10 Mar 2016

A PRIZE OF HUMANS

Recently, I came about two articles where not responding was unavoidable. Since it was a copy and paste article, the original author, sadly, or luckily, depending on how you look at it, cannot be named here.

The first article:


The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals. We are all familiar with a: herd of cows, flock of chickens, school of fish, a gaggle of geese, and a pride of lions.

However, less widely known is: A murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise: A congress of owls.

Now consider a group of baboons.

They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive  and least intelligent of all primates ...

And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

Believe it or not …

A Parliament !

YEP... A PARLIAMENT OF BABOONS...!

Pretty much explains everything doesn't it..??

The second article titled:

My Wife DOES NOT WORK !!!

Conversation between a Husband (H) and a Psychologist (P):

P : What do you do for a living Mr. Bandy?
H : I work as an Accountant in a Bank.

P : Your wife ?
H : She doesn't work. She's a housewife only.

P : Who makes breakfast for your family in the morning?
H : My wife, because she doesn't work.

P : At what time does your wife wake up for making breakfast?
H : She wakes up at around 5 am because she cleans the house first before making breakfast.

P : How do your kids go to school?
H : My wife takes them to school, because she doesn't work.

P : After taking your kids to school, what does she do?
H : She goes to the market, then goes back home for cooking and laundry. You know, she doesn't work.

P : In the evening, after you go back home from office, what do you do?
H : Take rest, because I'm tired after work.

P : What does your wife do then?
H : She prepares meals, serves our kids, prepares meals for me and cleans the dishes, cleans the house then takes the kids to bed.

The daily routines of your wife commences from early morning to late night. That is called 'DOESN'T WORK'??!!

Being housewives do not need Certificates of Studies but their ROLE is very important!

Appreciate your wife. Because her sacrifices are uncountable. This should be a reminder and reflection for all of us to understand and appreciate each others roles.

Someone asked her.......
Are you a working woman or a housewife?
She replied : Yes I am a full time working housewife.
I work 24 hours a day.....
I'm a mum,
I'm a wife,
I'm a daughter,
I'm a daughter-in-law.....
I'm an alarm clock,
I'm a cook,
I'm a maid,
I'm a teacher,
I'm a waiter,
I'm a nanny,
I'm a nurse,
I'm a handyman,
I'm a security officer,
I'm a counselor,
I'm a comforter,
I don't get holidays,
I don't get sick leave,
I don't get day off......
I work through day and night.....
I'm on call......
all hours and get paid with a
sentence.....
"what do you do all day"

Dedicated to all women.
Woman is like salt
Her presence is never remembered but her absence makes all things tasteless !!

Pass it to all the lovely ladies.....your Mother. .....your Wife......your daughter ...your sister.....your friend
- The End -

As I was saying, as usual, I just couldn't stay put, hold back, or whatchamacallit. So, here goes…

Nowadays we have husbands who takes over. And what do we call them? A homemaker. Why not a househusband? Is it because homemaker sounds more respectable? Or could it be just a pacifier of feelings? Whatever it was, forget respect, forget rewards, forget being acknowledged even, for it is silently still unacceptable, it is not the norm. Instead, it's scoffed at.

To that end, the name housewife is now no more commonly used. What has become common is a 'stay-at-home mum'. So why not a 'stay-at-home dad'?

It boils down to expectations. More so the expectations of work, of responsibility, of prosperity. By whom? By the society, by culture, by the people.

Where there's people, there'll be a culture. In fact a culture exists when habits are taught and learned, even when it's by a 'congress of baboons'  or a 'wisdom of owls' (not a 'parliament of baboons' or a 'congress of owls' as in article one above - that's why I said it maybe lucky that the author of the first two articles were unknown).

Humans are highest in the hierarchy because humans have the ability to create a culture and exploit it at the same time. And sadly, as all exploitations are, there will be segregation and judgement out of it.

Worst of all, it's being brought to extremes that it becomes the norm of culture, without which, nothing else is acceptable.

To have a non-worker woman be called a housewife or a man a homemaker, is all part of the creation of a culture. Whether there'll be a balance of them or otherwise would be irrelevant as culture will somehow evolve throughout the ages.

It'll be interesting to see what culture would evolve to, hundreds of years, or thousands of years into the future.

By then, maybe housewives or homemakers have completely transformed to what would presently be unacceptable in comparison.

So why bother categorizing and lamenting because after all, it's just culture and cultural evolution is and will always be unavoidable.

But if culture insists on it, then, besides 'congress', baboons could also be collectively grouped under 'rumpus', i.e, a rumpus of baboons. A likely characterization? Indeed! The New Oxford American Dictionary defines 'rumpus' as a noisy disturbance, a commotion. A very likely character and habit that baboons would portray. You know it, I know it, we all know it. But why 'congress'? There are four definitions of congress if you go through the dictionary.

One, a formal meeting or series of meetings for discussion between delegates, especially those from a political party, trade union, or from within a particular sphere of activity.

Two, a national legislative body, especially that of the US. The US Congress, which meets at the Capitol in Washington DC, was established by the Constitution of 1787 and is composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Three, (often in names) a political society or organization.

And four, the action of coming together: "sexual congress".

Definition four is quite a straight forward case but chances are definition three would fit the bill for the baboons. The baboons are an organized political organization if you look at it through their eyes. The head baboon would be the one right on top, enjoying the fruits of labour, whether from the organization or otherwise. A young baboon would have to learn the ropes, starting from the bottom of the pecking order.

Then you'd get new challengers or 'oppositions' who'd be planning a coup d'état towards the leader. Sounds familiar?

So, in all fairness, collective nouns were generally a categorized list of names given according to the noun's characteristics and habits. The list of collective nouns keep growing perpetually according to suggestions of literary users or the very culture that makes a judgement call on certain habits.

I call it, the price of humanity.

And maybe, just maybe, I should suggest to the 'collective nouns bureau' that since 'humans' doesn't exist in their listing, then they should start listing it. Since humans are habitually driven by prizes, no matter whether it is through possessions, physicality, emotionality or anything else, then, a 'prize of humans', should fit like a glove.

Cheers!

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