Hatrack River Forum: Darwin Awards (aka-stupid people dying in stupid ways)

This is topic Darwin Awards (aka-stupid people dying in stupid ways) in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

quote:
The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool... by removing themselves from it.

I've always found these stories pretty amusing.
http://www.darwinawards.com/

Oh, and don't try this at home. [Wink]

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :

I'm still alive and well, though, in case anyone was wondering. [ROFL]

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :

I care! *running tackle hugs Anna Kate* [Kiss]

Hobbes

Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :

I love Anne Kate!

Annie [Smile]

[ October 25, 2003, 02:46 AM: Message edited by: Annie ]

Posted by Rhaegar The Fool (Member # 5811) on :

I love Eruva for showing me this site!

-http://users3.ev1.net/~eekfrenzy/captionspage/badfotrcaptionsx.html

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :

<<<<Hobbes>>>> [Kiss]

<<<<Annie>>>> [Group Hug]

Y'all are so cute!

Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :

Do you really say

quote:
Y'all

Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :

I say y'all. As far as I'm concerned, y'all is the proper second person plural form in English. [Smile]

Of course, I also use 'monkey' as nearly every part of speech, so I'm not sure how impressive my opinion will be to anyone else. [Big Grin]

Posted by Black Mage (Member # 5800) on :

Ya'll is a great word. Only way to indicate plural you well.

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :

Yes, I grew up in the southeastern U.S., and we say "y'all" for second person plural. I've traveled around a good bit, though, and so I've also picked up "you guys" which seems to be the most often used second person plural pronoun form other places in the country. My twisted brain even sometimes produces the hybrid "y'all guys", <laughs> which as far as I know is all my own.

Almost nobody really seems to use "you" for second person plural, because we always seem to feel the need to distinguish you singular from you plural. I think "y'all" is really a better solution to this dilemma than "you guys" because it doesn't clear up number confusion only to introduce additional gender confusion, and because it's a contraction of "you all" and so is perfectly regular and correct English, yielding a single pronoun, "y'all". Of course, just because something is better doesn't mean it will come into widespread acceptance. (Or else why would be all be using Intel cpus?) So I expect "y'all" to disappear eventually as the regional variations in English are blended together and lost.

[ October 25, 2003, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]

Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :

Thank you. That's my curiousity for you.

I never use it. I say 'you guys' or 'you', with the 'guys' as gender neutral although people could take offense.

Interesting that you think y'all will not be as common in the future. That's like some nonsense I heard about the Cantonese language dying out.. to make room for Mandarin. It's not that your expectation is nonsense, just the dying out part is similar.

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :

I just think my parents sound much less southern than my grandparents. (My grandfather said something sort of like "buoids" when he talked about avifauna.) And my friends and I sound less so than our parents, and my nieces and their friends seem to sound less so than me. I think it's the increasing mobility of our society, plus the more common long distance communication with internet friends over the phone, and maybe a bit from the mass media too. Does regional speech in your part of the country seem to be fading away, too? This might be just my subjective impression.

Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :

Perhaps the Southern accent is changing?

What are you saying about mass media?
I haven't noticed anything happening to regional speech here. I should probably get out more or just pay attention. Generally people speak about the same, save those who learn English as a second language.

Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :

About the mass media, people say that tv and radio tend to erase regional differences, because kids learn to speak more from Sesame Street or something than their parents and those around them. I think that might have some effect, but it doesn't seem to be a strong one. I grew up watching tv and listening to NPR and I think I still sound pretty southern. For some reason people with whom you don't actually interact don't seem to have as much effect on your accent.

I definitely tend to pick up regional things when I travel, though. Whatever part of the country I visit, the accent soon begins to play itself inside my head, and I love to savor the differences, they are always so cute, and so inevitably I find myself talking that way. I just tend to pick things like that up quite easily, sort of like Arthur Stewart. [Smile]

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

I grew up with everyone around me saying "Y'all", but I still think it sound terribly southern. I usually say "you guys", which is a northern thing I picked up from most of my relatives living there.

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

[ROFL]

Rhaegar! That was great! I couldn't stop laughing! My sides hurt!
[ROFL]

....the "blink" of destruction....
[ROFL]

Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :

Rhaegar, why did you post that? I just ate...now my sides are splitting!! *clutches side, in pain*

Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :

any y'unsers out there? anyone? anyone that at least knows what i'm talking about? how about you'uns? no? hmmm...

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

And the nominees for the 2003 Darwin Awards are...

Nominee No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man, using a
shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield,
accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a
hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of
Alamo, Mich., was killed as he was trying to repair what police describe
as a "farm type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a
highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the
source of a troubling noise. Burns clothes caught on something, however,
and the other man found Burns wrapped in the drive shaft."

Nominee No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47,
accidentally shot himself to death in Newton, NC. Awakening to the sound
of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but
grabbed a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he put it to
his ear.

Nominee No. 4: [UPI, Toronto]: Police said a lawyer demonstrating the
safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a
pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police
spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto
Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was demonstrating the
strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Peter
Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto
Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of

the 200-man association.

Nominee No. 5: [Bloomberg News Service]: A terrible diet and a room with
no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by
his own gas. An autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his
system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage. It was
just the right combination of foods, and the man died in his sleep from
breathing the poisonous cloud hanging over his bed. According to the
article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating this deadly
gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.

Nominee No. 6: [The News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin made
News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting
South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction, but his sentence
had just been reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet
in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and
was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 7: [The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have
triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, Indiana. A Jay County man using
a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader was killed
Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face. Gregory David
Pryor, 19, died in his parents' home about 11:30 PM. Investigators said
Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing
properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the
gunpowder ignited.

Nominee No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: A man cleaning a bird
feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment slipped and fell 23
stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair
when the accident occurred said Inspector D'Arcy Honer of the Peel
Regional Police. "It appears the chair moved and he went over the
balcony."

Finally, Nominee No. 9, The Winner!!!:

[Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two local men were injured when their
pickup truck left the road and struck a tree on State Highway 38 early
Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident
shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy
Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock were returning to Des Arc after a
frogging trip. When the headlights malfunctioned, the two men concluded
that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. A
replacement fuse was not available, but Wallis noticed that the .22
caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box. Upon
inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly and
the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After
traveling approximately twenty miles the bullet apparently overheated
discharged, and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved
sharply right, exited the pavement and struck a tree. Poole suffered
only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require
surgery to repair the testicle. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and
was treated and released. Upon being notified of the wreck, Poole's wife
asked how many frogs the boys had caught, and did anyone get them from
the truck.

Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :

Hmm... both the window and fuse things have been done on mythbusters. The fuse thing could happen as well as the window but both were highly unlikely.

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

Gotta love #5, though!
[ROFL]

Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :

beatnix,

Murphy's law.

Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :

Murphy's Law? I'm having trouble remembering this for some reason.

If it can happen, it will happen. ???

Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :

Fiazko, I know what you're talking about. i lived in Indiana for 2 years, and I heard that expression alot in The southern part of the state.

Posted by Anthro (Member # 6087) on :

#6 is my fav.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

I agree, Anthro. It's so poetic. [Big Grin]

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

#9 doesn't really qualify because he's not out of the gene pool unless both testicles were damaged irrepairably.

AJ

Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :

beatnix,

"What can go wrong, will go wrong."

Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :

#4 sounds similar to an episode of Hill Street Blues I remember -- a politician on a tour of some projects falls through a window after hitting it to (condemn? praise?) the quality of the construction...

[ January 15, 2004, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: plaid ]

Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :

Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel proved that guy falling out of the window was real.

Then again, they just enjoy breaking glass.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

Doesn't everyone?

Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :

Gotta love gallows humour.

Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :

There's nothing better when you're just hanging around.