Wednesday, November 7, 2007

At least I made the bed

Although I should have cleaned the mirror, too:Ravelery beta t-shirt, "Where my stitches at?"*
A very sad attempt to photograph my Perfect Sweater, since it's actually cold enough to want to wear wool.



























Sundara Sock yarn, Electric Pear, purchased via the Ravelry ISO board




Knitting: basic sock in Araucania Ranco Multi.

*this is a women's size XL American Apparel shirt. The shirts are supposed to have negative ease, but I don't really like negative ease in a t-shirt, so I ordered the XL (37.5" bust, I think?) for myself and my 36" bust. And although there's been much discussion of a the "lack" of proper grammar in the "where my stitches at?" catch-phrase, as a writing teacher and a self-proclaimed grammar fan, I rather like it. I think it does a great job of conveying tone and attitude, which is more important than rigid adherence to silly and somewhat-archaic grammar rules. I think I've got to go with Winston Churchill on dangling participles.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think differently about the slogan for Ravalry in this light? ~

It is a play on a line from a Tupak rap song: "Where my bitches at?"

I'm curious about how rapper slang crosses racial, economic, generational and other lines and becomes acceptable to an otherwise unlikely crowd.

I still shake my head when white boys call each other "Nigga" in my son's HS. Wow. The kids think nothing of it even though their parents are horrified. Rapper slang permeating...

Just curious to know what you think. Thanks

tbird

Susan said...

I knew that "where my bitches at" is a line in a rap song, as well as a fairly unflattering way to ask a question about the female members of a group.

But I think that there's a value in reclaiming language, and making it your own--revising the phrase, and making it harmless, renders the original far less powerful.

Interestingly, though, most of the objections I've seen on Ravelry are about the lack of grammatical coherence, though. I'm not sure why--lack of awareness of the pop culture reference, perhaps?