Grrl Power #1002 – Windtalkers
Yes, of course we’ll meet Sydney Sr. in just a bit, but he’s probably getting autographs or something.
Sydney got in trouble a fair amount growing up, and her and her mom eventually developed this disciplinarian semaphore so Laura could scold her daughter without needing to stop other conversations. Also, they can have obligatory “How was school?” / “Fine.” conversations without actually needing to speak.
More parental insights to come.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
It’s basically done. Like a dozen more paragraphs. I might even finish it tonight depending on how long this page took to post.
November’s vote incentive is still up. Thanksgiving break put me a little behind so I’ll try and have the new picture up with monday’s page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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wait, but didn’t Sydney tell them about the powers? like way before, when she joined the team?
Well not about the com ball and things like that
never stopped a mother from bringing things up again later on.
Also that was on the phone, briefly, no indication of when or if there was a follow up conversation, at least not apparently to the mother’s satisfaction.
Given how these two communicate, phone calls wouldn’t work. They’d need a video call at least.
Sydney and Mama S. haven’t talked about it yet. In #190, Sydney phoned her mother to confirm that yes the floaty glowy-orbed maniac on TV was her. And made a vague appointment to talk about it “soon”.
“Soon” has arrived. The Family Reveal. Sydney comes out of the Phone Booth to her family.
Doom Approaches.
Okay, I gotta admit, “Coming out of the Phone Booth” is a great euphemism for revealing that you’re a superhero.
Agreed, that’s fantastic.
Molto Bene
Mom: “Well, let’s out with it. Lets have your big coming out announcement.”
Superheroine: “Mom… Dad… I’m a superhero.”
Mom: “Uh…. well… that’s great… um..”
Dad: *whips out the phone* “Cancel the strippers wearing rainbows ASAP!”
*put hand on phone* no no no… lets see where this goes…
Today I learned a term I didn’t know I needed
“coming out of the phonebooth” to describe revealing you have powers or your secret identity to someone.
hmm, if not already being used I can see this catching on.
the only real difference between a phone booth and a closet is that a phone booth can be seen into when the door’s closed.
oh yeah, and there’s a phone in it.
That is why you have the phrases ‘hiding in a glass closet’ or ‘coming out of the glass closet’ for people who fooled exactly nobody about their sexuality.
Today I learned a new term.
Tell that to Doctor Who. Who also usually reveals a crazy adventure and powers to regular people by coming out of the phone booth.
thats a police box. a short term holding cell. the phone is on the outside.
No, no it’s not, it’s just like a regular red telephone box, except it only connects to the police (hence why it is blue, not red)
Actually they were not. They were originally meant as a place for policemen to rest out of the weather during their patrols as policemen frequenting pubs was heavily frowned upon. The phone was added later and was only used by the policemen as they were locked when not in use. They were also considerably larger than even the UK red telephone boxes were, which seem to have been larger than the old boxes used in the US.
Incidentally, one of the first members of the Met to be murdered was murdered in a pub in Dagenham by smugglers who thought he was after them.
The original phone booth that Clark Kent used couldn’t be seen into very well because it was mostly made out of wood. It had a window in front but it wasn’t very transparent. You could see someone was in there but not what they looked like.
I’m all in favor of making “Coming Out of the Phone Booth” a pop-culture term.
A great euphemism, but it made me think: When was the last time anybody saw an actual “phone booth” ???
Does it count if it turns out to be a TARDIS?
nope, because that is supposed to be a police box.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box
Your own link confirms that it’s a phone booth:
“A police box is a public _telephone kiosk_…”
Telephone Kiosk redirects to Telephone Booth: “ A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box[1][2] is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user’s convenience…”
except its not a payphone and serves a specific purpose so was given a distinct design to differentiate them so the public in need of emergency aid can identify it quickly.
It’s still a box that contains a phone, just it only connects to the police and not to Batman
which is what makes it a police box and not a phone booth because the title “phone booth” is normally reserved for one with a payphone, you do not pay to use the phone in the police box.
Who said anything about a payphone?
Is there, or is there not, a phone inside it?
Back when you still had directory services (with a live person on the other end), you could request to be put through to one of the three emergency services, for free
the definition AnonymousGX used (apparently without realizing their own copy and paste had a line it contradicting the point they were trying to make.
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box[1][2] is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user’s convenience…”
it is a kiosk, but a “phone booth” as it is described in general use is what you call it when there is a pay phone inside, a police box has a distinct design to it and is not a pay phone.
Does it count if it belongs to Bill and Ted?
sadly yes. now if you excuse me I have two guilty as sin people to beat up with a paradox machine. or did I do it already? am I doing it currently?
crap….
You do realize that the phone booth in Bill and Ted was a homage to Doctor Who, I hope.
We’ve still got some here in Oz, it seems Telstra still thinks they’re a Good Idea. Apparently they’re now free-to-use.
Some API with ideas above its station thinks I have already posted this, and won’t point me to where I allegedly did it.
We’ve still got some here in Oz, it seems Telstra still thinks they’re a Good Idea. Apparently they’re now free-to-use.
Have a few of them over here, mostly used as wifi ‘hotspots’ (“Who use landlines anymore anyway?” quoted some jerkarse at Vodafone who decided customers don’t really need them any more)
Digimon season 1.
The kind with an actual door? Years.
The little blue open kiosk thing? There’s one about half a mile from here. Don’t know if it works
There is an operating phone booth in my neighbourhood opposite the school.
phone booth…brilliant!
Remember from over 10 years ago, they Learned about the bank heist, her recruitment and a bunch of other mind blowing difficult to comprehend, view changing stuff from a press conference. She can be upset
*looks back at previous page, last panel* We’re not going to get an answer on where Sydney gets her blonde hair from, Sydney Sr. is grey/silver haired.
As a black-red haired son of a blond and brunet, with siblings who run the line between brown, blond, and black-haired, I can say that hair color can be recessive.
that and the father may just have grayed early.
and this is surprising how?
You do know that blonde hair turns grey silver, even pure white, right?
Plus, he was too far away and blurred to really tell what colour his hair is. Just look at Mama S: it looks like she is wearing glasses (or is that the annoyed sideways v’s comic look?)
Grey hair is hereditary. You get it from your children ;-)
All hair turns gray eventually. Gray is not so much a color, but it’s the absence of color. That’s why albino genetic trait has gray/silver hair.
Zack Tilly
I have a friend who’s albino and theirs is more of a very pale blonde. Hair tends to require some small amount of black pigment to appear grey.
Aaahh… My screen is only 1080, but I see no evidence of spectacles on Laura’s face. Her upper eyelid infolds are well defined but. IF she has vision aids, they are probably expensive contact lenses.
Oops, I lied. It’s 1280, 48cm.
Meant on the last page
You are assuming mom did not dye her hair from blond so that her staff at her company would take her seriously.
I’m wondering what her mother and father do for a living now.
mom, runs a fast food joint. dad is an underpaid engineer. Sydney’s mon started working at the fast food place to lower her stress level.
Wait, is this true or is it your guess?
If true where was that mentioned? I’m assuming if it’s true it was mentioned by DaveB in one of his comment blurbs or on patreon, rather than in the comic because I’m sure that I would have remembered that.
Fairly sure guess
He wrote it with such authority and confidence that I wasnt sure. :)
Most guesses are written that way :)
Hair dye is a thing. Whatever her parents’ hair colors are, might have nothing to do with anything.
Hasn’t Sydney already had that discussion with her mom?
…found it: comic 190. Or am I misunderstanding what this conversation will be about?
*Didn’t we already talk about this?”
“yes, but I want to talk about it again, in person.”
Wouldn’t be the first time, you can have many repeat conversations because they want more details, something needed explaining further that they don’t get, or they just weren’t satisfied with how the previous conversation went.
Also… is there the possibility she has two moms? Just throwing that out there.
Two moms… and a dad? I suppose that’s possible, but she has specifically mentioned her dad, and talked with both her dad and mom in the course of the same phone conversation. She has said or done nothing that could imply she has two moms.
I don’t think she has two moms. She has a mom and a dad. She’s talked about her dad quite a bit in the comic, especially when it comes to how her name is Sydney Scoville Jr, which is ‘statistically unusual for a girl.’
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-83-its-adorifying/
Sydney: “Anyway, Sydney is my dad’s name, and it’s gender neutral and… well there you go. I don’t think it occurred to him that he might have a daughter. He wasn’t disappointed… He just didn’t know what to do with one.”
Then in the restaurant hallways when she calls her parents up, it’s to talk to her mom and her dad. There is no ‘second mom.’ Mom is the authoritarian-ish, practical one (who wants to make sure that she’s learning stuff like police procedures), while dad is the ‘fun, comic-booky imaginative one. (who is probably more interested in Sydney learning Batarang-Throwing 101, making sure Sydney has a good origin story, and wants to make sure to get a signed first edition action figure of his daughter, the superhero). Mom is the one that can have a whole conversation with Sydney based on non-verbal signals and is very hesitant about this whole superhero business, while dad yells out his proud support for his superhero daughter in a very disruptive but adorable manner.
I was not expecting Sydney’s mom to be a responsible and put-together adult. Although I suppose someone in the house needed to be.
Pfft! This is a public moment, anyone can appear to be a responsible and well put together adult for an event, Look at Sydney (jr), so to this I say: Wait for it…
Nah, we already have evidence that dad’s the wacky one, mum’s the sensible one.
Yep, as shown during the phone call from the restaurant bathroom hallway. :)
Oh no she’s hooooot!
Good lord, her mom’s young.
Maybe Sydney’s Mum is just one of those people who doesn’t seem to age, just like some men seem to look “about 35ish” until they hit their mid-60’s if they are clean-shaven (only their beard goes grey)?
Can Confirm – very little grey in my hair but the beard s mostly so now.
Never spent oodles of time outside so no crow’s feet yet.
I routinely pass for up to 20 years younger than my actual age.
That effect can also work the other way, mind you.
Fred Astaire, for example, always seemed to look old.
That’s what I’m saying…
I made sure to look for someone else pointing this out before saying so. And while I have no real reason to believe it, I feel like this is Sydney’s stepmom. I don’t really know why I feel like that but I can assume a wacky nerd and a reasonable adult do not combine genes into a wacky nerd… Just how I feel.
Cue Sydney’s bangs launching that garrison cap across the crowd in 3…2…1… (unless – those bobby pins are made of super tensile space steel, courtesy of Dabbler)!
This absolutely needs to happen at some point…
Sydney’s Mum must have been rather oblivious to not have noticed the balls orbiting around her daughter’s head, if they’d spoken face to face since her origin story SCUBA dive.
Sydney usually keeps them in the tube when she’s not working
She worked with Joel for months, and he had no idea about her extra balls
They’re not exactly extra.
You saying she was born with them?
Maybe its natural… maybe its maybelline
Is Sydney’s mom Eliza Dushku? Cause she looks like Eliza Dushku, which would be weird, because I don’t think Eliza is old enough to have a kid Sydney’s age.
Eliza Dushku is 40
I’m 63 and my oldest will be 44 next birthday. So, yeah she’s old enough to be Jr.’s mother
Yah, i’m not the oldest one here… *getting off lawn now*
I laughed. Hard. Being as I have seriously social issues, my mom and I developed something similar but no way as good
I am kinda glad we didn’t. Otherwise I would probably not speak
Ever.
I have decided this is the funniest page yet in this comic. I laughed when initially reading it, which is rare, and even more rare, I laughed again when reading it a second time. Excellent work.
I just went to the topwebcomics vote page. Always glad to see another Boris fan. Him and Frazetta are rawing gods as far as I am concerned.
I have to agree. I have read here for years, and many have made me smirk or the one off laugh. BUT it is very well done… especially the Maxima knowning smirk.
So her mom has the superpower of “being able to deal with Sidney and her father” and “eyebrow of DOOM.”
This ought to be entertaining. Probably way off the rail but I’d love to know how they met/stay together. I’ve known couples like that… you wonder how the HECK they stay together.
I too want to see some Scoville family backstory. Ideally with embarrassing stories and photos of Li’l Syddles.
Note for people in comments, you don’t just suddenly start rapidly decaying at 25, there is a thing called self care, and different people can look dramatically different at the same age, including looking younger than people expect them to.
Also reminder that Adriana is at least 40 and doesn’t look much older than Laura
Unless she had Sydney VERY young, she’s at least 40, probably mid-40s. She looks 25, and that’s being generous – she could be a well-put-together 18YO.
The number of women who actually look anything close to that in their mid-40s is TINY. Not absolutely nil, but very, very small.
So you’re saying I know most of them? Because I know a lot of hot women over 40.
Or maybe there are a lot of women who are actually older than you think they are.
I have seen plenty to tell me that either you have either just known few, or incorrectly assumed the ages of strangers walking by.
I learned early… Never, NEVER ever, EVER EVER attempt to guess a woman’s age. At best, you will be wrong. At worst, you could be very wronged. But not fatally, as they will want you to suffer. For ever.
now work retail and be obligated on senior discount days to either guess or have to ask someone if they qualify for the senior discount (thankfully more than a few will let you know).
Always ask. The worst that can happen is a quick beheading. And you’d be surprised how many will inflate their ages to get the discount — depending, of course, on the value of the goods.
I do like the introduction of Sidney’s mom and Maxima’s reaction to their interaction. On a side note the comments section always seems to get into various arguments. I realize its the internet, but still, this particular comic page didn’t really have anything that I thought would set people off.
a lone peanut on a sidewalk could be used to spark vigorous debate.
Lone?
You didn’t really think that peanut was *alone*, did you?
there’s most likely an elephant nearby, disguised as a squirrel
Are you suggesting that a peanut needs to be escorted when leaving the house? Stop blaming the victim!
I look forward to the day when a peanut can exist without its motives or reason being questioned.
Are you assuming it’s species? How do you know it doesn’t self identify as a walnut?
no, it identifies as a buckeye.
Really?
We”re going to rehash the “attack helicopter” idiocy, again, again?
There’s always some idiot.
I suggest you don’t look at page 1 of comments. There’s an “intellectual” transphobe mouthing off in there.
*long suffering sigh*
…forewarned, is forearmed. Thank you.
*straps up*
And some idiot who doesn’t know what ‘transphobic’ means
Do you think that “bedecked” is always talking about boats?
Language evolves. Deal with it.
No, only when it crosses the road.
Typical liberal, complaining about litter, but can’t be bothered to just pick it up…
*flees the scene*
I am a Liberal, I pick up trash, that the average person, throws on the ground or water!
*headpats*
I was stirring shite.
leave that to the sewage treatment people. they have the training, equipment, and fortitude to do that. some of them eat lunch without washing their hands first…
Some of them don’t leave the facility to eat their lunch
Now, this wasn’t organized but you can see the pattern there. random thing, a few joking appropriate responses, but you can see the start of serious debates. Someone cracks a joke but the way they word it or certain key words will rub someone the wrong way; the next step is usually either a double down argument that keeps getting more heated, two people trying to go over a long list of semantics to explain themselves, or someone tries to read too much into the original statement based on the responses from others and is looking for a reason to either offend someone intentionally or be offended.
and in so many of those post chains you can run back to the original post, often from someone not even responding anymore, and its just some random thing. except for the flame starters of course who made the statement to start a heated debate so they can sit back and watch
-not so fun fact: during election years you will see people from other countries post things in American message boards just to watch the heated arguments so they can sit back and watch. Even on facebook where its like…uh…guys the commenter isn’t even from your continent despite commenting like they were on one side of your debate, and hasn’t responded at all in your 200+ comments chain…they did this so they could laugh at you.
I think this thread is solely for laughs. too much of the internet is like chewing old shoe leather. we need to laugh, especially while the new molars are being screwed into place.
Agreed, there was one or two eyebrow raiser comments there, but in the comments section on some pages have gotten oddly heated.
This comic attracts a strangely broad variety of people, many of whom think that the author and audience must all share similar preferences and beliefs to themselves.
one thing I’ve seen, and still boggles me that anyone can make this connection, is when an author has characters that believe things, or do things, and someone immediately assumes the author must believe and condone these behaviors themselves. Forgetting that there is a separation between the author and characters; otherwise it would be very hard to write a hero and opposing villain, and yes some of the good guys can have orange/blue morality, or social norms, and so on that set them apart and would be unusual for real life society but it doesn’t mean the author believes this is some perfect version of society that they made up for some alien, demon, fairy, eldritch, interdimensional witch, ect…
It’s Nomic. For some people, all words, all actions, are fundamentally propaganda, an attempt to shape the world. They can’t understand more complex attempts to explore a topic, can’t understand asking questions to which you don’t believe you already know the answer.
Funny though that they wouldn’t consider how portraying your villains a certain way is also a method of shaping an argument. But again, inability to understand complex arguments. Lack of imagination.
Untrue in my country – republic, G7 ,semi presidential regime, UN Security council , EU – political debate is very heated…
And politics is taken pretty seriously…
And sommetimes people from another continent with an invasion of their representative chamber – in junary 2021 -say we are in civil war… even if our represenative chamberwas not invaded…
And for a country smaller than Texas – but who had more nukes than China and a rank 7 GDP – politacal ellection is hugely comented in foreing countries.
I have always looked way older than my true age, to the point that I wasn’t carded until deep in my fifties when TN passed a “card everyone” law.
I was carded till in my 40’s before any “card everyone” law. It was annoying for awhile but eventually I just let it go. I don’t have that problem anymore though, even with the law. They just look at me and ring it up. LOL!
just realized General’s star and Max’s oak leaf cluster are gold for this arc. Should both be silver.
Well spotted. Although promotions (or being granted a perk of shiny gold). After all they have risen from mere national defenders, to planetary defenders. Which deserves at least some recognition, over and above the norm.
*sigh*
Second “.” was meant to be a “?”.
How do you know they aren’t silver reflecting the golden light Max reflects?
Anvil would wear a similar uniform like Max,except she would be wearing a Montana peak campaign hat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_hat
That style hat is worn by drill instructors,park rangers,RCMP,state troopers,deputy sheriffs(hence the CB term ‘Smokey’), and scout leaders…!
Mmm. Sydney’s mom is out and about in daylight and … looks … human. Although we have yet to see her dad …
It seems Laura is the Abbott to Sydney Sr’s Costello.
were we expecting her to be 2000 feet tall, with energy tendril hair, eyes brighter than the sun, ten wings with a thousand eyes on them, and a lower body like a combination between an octopus, crab, and crystals?
I mean she could still pull off a grandma Verdona from Ben 10, but its an outside chance.
Or perhaps and older version of Sydney…!?!?
Go on…. that sounds surprisingly like Shathak
100 quatloos on Sydney’s mom is an ancient eldritch being in disguise!
the term is BACK in disguise. after raising Sydney I’m sure she has been forced into her true form at least 5 times.
or worse, she could be like Charity Carpenter. who I would not bet against ever.
Shouldn’t it be “Mrs Scoville” not “Ms Scoville”, considering Laura is married to Sydney’s dad and took his last name? It is not like Max is unaware of Laura’s marital status.
Uh… yeah, probably. :/
So… You’re saying Maxima using Ms. instead of Mrs. wasn’t because of her feminism?
I mean, you accidentally did the more consistent thing, so I don’t think you should change it. But I’m just surprised that it was an accident.
“I mean, you accidentally did the more consistent thing”
It’s the more TACKY thing, actually. When a woman marries *and takes the last name of her husband*, calling her Ms is actually quite rude. She is clearly Mrs.
If she wanted to be consistent, she’d have to ask her name, as she could have kept her maiden name (or her husband could have taken hers, of course). THEN using Ms might be appropriate.
And yes, she already knows that Sydney has the same last name as her father (hence the Jr).
‘Twas not always rude, and ’tis not seen as rude everywhere or by everyone even today.
It’s a very generic item intended to allow employers, businesses, etc, to deal politely with ladies without inquiring into their personal affairs or marital status irrelevant to the transaction at hand.
It did not become “offensive” until people with axes to grind got hold of it. And, bluntly speaking, a lot of folks don’t take those people very seriously. I will regard it as offensive when someone tells me, in person, that they personally are offended by it. Which doesn’t seem likely as 98% of the time or more I don’t use any titles at all.
Except, Maxi does know Mama S’s marital status
And if this is the first time they have spoken (must have talked to Senior before), then it is rude to use Ms.
Do you see her being offended? Do you see her offering a correction? No?
How often, in real life, have you ever seen someone be offended by this? ‘Cause my count is still at zero.
same here, only time I get corrected on using honorifics is when it is a man, and generally if they are a doctor, professor, some military rank, or accustomed to being called mr or sir (if military or a profession I will usually shrug and go with it, although mostly I just stop addressing them by name or title and skip that part of discussing the issue at hand entirely; not usually noticeably, but you don’t have to repeat a person’s name when talking to them; despite what some weird individuals at the check out line may think…
I have reached a point in my life however where I have stopped regarding supervisor as a high enough position to deserve being given a special honorific, I am too damned old to call other adults sir, mr, or mrs, or whatever everytime I talk to them or ask for an empty box, or where something on the sales floor is. I don’t expect them to do it with me either.
While I imagine there exist married women who would consider being referred to with Ms. as rude… I think there are probably fewer of them than the reverse.
Some people take offense at Miss, because it’s usually used for younger women, and can be seen as dismissive or condescending. Some people take offense at Mrs., because it implies a subordinate position to her husband. Ms. is neutral, like Mr.
Dave, I wonder how many of the people trying to say Maxima’s use of the honorific Ms. is improper due to marital status of the elder Ms. Scoville are actually women who might have some form of opinion on the topic of honorifics being obliged to reveal marital status and how many of them are men who should perhaps prepare to explain their own marital status every time their names are mentioned.
It’s not all that uncommon for some women to refer to other women as “Ms”, even knowing that woman is married or not. Back when I was growing up in the late 70’s / early 80’s, it was a convenient way of addressing a woman of either status to eliminate the chances of getting the title wrong.
Until people started taking offense after the term became more well known and it got weaponized by all kinds of peoples from all kinds of viewpoints.
Max being pretty strong about demanding (much deserved) respect for her achievements, I can easily see this being her default, even knowing the woman’s marital status.
Yeah, but you usually have to have met them before hand and have them tell you they prefer the Ms., rather than just foisting your own ideals onto them
Other way ’round. ‘Ms.’ is entirely proper if you don’t know them well enough to know their marital status. If they choose to share that information, by correcting you one way or the other, then you drop it and use the correction. But if I need to use a title and don’t know the marital status, it’s FAR less offensive than getting it wrong.
Again, Maxi does know the marital status of Laura
So? It’s not offensive unless it actually offends somebody. Laura Scoville (he said, avoiding for the moment the use of a title) apparently approves of its use – as do all the women I know, both married and unmarried, so far as I’m aware.
We have enough offensensitivity in the world without making stuff up.
FWIW, even knowing someone’s marital status I would start by using Ms meaning, “I’m dealing with you as an individual, not as a subset of your household with your husband and not as someone whose ‘single’ status is expected to be relevant to me.” Which, in most contexts, is how women IME want to be dealt with.
If someone positively wants to assert things about herself and her relationships and what she wants her relationships to mean to OTHER people who deal with her, I’m okay with it, but it’s up to her to say so.
I have seen women correct to ‘Mrs’ when they’re trying to get rid of an annoying jerk who won’t stop hitting on them and correct to ‘Miss’ when they’re trying to attract the interest of someone they’d like to date. But that’s nothing to do with whether ‘Ms.’ offends them, only barely correlated with whether they are actually married, and anyway not an example of interactions among peers.
… wait. Are you implying Ms is NOT read as Miss? How it’s read?
With a ‘z’ (zee, not zed) sound
How is defaulting to Ms. any more “foisting your own ideals” onto someone than defaulting to Mrs.?
Because the default for a married woman is ‘Mrs’?
When they get married, they are not referred to as ‘Mister and Mizz’, it’s “Now present to you, Mister and Missus”
According to who? Seems like you don’t have a problem with coercive social pressure, but with people challenging whatever tradition you’re familiar with. You’re privileging a certain set of ideals above another, calling one the default, and the other an imposition, but the first is just as imposed.
I think that historically, ‘Mrs.’ didn’t really bear any marital connotations until rather recently. Originally Mrs. was more likely to indicate a businesswoman. More for social status than marriage. So a lot of women who were single would still be termed ‘Mrs.’ if they were involved in business, especially in luxury trades. IE, Masters and Mistresses of their trades.
It wasn’t until much more recently that Mrs was used to indicate being married, but Ms (Miz) and Mr are still a general default, while Miss tends to indicate a younger woman (starting in the 18th century).
eh, I have said Ms or miss when knowing someone is married, if only because it rolls of the tongue easier and faster when talking than saying Mrs.
to be honest however man or woman I tend to forgo honorifics all together these days unless not using them could result in imprisonment, execution, or being thrown into a hell dimension (or equivalent).
Either is proper!!
Yes, just never heard of Ms. being the default when talking to a known married woman, at least not until they have stated they prefer that over Mrs.
Just like it’s usually rude to refer to someone by their first name on first meeting them, without at least asking if it’s okay to do so (even ruder to not wait for an answer)
Huh? What sort of backwards-ass country are you from?
First names are how you refer to most people. Surnames and titles are for formal occasions. Titles can also be used as pronouns.
And singular “they” is a lot older than you think.
Well, in the last 60-70 years Mrs. has taken on a ‘marital’ connotation sometimes, not just for formal occasions, so it’s understandable that G might see it like that. Mostly with the popularization of television as an entertainment medium in the late 50s and early 60s. Originally it was just Mr. and Ms. though (short for Master and Mistress). Then they added Mrs. way back in the 1700s, I believe, and while surnames are used in more formal situations, it’s also sometimes used when you are first meeting a person, before you know what the relationship will be towards them, since using a first name denotes a familiarity with the person which might not yet exist.
Historically, ‘they’ was only used as a singular when you are unsure as to the sex of the person involved, although that’s changed in the last 10 or so years, give or take a few years, mostly because of the increasing acceptance (and a general attempt to not assume the gender of another person who one is speaking to, perhaps?) of non-binary and transgender terms in the English language, which isn’t as heavily a gendered language as other Romantic languages (like French or Italian or Spanish).
Actually, singular they gets used a lot as far back as Shakespear.
And people use it in general conversation far more than they realise.
I’m sure it was before Shakespeare, but you’re right, they do!
I didn’t say it doesn’t go back far. The singular they probably goes back further.
I’m just saying that it goes back that far because it was used when you’re unsure of the sex of the person that you’re talking about, until rather recently.
Nope, its been used when the gender of the person was known since basically as long as its existed.
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/
The first sentence of that article is exactly what I’m saying.
“Singular they has become the pronoun of choice to replace he and she in cases where the gender of the antecedent – the word the pronoun refers to – is unknown, irrelevant, or nonbinary, or where gender needs to be concealed.”
I looked over the rest of the article but it seems to be supporting what i’m saying about word etymology. Which sort of makes sense. If the english language started out like most other romantic languages (heavily gendered) then it would make sense that ‘they’ would, when used in the singular, be used for when you cannot tell the gender or the gender is not yet known, or as a shortcut instead of ‘he or she’ being used, which seems more cumbersome.
I do see that further into the article, it shows ‘they’ as an alternative to the singular ‘thou,’ (which is also no longer really used in modern language) but that is a completely different context which the author seems to ignore, possibly because it would make his argument more difficult.
“‘Hastely hiȝed eche . . . þei neyȝþed so neiȝh . . . þere william & his worþi lef were liand i-fere.’ In modern English, that’s: ‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together.’”
Honestly half the words there are, to modern readers, gibberish and the elipses indicate that a lot of that sentence was being left out, which could change the context of how the singular they is being used. Most of this old english is not using the singular ‘they’ in the same way that transgender-supportive etymologists are using it today (to be clear I’m cool with the singular ‘they’ – it actually makes sense to me when referring to someone who identifies as non-binary or transgender – befor you find out what they want to be identified as – because it’s not dehumanizing like the word ‘it’ would be, and it does have etymological logic to it).
“You functioned as a polite singular for centuries, but in the seventeenth century singular you replaced thou, thee, and thy, except for some dialect use. ”
If we still used thee, thou, and thy in common language, I’d say that ‘they’ as being used today in the singular, has been used as far back as you’re suggesting even when the person’s gender is unknown.
TL;DR – the singular they has existed a long while, but as far as it’s used in modern context, it has always been used when the gender was unclear or unknown, or as shorthand or in a non-binary sense (including for things that are not people). In old English (and I mean really old, like Beowulf or Niebelungenlied/Hrothgar level old), the language was so different that it was barely the same language as today, and used ‘they’ as a pronoun in the same way they used ‘thy, thee, and thou’ which was mostly replaced with ‘you’ – not remotely in the same context as used today as what we know as ‘English.’
You’d be surprised how much transphobes use a singular they without even thinking about it, even when they know the gender of the person they’re talking about.
Listen for it sometime.
Oh I’m sure that some transphobic people might do all sorts of things just to be insensitive or hurtful, but I’m trying to separate what some bad actors might do from the general etymology when discussing this.
I was actually making the opposite point.
People who vehemently insist that singular they is wrong use it all the time.
Ah. Well I guess if they’re using it already, then you win any argument with them about whether or not the singular they is poor grammar. :)
I use singular they both consciously and unconsciously for people who I know the gender of, because gendered pronouns suggest to me that a person’s gender is relevant to the discussion, and it generally isn’t. I try to avoid even the implication that someone did, has, or should something because of their gender. Gendered pronouns are one of the mechanisms by which those restrictive roles are unconsciously communicated and propagated.
Ah, so Sydney’s mom is a total smoke show. Noted.
Much more tasteful than any comment I would have made.
Well said.
Indeed. My comment was going to be along the lines of something that started with ‘m, ended with ‘f’ and had the french word for ‘he’ in the middle.
Smoke show is a much more respectful way of putting it.
Undercover Smoke Knight?
They are all currently tied up with various Sturmvoaus-Blitzgrad shenanigans, and/or attempting to kill/save the current Heterodyne.
…
And if one got loose in the Grrlverse, Big D would have them on payroll in a matter of seconds.
and now i’m imagining agatha and dabbler comparing their collection of bizarro rayguns
“Any sorcery, sufficiently analyzed, is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!”
That’s GG-verse in a nutshell.
:D
It’s a direct quote from the Lady Heterodyne herself. ^_^
I really need to start reading Girl Genius to pick up on what people are talking about here :)
Yes, this is a factually hyper-correct statement.
Now go do it, girl! ^_^
Will do!
Probably a lot to binge between waiting for new grrlpower, goblins, and Outsider comics. :)
Personally speaking (typing?) it will be worth it (you may even like the Smoke Knights)
Sounds very Steampunkish. :)
With those looks Mom might be a super.
given the weapons grade ADHD Sydney has.. she needs to be.
The smart question is, “Why was Sydney diving in that exact area?”
One possible answer is, that’s where her mother the Space Wizard crash landed/parked the Orbs, before meeting her future husband, Mr. Scoville, who was on vacation x years ago, when he rescued/encountered her, and subsequent “family vacations” were made periodically in order for her to basically check on her “ship”.
The Orbs respond to Sydney, b/c she’s her mother’s daughter, and Space Wizard Mum hasn’t tried stopping her b/c “This is her heritage, too,” and “I’m confident that I raised a Good and Competent Person.”
…BUT THAT’S JUST A THEORY…
Oh yes, because only supers look like supermodels (it’s literally in their name), every one else is overweight and unattractive :rolleyeswhilevomitting:
Oh yes, because only supermodels are attractive, everyone else is overweight and unattractive :vomitsonthe eyeroller:
Do you see how annoying it is when people fabricate a reason to be offended? As suprising hotness is a marker of super powers it’s not an insult to humanity to wonder if a suprisingly hot person has powers. Yes, it is surprising when a woman with a 20+ year old kid, and a middle class existence is hot.
Sea Story time!
No Shit, there I was…
On our submarine, there was a guy whose nickname was “Junior Assistant Slug-Fornicator”. But mostly everybody just called him “Junior”. The captain of our submarine (a Commander, same rank as a Lt Colonel) had occasion to write a letter to his parents and mentioned how much we appreciated Junior and how well Junior was doing, and so on.
So he got to explain to his parents, why the captain thought he was named Junior.
do we dare ask what he did to be called a slug-fornicator? I presume whatever it was he wasn’t very good at it.
Well, if he was good at Slug-Fornication he would have been promoted to Senior Assistant Slug-Fornicator at some point.
that he was a junior I assumed that he wasn’t very good at it. worse- there is a master on the ship and is training junior.
Poor Sydney, She looked like a puppy about to be spanked. Seems Mom may be a total BEE-Yahtch, or maybe not. I took one look at Mom and imagined Frazier Crane’s Wife, Lilith for her Voice (Sorry I can’t think of the Actress’ name). Come on Mom, your daughter has kicked a** on Earth and on an alien Planet and has been to a Dyson Sphere, met aliens (Had Sex with one) you should be PROUD…..well, except maybe for the alien Canoodling thing.
What’s wrong with the alien canoodling thing?
Mom might be too straight-laced to support furrydom. :) Plus she probably is concerned about her daughter being in such a dangerous job in the first place.
Dad’s probably going to be a lot more proud of Sydney’s superhero exploits in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace. He doesnt strike me as someone who thinks about the danger first. More of a ‘rule of cool’ thought process. ‘Junior gon give it to y’all!’
Not seeing what Ms. Scoville is doing wrong. Sydney ghosted her, kept a lot of important information away from her, and only even acknowledged what she was doing at the graduation ceremony. Of course Mom would be irked. She is not a mushroom (to be kept in the dark and fed bullshiat).
parents are not entitled to know everything about their adult children.
Parents are entitled to some notice before their kids are paraded on national TV TWICE. all she got was a quick phone call. now that needs to be a shirt. fanart- go!
her mother may have deserved to know about it before then, she was not entitled to; there is a significant difference; especially as Sidney is an adult.
Tell that to my mom. :)
I like her. She seems strict but fair.
Also, she may have telepathy.
Most Moms have some telepathy
Speaking of super powers…
If the orbs are even slightly sapient, they might have been a bit grumpy with her. They are meant to train those who are using them to use them properly, and slowly unlock over time. Would YOU want to be in a mandatory training session with a new worker at your job for FIVE YEARS?
I have to hope that she’s getting exp for ANY effective use of the orbs, not just combat. It would be a bit too RPG murder hobo if only killing things counted for exp. It might be because so many of per points are in the PPO, and perhaps to get points elsewhere more often she’d need more points spent on those orbs.
Rest assured,
Sydney had her first ding before she went on a murderising spree against those Kaiju. Clearly murderising everything within range is not the only way of getting a ding on her orbs ;)
I do NOT, consider Self Defense, as Murder, they shot first!
her first point came during the exhibition Dave explained the system quite well. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-169-halo-the-gritty-hero/
Five years might be considered short time by whoever made the orbs. We still don’t know how long they were under the sea, do we?
Startlingly accurate for how my mother and I communicate at times. Just a look and a shrug is all it takes sometimes. That, and 30+ years of practice. haha
My big question is like, how many months did Sydney manage to hide those orbs from her own mom? I mean, just judging by how much communication went on there, there’s a well-established link between the two that transcends speech or writing…And mothers have a built-in radar & telepathic monitoring going on anyway (it sort of comes with the job), so how did Sydney manage it?
I was under the impression that Sydney lived on her own, and not with her family. Thus, it’s likely that she didn’t have enough contact to require effort to hide her Mighty Balls of Power (*snicker*).
… hey wait!
Sydney Trouble Scoville, Jr
Her dad’s middle name is also Trouble.
The Scoville Family had a Trouble, and so they decided to make it Double.
Must favor her father.
Sydneys mom is hot and like 27, so she must have had Sydney when she was 4 or so. else dave cannot draw but hot women.
More like Syddles’ maternal GrandMom taught Laura the basics of self-care very early, then continued to hammer it home. It is likely that GrandMom also had the same girlhood training. Diamonds might be a girl’s best friends, but they only kick in when the foundation crumbles.
Wow. Her mom is awesome. I love this comic. I originally stumbled on it somehow, and followed it because Sydney was a gamer, I had no idea where most of these characters came from. (A friend ‘carefully’ explained it to me later. Haha) So far it’s never disappointed me!
Just since it hasn’t been mentioned yet, here’s what today’s title refers to (by way of the title of a mediocre movie about a great topic)
I have always loved their story. They are truly some of the Legendary Hero’s of that generation. Hero’s among Hero’s, even if no one knew it at the time.
This reminds me of times my folks visited me when I was in the Army. Of course, my dad was a squid and took pleasure in letting my higher ups know. Gawd, I did a lot of push-ups thanks to my old man. :)
You should have told the Drill Sergeant’s “I am smarter than he is, I joined the US Army after all.”
You would still have done some push-ups, but fewer because they know you were right. (and they are not supposed to laugh in front of recruits, so they would need to leave sooner.)
And you deserved every one of them.
*grumps in USN Hospital Corps*
Military Medics are the real heroes. Actually, any Second Responders are, but…
Shouldn’t Maxima have Silver Oak Leaves on her uniform lapel where the US is?
Also, what if both parents have the ludicrous tolerance for spicy foods… :D
Colonels get “turkeys”, silver
Look at panel 10, it shows proper placement!
OK sydney’s mom is:
hot
poised and stylish
a foot taller than sydney
apparently not a day over 30
sorry but this just doesn’t track at all; is sydney adopted?
Throw away, all stereotypes.
You saying Sydney is ugly? O_o
I think you read too much into it. There’s only so much detail you can get into a cartoon face. As others have observed, SydMum is 36-40. Age marks at 40 are subtle, and the shading technique DaveB seems to like doesn’t lend itself to subtlety of texture.
Poor Sydney, it looks like she didn’t get her mum’s height.
I was wondering about the height difference, too. Sydney is supposed to be at least 18, right? (yeah yeah that’s what she told me, your Honor), but she’s about as tall as a typical 12-year-old. If shortness runs in her family it doesn’t appear to be on her mother’s side. I wonder how tall her father is.
I have one nephew shorter than both of his parents, and one nephew taller than anyone in either side of his family.
Fairly sure she’s in her twenties, specially if she is a co-owner of a business
Both her parents could be over six feet tall and Sydney could still be around 5’5
My mother is 5’2″ and my father was 6’1″. I’m 5’8″.
22!!
Two things I’ve learned from this thread:
Apparently people think women crumble into uglyness past 20-something and that’s just disturbing. Wonder what percentage of those people get their beauty-standards off of the internet and what percentage of those folks are Americans?
Also it seems most people don’t realize that traits do not always breed true. I’m 5’5″, my first ex is 5’1 on a good day and somehow our daughter who is 24… is 6′ 8″ tall.
Now I’m STILL 5’5″ my current (and FINAL) wife is a Genuine Midget (height: classified) and we have a daughter who is 5’6 and one who is 5′ even. My son is 5’5″
Genetics does what genetics wants. There are rules and general patterns, but outliers can and do happen QUITE often. Keeps the species interesting.
> Apparently people think women crumble into uglyness past 20-something and that’s just disturbing.
It’s incel bullshit that seems to have vcrept into public conciousness in some circles.
Unfortunately that kind of thinking is MUCH older than that. In fact that kind of thinking is why a lot of women lied about their age if they were over 29, and have been doing so since at least 1895 (according to a conversation I had with my great great grandmother).
It was a thing before. Now it’s a highly developed memetic weapon that is used to negate everything about a woman except for a certain narrow sexual desirability confined to less than ten years. It’s part of a wider right-wing movement to erase pretty much all the progress we have made in 200 years plus the reversal of the Enlightenment. Misogyny is just one small but important part of it. Racism, hatred of LGBTQ, Jews, Muslims, Science, Organized Labor, equity, Democracy, and more are a unified ball of hatred and violence. The frightening thing is that we are one corrupt election from it being America’s future for the next century.
Thank you for reassuring me that there are some sane people here who are educated on modern politics.
Dude, she doesn’t have a single line on her face. They look the same age. It’s weird.
lol waiting to see what Syd’s dad look like the way he acted. XD
slightly balding, scruffy beard with hints of white, moderate build (not heavy set but not thin either, can tell he doesn’t try to work out, but stays active enough), wore blue jeans and t-shirt to a formal event, and the t-shirt says on it *my other car is a Tardis*.
She looks like you based her off of reference photos of someone that I can’t recognize…
Okay, I have to ask. Why does Sydney’s mom look like she’s the same age as Sydney? Like seriously she looks like a woman in her twenties. Did she have Sydney when SHE was six? I have no problem with hot moms but this is distracting. Is she secretly an ageless immortal? What’s going on here?