Valentines

Just in case anyone is wondering: I'm not participating in any Valentines stuff. I haven't signed up to that Valentines postbox meme, and I am not checking any of the LJ Valentine communities. I'm not actively boycotting this kind of thing either, much less criticizing anyone who is having fun with all this business.

My opinion is that if anyone has something to tell me, they can just tell me. And if you really passionately want to send me an anonymous message, you'll just have to use a bit of imagination. Get a disposable email address, or simply notice that this journal allows anon comments.

Which sounds like I'm fishing, but I'm really not. I don't intend to send any Valentines, and I don't expect to receive any either. For those of you doing the coupley thing, I hope you have a great time, and for those of you pursuing relationships I hope things work out for you. And special love to all the bitter singles of my acquaintance, cos there are other kinds of love than the romantic kind. Here, have an anti-valentine.

Linguistic discovery of the day

So we were discussing the matter of how people are perceived by others versus what their character is actually like. And somebody mentioned that I come across as being nicey nicey and unassertive at first, she said, I think it's because you're quite... frum. She fumbled for the word, and decided it didn't exist in English. But I got very excited as she was defining it for me because it turns out that the Swedish word frum means exactly the same as the Yiddish word, the lack of which I frequently deplore in English: religious in the sense of being committed to the rules and formal observances of the religion. Like pious but more specific. Cool, huh?