> On 11/13/18 7:40 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> I have always wondered about "trolling".  Is it the monster under the bridge or the fisherman.  Or both?


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