Questions and Answers, The Second

Today's round of questions is kindly brought to you by Sparky, the dear sweet Feral Biologist.

What is your position re: dogs vs. cats? (I know, the tough questions O:) )

Let me first qualify this answer by reminding Dear Reader of my three favourite animals: mammals, amphibians, and cephalopods.

So, with that in mind, I pick dogs %-)

I've never had a cat; my dad is allergic. Possibly if I had, I'd be torn more over the decision... But I suspect not. I like animals that enjoy being cuddled to death - to whit, my Labrador who thinks she's a lap dog, and likes nothing more than to sit her 30kg (66 pound) butt on my lap and wiggle with glee.

That said, I do have a passion for large cats - tigers, leopard, and snow leopards in particular. I even have a tiger novelette!

No stories about dogs, yet, though I do have that non-fiction book ;)


What do you think of using 'their' and 'them' for neuter singular?

'Their' and 'them' are my neuter singulars of choice. It avoids gender bias, and I don't see anything wrong with using the same term for neuter plural and neuter singular; plenty of other languages do similar things, and it's usually clear enough from context whether you mean plural or singular.

Much less clumsy that saying he/she will eat his/her food, and then wash his/her dishes, etc. And even if you do that, people can jump on you because oh my goodness, I put him first!

And 'invented' terms just annoy me :P heh.


Pliny the Elder or Pliny the Younger?

I don't know either of them very well, but my hub did an assignment on them during his architecture studies about five years ago, and from my vague recollections of that time, plus the fact that the Elder wrote about natural history, and the Younger was more into law and politics, I'll go with Pliny the Elder ;)

Finally, which would you rather do, hang-glide, skydive, or bungee jump?

Sky dive! Absolutely. Hang-gliding strikes me as cold, which is a four-letter-word in my view of the world. Ickety. Bungee jumping scares me because you can detach your retinas from your eyes, and, let's face it, it's much scarier to jump out at the ground that you can see than it is to jump out at the ground you can't see, like in sky-diving.

Plus, I've actually been sky-diving. Hub and I were given tickets as an engagement present. It was awesome - especially the bit where I rang Mum in a panic that morning, and she tried to calm me and assure we'd live through it - only for me to interrupt and clarify that, actually, what I was worried about was my wedding dress :D hehe.

If sufficient people are interested, I can scan in a pic for you all :)


Thanks, Sparky, for some fantastic questions! Look out for rounds three, four and five of Q&A over the next few Fridays :)