Interesting Links for 30-11-2021

[andrewducker]

83% of English people support mask wearing in shops and on public transport

(tags:UK Pandemic polls )

Nicola Sturgeon: The first minister's conference speech fact-checked

(tags:facts Scotland snp )

Northern Ireland economy has outperformed rest of UK

(tags:economy UK Europe trade NorthernIreland )

If you think punter forums are grim you should see how this parenting website talks about sex workers

(tags:sexwork women mother OhForFucksSake )

I am not quite this dad. I do aspire to this level of ridiculousness though

(tags:fun fatherhood video dancing viaClare )

How do people cope with death in the age of social media?

(tags:death socialmedia neilgaiman )

The $5 billion hoard of metal the world wants but can't have

(tags:meta trade )

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition to still matter today, but it does

(tags:religion history sociology spain )

Are humans good or bad?

(tags:morality comic )

Richard Dawkins Doesn't Know What a Woman Is

(tags:RichardDawkins lgbt transgender genetics )

Comments

[calimac]

4) I've always been vague about what the word "punter" (which is purely UK slang: in the US a punter is someone who kicks an American football) actually means. It means "an ordinary person," yes?

6) I leave deceased LJ/DW people on my reading list. It's doing no harm, and if there's a limit in numbers I'm nowhere near it. However I like to keep my phone contact list trim, because I have to page through it a lot, and I had no hesitation in removing my mother when she died.

10) Blimey. Maybe Dawkins felt he had to oversimplify because of time pressure, that's the only excuse I can think of. Surely he knows better. At least he draws a distinction between using the correct names and pronouns for politeness sake and his internal sense of what sex they "really" are - many transphobes refuse to do so - but the real problem is that internal sense. They need to free themselves from the idea that an arbitrary biological classification principle (that genetics - or even phylogenetics - is how we define sex) is the one true reality.

[andrewducker]

Punter means "customer", I mostly think. Generally a working class word,I believe. Sometimes specialised to a customer of a gambling establishment (where one might "have a punt" on a specific horse) or a sex worker (punter might translate to "John" for Americans).

The main issue I have with dead people on my friends lists is that Facebook does birthday reminders, and Steam tells you who else played the same games, so you get occasional reminders at unexpected moments.

[original_aj]

I think it derives from the gambling idea - having a punt on something means taking a chance, putting out some money which might but is not guarenteed to produce a desired return.

In my experience, people refer to their customers as Punters in situations where what they are selling is an experience, rather than an item, and the customers are taking their expected enjoyment on trust, gambling that the experience will be worth the cost. So customers of sex workers, visitor attractions, bars and cafes/takeaways and similar businesses - but not shops. Usually used in a context where there is little or no personalisation, the customers are interchangeable rather than individuals, and between the staff rather than to the customers themselves.