Andrew's being phylumist

[cosmolinguist]

It's just when Andrew's most insecure about his qualities as a partner, when he's been especially sick and miserable and clingy, that he manages to illustrate his unique selling points. Things like the amazingly quick turnaround time between comforting me while I have a tiny breakdown about the house, job-hunting, family, etc, and the time where we're having an argument about ants' word for "elephant shrew" in their scent-language.

Finally I've found something to unseat the fraught topic of color (what color is this thing/how many colors are there) as the worst argument to have with Andrew.

Living up to our reputation for having arguments amusing enough to bystanders that we could sell tickets to them, though, I think it's fair to say that we both enjoyed ourselves. Even when I held my hands to my head, wishing that by so doing I could keep any more words from entering or exiting it, Andrew was laughing at me, and the knowledge that I was at least being entertaining provided some solace at that difficult time.

Comments

[umadoshi]

the time where we're having an argument about ants' word for "elephant shrew" in their scent-language.

...that is a delightful subject to argue about.

[andrewducker]

Depends on whether you mean "Every plausible different wavelength" or "Those wavelengths which are discernable by the human eye and different enough to be worth naming"

The former is immensely high, the latter is a matter of personal ability and choice.

[cosmolinguist]

the latter is a matter of personal ability and choice.

And therein lies the problem. Well, one of them. Andrew also refuses to believe there are more than about ten colors, and so if I want to describe anything more complex than that to him, I have to try to determine which of those it'll be. (I've gotten it very wrong, too: something he couldn't find because I told him it was "brown" he insisted, when I eventually showed the thing to him, was "pink".) And it's surprising how emotionally invested we can get in questions of what color something is.

[andrewducker]

"Andrew also refuses to believe there are more than about ten colors"

Is he refusing to believe that you can physically distinguish between ten different shades? Or refusing to believe that you care enough to name them?

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Neither. I refuse to believe that *I* can distinguish between more than about ten colours -- or indeed that there's much of any point in so doing. I'd be fine with about three, really.

[andrewducker]

Oh, is it necessary for you to do so?

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Well the argument generally consists of Holly telling me that two identical-looking things have totally different names, and me saying "but they're the same!"...

[andrewducker]

Aaah. So is the problem that she's asking you to do things you can't, and you feel hard done by? Or that she doesn't know well-enough what colours you _can_ differentiate, so that she can use colour-names that are meaningful to you?

E-Prime might be useful here :-)

[cosmolinguist]

Or that she doesn't know well-enough what colours you _can_ differentiate, so that she can use colour-names that are meaningful to you?

I think it's more this one, as the frustration isn't usually tied to specific requests I'm making of him but just the general overarching request that he function in the baffling world populated by the majority of humans, where adjectives are useful (it's not just colors he'd happily get rid of) and holidays involve leaving the house and dishes need doing even when a person really really doesn't feel like doing them and so on. :)