Comments on: The Few, The Proud, The Beans

The Few, The Proud, The Beans

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:07:08 -0800

This AskMe should be encased in glass as the definitive example of "overthinking a plate of beans." Or a few plates. Perhaps it can be part of the sign up process for new members. "After reading this, are you sure want to join such a community?"

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:08:41 -0800

In reality... I mean this as a "good callout." It shows the variety of opinions, and different ways of thinking that MeFites bring to even a simple question. That is a valuable commodity.

By: jouke

jouke — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:14:13 -0800

And now you're meta-thinking said thinking.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:17:38 -0800

Just never ask us to order lunch together.

By: caddis

caddis — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:20:32 -0800

Reeeelly Ossifer, I only had a few fine brewskis. I can 'rive juss fine.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:27:29 -0800

Yeah, well, I like you MeFites and everything, but you'd be hell on a long road trip.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:31:45 -0800

the answer is, of course, "as many as you can get away with"

By: googly

googly — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:42:37 -0800

More like "overthinking a plate of leftovers."

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:51:49 -0800

As a wise man from Issaquah once remarked, "Language is a liquid that we're all dissolved in / great for solving problems, after it creates a problem".

Also, I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.

By which I mean to say, you figure it out.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:55:58 -0800

We might lose a few members, but how many would we really lose? Three? Four?

By: ormondsacker

ormondsacker — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:00:17 -0800

Lamda*x*(not(large^C(abs(x))))?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:21:00 -0800

What's in a can of beans?

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:48:13 -0800

What's really strange for me is that I was just discussing this with a friend and we both came to the exact same conclusion that exlotuseater gave.

Odd.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:58:53 -0800

Yeah I would have done so too but I brought up the "literal vs. metaphorical Viking" thing last time 'round and I now no longer have any friends.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:59:31 -0800

What's really strange for me is that I was just discussing this with a friend and we both came to the exact same conclusion that exlotuseater gave.

Aside from a "couple" (for which the definition is quite literal), the idea that there should be an agreed upon value for each of these general notions of numeracy is pure lunacy! If I say a "few" I mean, roughly speaking, anywhere between two and four, but clearly I'm not yet sure as to the actual value. If you want a strict value, use the number!

You twits.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:59:44 -0800

A few, several, some, or many? Discuss.

Just know if you get it wrong, you will be banned.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:01:30 -0800

Ha! That's good. I'm gonna go with ... a handful.

By: willnot

willnot — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:10:31 -0800

I must be on my way to becoming a cranky, old man because I'm really starting to get annoyed by catch phrases.

It used to be that I'd read something like "overthinking a plate of beans" and a switch in my head would trip. Basically, I'd just instinctively ignore the person since they were obviously some kind of a me-tooer trying to gain acceptance from the clique by emulating what they perceive to be alpha-mannerisms.

Now though, rather than just being a knee-jerk, dismissive asshole, I'm genuinely annoyed by it. Weird.

By: Tuwa

Tuwa — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:12:39 -0800

Let's talk about the tagging on that post: it's bad. Bad, bad, bad. Not useful.

By: ericb

ericb — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:20:26 -0800

A few, several, some, or many? Discuss. Just know if you get it wrong, you will be banned.

'Just know if you get it wrong, you will be canned.'

By: moonbird

moonbird — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:20:28 -0800

Your favorite plate of beans is overthought.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:21:06 -0800

So, what you are saying, willnot, is you are a beancrank. That's the new catchword for people who are annoyed by catchphrases, specifically bean-related ones.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:28:32 -0800

Blackadder: Right Baldrick, let's try again. This is called adding. If I have two beans and then I add two more beans, what do I have?

Baldrick: Some beans.

Blackadder: Yes...and no. Let's try again, shall we? I have two beans, then I add to more beans what does that make?

Baldrick: A very small casserole.

Blackadder: Baldrick, the ape creature of the Indus have mastered this. Now, try again. One, two, three, four! So how many are there?

Baldrick: Three

Blackadder: What.

Baldrick: (Pointing to one) And that one.

Blackadder: (Picking it up) Three and that one. So if I add that one to the three what will I have?

Baldrick: Ah! Some beans.

Blackadder: Yes. To you Baldrick, the rennaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it?

MeFi: Some Beans

By: jouke

jouke — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:31:02 -0800

Very apt pupdog

By: majick

majick — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:39:28 -0800

That was a good thread for one reason and one reason only: It smoked out the completely insane people who think "couple" can mean "three." For that alone we as a community should be thankful.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:00:10 -0800

The thing about "beans" is, it went past annoying for me so long ago that now I've surrendered to it with a shoulder shrug. Beans beans beans. See? It does nothing to me now. Tra la la!

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:01:10 -0800

“That was a good thread for one reason and one reason only: It smoked out the completely insane people who think "couple" can mean "three." For that alone we as a community should be thankful.”

I was just going to say the same thing. Before that thread, I had no idea that anyone seriously thought that couple could mean anything other than two. Jokingly, evasively...sure. Sincerely? Unfuckingbelievable.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:02:08 -0800

I'm pretty sure that's one of those "life-saver" askme's that everyone has been prattling on about lately.

By: Sailormom

Sailormom — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:13:39 -0800

It seems to me that there could be a couple of right answers, maybe a few that were close and several that would be wrong but only a handful of people would realize this.

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:14:13 -0800

A good friend of mine (hey duffell!) had to illustrate an idiom when he was in kindergarten. In retrospect, I suppose this was an exercise in learning to not think literally all the time. So, while kids were drawing chips taken off old blocks, or apples in one's eye, my good friend decided he couldn't possibly go that route. Why would you settle for drawing a tired, cliched idiom, when you could illustrate an idiom you made up yourself? So, he went the extra mile makng up his own idiom that he was sure would catch on, which is why to this day he has an drawing of a man with an enormous bean for a head walking, with two other guys pointing at him saying, "Hey, BEANHEAD."

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that you guys are all acting like a bunch of beanheads. Knock it off.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:18:34 -0800

You know what's funny? Someone asked the exact same question in the first week or so of Ask MeFi, and it was like their 5th question in two days.

Because of that dumb question, we developed guidelines and added limits so one person couldn't hog the place with their idle thoughts.

By: jouke

jouke — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:25:29 -0800

couldn't hog the place with their idle thoughts
Good luck with that.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:25:48 -0800

Why can't we just let everyone have a few questions a month?

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:39:48 -0800

Slyly, The Deej slips a question into someone else's question.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:42:59 -0800

Uhhh, look up. Check out the name of the OP. He's actually slyly just getting 2 questions for the price of 1.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:45:55 -0800

Now that I think about it... this actually gives the phrase "bean counting" a whole new meaning to me really...

By: By The Grace of God

By The Grace of God — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:50:46 -0800

The best plate of beans:

1) can of fool beans

2) sea salt

3) olive oil

4) coriander

5) fresh chopped garlic

6) small dab of peri-peri sauce

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:56:18 -0800

Shhhhh, miss lynnster.

By: philomathoholic

philomathoholic — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:26:25 -0800

You know what's funny? Someone asked the exact same question in the first week or so of Ask MeFi, and it was like their 5th question in two days. Ha! Double! Delete!! BAN!! With Prejudice!!!!

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:31:58 -0800

Wasn't me! I'm a 21ker!!!

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:02:24 -0800

Hunh, when I saw that question, I assumed it was about a drinking problem.

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:42:52 -0800

I amazed the hell out of a friend, back in college, by successfully order "a couple" burritos or burgers or something at a drive-through without proffering or being asked for clarification. Poor son of a bitch had never even conceived of "a couple" as having a generalized cardinal interpretation like that. It led to a sprawling college-nerd discussion of the theories of binding fixed numeric values to ambiguous descriptors—when "couple" could and could not be taken to mean two, how the bounds of "a few" and "several" and "some" would shift and scale with context, the circumstances where otherwise explicit labels like "two" or "a dozen" could be taken as non-literal expressions of magnitude, i.e. as other than precisely 2 or 12.

So what I'm saying is, great job, Mefi: we're a bunch of snot-nosed college kids in the Taco Bell drivethrough yelling at each other.

By: The World Famous

The World Famous — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:39:32 -0800

Mefi: we're a bunch of snot-nosed college kids in the Taco Bell drivethrough yelling at each other.

That's about right.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:50:53 -0800

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:54:21 -0800

wait. what. this.

By: lysdexic

lysdexic — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:57:57 -0800

Mefi: we're a bunch of snot-nosed college kids in the Taco Bell drivethrough yelling at each other.

Dude, that's the whole Internet. Didn't the first Ethernet packet say "you suck!" in hex?

By: rob511

rob511 — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:57:20 -0800

I pity the few.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 01:19:46 -0800

I pity the many and the in-betweens.

By: L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 11:48:26 -0800

Imagine what would have happened if Ralph had said "Sleep! That's where I'm a few Vikings!"

By: josher71

josher71 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:42:43 -0800

Discussed in MetaTalk!!! I've arrived! Finally!

By: josher71

josher71 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:45:01 -0800

Actually, I was very surprised (and pleased) by the amount of responses to the question.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:51:41 -0800

Wellll, ya... josher71, don't get a big head. It was me who started the thread, not anyone of any notoriety. That may give yoou null points.

Now, if one the MeFi celebs started a MeTa, even to call you out, that's a feather in the cap! :)

Or a few feathers.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:37:21 -0800

I'd call that several, not a few. But that's just me.

By: cgc373

cgc373 — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:49:19 -0800

If it's just you then it's one, pupdog.