Re: Results of Poll by Email No. 26

Peter Clark scripsit:
>         First, my most humble apologies for the lateness of this poll. I've only a
> week to go before my master's thesis is due and my grandmother recently died,
> which entailed a quick flight out to California for her memorial service.
> So--I've been a little preoccupied with other matters.
>         However, not one to keep fans of the poll in suspense, here are the results!
> When asked about their mental health, 21 people responded:
>         A. I am boring vanilla-flavoured normal (2 responses, 10%)
>          B. I am diagnosed as clinically sane (5 responses, 24%)
>         C. Being eccentric burns up calories, y'know (11 responses, 52%)
>         D. I have a diagnosed mental condition (3 responses, 14%)
>         E. My condition can be controlled with treatment (0 responses, 0%)
>
>         First, I think what this poll suggests more than anything else is the varying
> degrees of our self-perception. Namely, here are a sampling of people who
> answered "C":
>         Quoth Sylvia Sotomayor: "Probably C. I'm seriously considering agoraphobia
> for a secondary hobby."
>         Roger Mills: " 'C. Being eccentric burns up calories, y'know' It must be so;
> I weigh the same now as I did 50 years ago in college.
>         "The wonderful young(er) man who helped me (re)build my house concluded early
> on that I was crazy (he was too, actually, so we got along quite nicely),
> but politely rephrased it as "eccentric", which he defined as a crazy person
> with a decent income."
>         Rachel Klippenstein: "I figure I'm entirely sane and stable, just a bit odd.
>  My most awkward eccentricity is a tendency, when thinking about linguistics
> or languages, to start practicing sounds aloud, often without becoming
> consciously aware of it for a while.  This can happen at rather inopportune
> times, such as when I'm riding the bus."
>         Andreas (not Daniel): "Any mental illnesses I may have are undiagnosed, but
> I'm widely considered odd/excentric."
>         Someone who did not wish to be named: "I would say that I fit into category
> Trying to do everything all at once and under time
> constraints bestows migraines, depressions, stomach cramps, insomnias, dizzy
> spells, wild fits of laughter, antic behaviors, rapid speech, bouts of anger,
> horrendous distractedness, scribblings on envelopes, lost cell phones,
> tingling in the fingers, mild memory lapses, anxiety attacks, careless
> driving, brown studies, crying spells, stiff necks, unwashed dishes, fatigues
> and faintings, and poor eyesight.
And the desire to write lists, something I tend to share.

> laevuslevuslithuanophobia
If you are going to end in "phobia", you need Greek, not Latin.
Otherwise you get hideous hybrids like, say, "television".

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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