Episode 217 : Mystery Episode 22

Here’s another little ditty from the evil side of the multiverse! Gives you folks another week to write in, and save the Hat from a quiet, whimpering death. No pressure. Enjoy!

 

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15 Responses to Episode 217 : Mystery Episode 22

  1. jas says:

    The word “eponymous” was running around in my head like a song I couldn’t stop humming the day I wrote that question. I like the way it sounds, and it also makes me think of goofy looking eponymooses and eponymeeces like Bullwinkle or Jerry (of “Tom and…”). But it didn’t fit with TMTH as you guys are just the minions. So I found “epanalepsis” instead. (Figure of speech in which the beginning and ending of a phrase mirror each other; go figure!)

    My favorite current sidekick is Ravi on iZombie. He’s smart, does good banter, and grounds the main character.

    One of my favorite classic sidekicks is Will Scarlett in Robin Hood. I like the scene in which they are first meeting Little John and Robin Hood and Little John battle with bow staffs. Robin Hood gets dumped in the lake and both of them get kind of bruised and battered. Little John makes a disparaging remark about how Will Scarlett took care not to join in the battle, implying that he’s cowardly and Will Scarlett replies, “Just brain over brawn, my friend.”

  2. jas says:

    Heh, no, I don’t think of Will as my sidekick–though I know why he’d think so. (In my world domination story, I do need minions.) Actually, I don’t really think of myself as a main character–as I said in my dreams, I often am not even there–just watching a story about some group of people. I have no idea what this means, or whether it’s a good thing, a bad thing, a bit of both, or neither.

  3. jas says:

    The apostrophe where it shouldn’t be…sigh…

    This is the price I pay for having most of my reading full of possessives in place of plurals, they’re/their/there confusions, its/it’s problems, and so on. Bad grammar is a communicable disease…

    Which kind of reminds me of the conversation about vocabulary. I almost feel as if people who read for pleasure are becoming their own little minority group who speak in a way that a lot of other people have trouble following. I have an ongoing problem with my students in that they don’t understand some of what I’m saying because my vocabulary is so different than theirs, and I don’t even know what words they aren’t going to understand .

    • themagicaltalkinghat says:

      *singing*

      “Well, if it’s supposed to be possessive, it’s just I T S, but if it’s supposed to be a contraction, then it’s I T APOSTROPHE S! Scallawag!”

  4. jas says:

    Just remembering the conversation about school districts…

    When my son was in elementary school, all the parents I knew seemed to be happy with how school district lines were drawn. I think this was because there were many, many elementary schools. And with so many schools, almost everyone was in walking distance, and the school size was small and most families got to know each other. All of that changed by middle school. There are 15 elementary schools in my town, 4 middle schools, and two high schools. So the switch to middle school meant long bus rides, and a huge impersonal school. I never quite understood what the reasoning for the big discrepancy between elementary and other schools was, and I think it made the move to middle school really tough on a lot of kids.

  5. William says:

    Regarding the Iowa City school district issue… I should have mentioned that the major complaint about how the lines are being redrawn is that the method seems mostly to be determined by how the School Board would like there to be near-proportionally-even levels in each school of the number of kids who receive free or reduced price school lunches. As the Board tells it, it’s about class equity. As some parents see it, it’s a way of shuffling kids of certain races around while trying to fool the public into thinking it’s not that. And among those parents, some are upset about the “race shuffle” because they’re white and don’t want more non-white kids in their school, others are upset because they’re not white and they don’t appreciate their kids being treated as political and financial pawns, and still other parents think the real racist angle is that the Board is trying to spread low academic performing races out evenly across the district while high academic performing races (usually simply called “Asians”) are allowed to stay put (and, apparently, shuffling so-called “reduced lunch kids” will move around more white, African-American, and Hispanic-American kids than it will “Asian” kids).

    I have idea what the facts are in terms of the Board’s real motives or how the statistics work out, nor do I even know if I’ve stated all of the relevant issues or if I’ve stated these issues with adequate accuracy. But hopefully it gives an idea of what the issues are, if anyone’s interested. (I think it’s all quite interesting. But during the podcast I got caught up in criticizing the whole system rather than addressing the interesting issues at play in Iowa City. Big surprise, right?)

  6. jas says:

    Neither of you have liked Paul Dini’s Catwoman on DC Showcase?

  7. craig says:

    GBP = Great British Pounds, also known as pounds sterling. As the definition of Great Britain seemed to cause confusion I shall clarify. Great Britain refers to the single major island consisting of England, Wales and Scotland. The United Kingdom consists of those for countries in addition to Northern Ireland, hence the full name of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

  8. Mark says:

    Fortunately, I ate dinner before I started listening; so I’m all good to go!

    That sound started off sounding like some sort of continuation of the butt stuff from the previous episode.

    Vocabulary: I never thought of my vocabulary as being exceptional but like auTony I’ve had conversations with co-workers who surprised me by not knowing a word that I’ve used, though in my case it was heathen.

    Worst Sidekick: Obviously this has to be Timmy, as in Lassie’s “owner”. Lassie had to save him and train him so damn much but the kid never really improved. I swear if I’d been Lassie I would have just started slapping that kid around for being such an idiot, might even not help him after he falls down a well (again).

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